Silently, I See

For the past few weeks, I have been giving all my time to my sport, travelling for competitions and my first ever national coaching camp, preparing to make my mark on the world and make it matter. During this time, I have met some amazing people – swimmers, coaches, officials – dedicated to furthering each other’s lives and careers. The last time I travelled outside my country, to get international classification and begin my journey as an international para swimmer, I remember being so overwhelmed by the grandeur and the significance of it all that I wanted to quit altogether. Two years later, I am starting to get used to the idea that I am about to be a part of this, in a way that I had not imagined in my wildest dreams.

For the past few days, however, every time I sit down for meals or play Uno with the other swimmers in one of their rooms, I can’t stop thinking about this:

I am sitting at the same table as some of the best para swimmers our country has seen in my generation. Some of them are going to qualify and win medals at the upcoming Asian Para Games and World Championships and whatnot. Some are going to create new records at the world stage, some will maybe even improve the ones they already currently hold. And here I am, one of the babies of this camp when it comes to strength and achievements and speed and basically everything else – protected, unexposed to the many struggles they have been through, eager to learn from them and become one of them.

I look at them and see people with full hearts, people who have been through hell and are still willing to give so much love that the room lights up when they enter. These are people who want to see others shine; not just their friends but anyone who has the potential. They want to teach you new things about the field and about life, just waiting for you to show interest. They have shown up for each other in the darkest times of their lives, they carry emotions that are too heavy for one person to carry on their own, they train all day and then some more while they dream, too. They are goofy, thoughtful, eccentric, intense. They are the embodiment of love and hope and patience and resilience…and during a random post-breakfast bonding session, I realise just how fortunate I am that I have met them, become friends, and shared bits of my life with them.

And yet, there are people among them who have been told – by various people, in various times of their lives – that they are not enough. Not good enough, not patient enough, not strong enough, not fast enough, not capable enough, not deserving enough. I see their eyes drop, their smiles become forced, the energy leave their bodies when they talk about these people, these times of their lives. The friend in me wants to do nasty things to the people who hurt them so, to weed those people out of their lives so they can finally breathe. The psychologist in me wants to pull them out of their darkness, gently but surely, make them see the power they really have, the wonders they have been doing and are yet to do. And yet another unnamed part of me knows that when the time is right, it will all fall in place for them, and I will be with them through it all.

And today, too tired to move yet not enough to properly fall asleep for my post-swim nap, I catch myself thinking: Life can be unpredictable in the most beautiful ways sometimes.

Stage Fright

It happened again, yesterday. I was in a room full of strangers with a small group of people I knew personally or through my dad’s stories. Most of these people knew me, held me in high regard, would have cheered me on no matter what if I had taken the mike in my hand. My mum told me to choose a song I could sing here, in honour of a family friend who is going to move out of town soon for her college. She was excited, really looking forward to hearing her daughter’s beautiful voice win over yet another audience, trying to signal someone to make it happen. I panicked, yelled at her to stop, told her I wouldn’t do it. My bubbly self disappeared for a while there; mum was so confused I could feel it in her gaze that she was wondering what she did that offended me so much. Eventually I held her hand, she asked me what happened, and I told her: “this is a room full of people that are going to see my wheelchair before listening to my voice. They may be a close group for the hosts of this evening, not for me, and that just doesn’t help…I would love to sing if the opportunity presents itself, though, because I know you love it when I do.”

Thankfully for me, maybe not for my mum, the opportunity didn’t present itself after all.

I’ve been thinking about this since it happened yesterday. How did I become so self-conscious about my wheelchair when it came to singing? That was the one thing that wasn’t affected by my stage fright. I loved to sing when I was younger, I executed it almost perfectly every single time, no matter how significant the occasion was. I would fumble half the time I was supposed to speak in front of an audience; never a chance I would mess up singing. I’ve always been very aware that I write so much better than I speak. I was supposed to be the perfect girl who’s good at everything, and this particular fact did not sit well with this expectation…so I fumbled. But now, it’s not about being perfect, or even good. It’s about whether I will be seen as a person before I am seen as a person in a wheelchair.

I have tried to deny it, to only see the appreciation and not the meaning attached with it, to only focus on breaking stereotypes and never look back. I have tried to look past the back-handed compliments – you’re such an inspiration, I could never do it if I were you, I’d be too ashamed, I’d just run away at the sight of so many people…oops! Sorry! Did it offend you that I said “run away”? – and I have tried to just keep on doing, doing, doing. It doesn’t help, you know. None of it helps.

The people that see the wheelchair before me, they don’t know me that well, I tell myself. They don’t know I trained in classical music for five years, and classical dance for a few more, and the keyboard too. They don’t know how bad I want to correct their perspective all the time. They don’t know I knew how to swim since I was eight and I’d been trekking since I was three and I was learning how to ride a Bullet when I was fourteen. They don’t know I hate being called a motivational speaker, because it glamorises living a normal life so much – a life that is second nature to me, that they are living too, but they just can’t imagine someone with a disability doing it too. They don’t know how much I hate having to try and just do things even when I don’t want to, simply because they’re watching and will always evaluate. They simply don’t know.

How do you blame someone when they simply don’t know?

How do you expect them to understand when they simply weren’t curious in the first place?

How do you make peace with such chaos when you know it’s so “unacceptable” even though it’s just so human?

Respect

When I thought of writing this blog post, I was fuming with rage. Why can’t the university do something instead of saying they’re looking into it? Why give me admission if they can’t even make sure I reach my classroom, forget about reaching it with dignity? Four years of being here and I’m back to square one. No ground floor classes available in my department; the accessible building opposite us refusing to give us classrooms except for conducting exams; the plan to build a lift in our building left abandoned; the idea of a new, accessible building for our department, a faraway dream. I’m tired, disappointed, angry, helpless, sleepless. But before we get into that, let me tell you what the university has done for me - let it never be said that Garima Vyas was an ungrateful a**.

They’ve given me permission to attend classes online when the classes are held upstairs. They’ve made sure to find me a table where my wheelchair can fit during exam time. They restricted the bathroom for me to use because I’m at a high risk of catching all sorts of infections, from everywhere. They’ve made sure I get my extra time during exams. They’ve tried to exchange classrooms with other batches whenever possible. I’ve met some amazing, heartwarming human beings here (and dogs, let’s be honest), and I’m doing an internship which challenges me to the exact level I wish to be challenged.

But…when you talk about inclusion, accessibility to be more specific, it has been a nightmare. A nightmare I hope will at least dampen by the time I leave this place. When you take away someone’s means to get what you promised to give them, you are insulting their sheer existence. Sure, I can compromise and get lifted by people up and down the stairs, or I can keep attending classes online like I am right now. Both these options send the same message - you have power over me, and my problems aren’t big enough to stand up in front of your power. Which, to be honest, is completely opposite to the truth.

The authorities do have power over me, I realise and acknowledge that. But I refuse to be treated like a sack of potatoes any longer. I refuse to be lifted up and down the stairs like I used to. I refuse to be kicked around with “I can’t do anything about it, go talk to X” thrown at my face all the time. I refuse to be denied my basic, legal right as a human being - that of living with dignity and respect. Sure, I sit in a wheelchair and can’t reach most places without any help, but I’m still worthy of more respect than just a label of “strong and inspirational” without anyone making visible efforts to make it easier for me (and others like me) to navigate the world on my own. Yes, it has become a matter of self-respect and, to some extent, even ego. But in my place, is it even wrong?

College

It’s only been two weeks since my MA classes started and it already feels like too much to handle. Welcome to real life, they say. This is how it’s going to be from now on. And honestly, in another time, without a wheelchair and possibly with a Bullet of my own, I would have been enjoying this hectic schedule to the fullest. I might not even have been here in Vadodara for so long - a hostel life during college has always been a dream of mine. But right now, I’m just trying to cope.

It’s tough on me, climbing the stairs everyday to class, sitting for hours at a stretch, hardly doing any physiotherapy yet trying to improve my swimming performance. My muscles are becoming stiff and it hurts. The physical discomfort sits there in the back of my mind making it difficult to focus in class. How long has it been since I changed my position? Is it time to do my next round of push-ups yet? Maybe I should have brought my pain relief gel. It’s all manageable till the professor announces they won’t share the PPT they are presenting so they hope you took notes. Is it time to take my washroom break yet? I hope my bladder behaves today. I did take my meds this morning…didn’t I? Should I text mum and ask? The period ends and I find my mum and we spend twenty minutes of my one-hour break taking a leak - I wish the washroom was accessible! At least it’s clean today, though - and then she gives me my lunch that she brought with her. I eat, socialise with my classmates once they come back from the canteen, and we attend our next class. By the time I reach my car after classes, the only thing I can think of is my bed - I guess this feeling is shared by just about every college student ever. I get home, rest my back muscles which are now stiff and sore from all that sitting, and fall asleep before I even think about it. I wake up, do some of my physio exercises, have coffee, exercise again, then get ready and leave for swimming. Of course, why would I ever hold back once I’m in the water? But am I overdoing this? How sore is my body going to be by the end of this? Oh, well. We’ll see. I go home, have dinner, wrap up for the day and prepare for the next one, and go to bed by 10:30 at most - way earlier than I used to just a week ago - because I’m just so tired. Am I old already? Will I be fresh and energetic enough tomorrow to last the entire day? I wake up and find out - yes, just fresh enough….I think.

Maybe the rest of my college life won’t be too bad. Hectic, sure, but not too bad. They’re thinking of taking my classes on the ground floor now. They had to go from “Maybe we’ll install a lift” to “A ramp could work instead” and ended up never being able to change anything after all, no matter how many times they tried. At least now my mother’s knees won’t get tortured so much. If this works out, of course. Anyway, ground floor classes. I’ll be close to the canteen now. Maybe I’ll get a cup of coffee from there every now and then. Maybe that’ll help me calm down as I contemplate everything that’s wrong in the infrastructure of every building I’ve ever been to. Maybe that’ll make me angry yet keep me just composed enough, and that’ll be my Disney villain origin story.

Waves

 On days like this I hardly have strength to go on. So I cry, ask my parents for comfort, and after the tears have finally drained me, I sleep.

It’s strange, really. The thoughts aren’t new ones, I don’t blame anyone, and neither does it last very long. It comes, shakes me to the core, and goes, waiting to strike again, hidden from my view. It’s only recently that it has started to come this often.

In less than a month I will have lived for five years with my injury. My routine has hardly eased over the years; in fact it’s only gotten longer. I keep pushing my boundaries, breaking them and then working towards breaking new boundaries yet again. The cycle hasn’t stopped yet. Sometimes it feels like it might never, but I’m still holding on. Who even am I working this hard for, if not myself? And don’t we all deserve some hard work just for ourselves, though the definition of ‘some’ is different for everyone?

It is tough. Heartbreaking. Sometimes devastating too. I’ve been under a lockdown of my own far longer than this pandemic has forced us to - everyone who knows me knows this. Of course, it has its happy times. For me, these are far more in number than the sad ones, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t break me from time to time. My efforts to regain my sensation and motor control take up so much of my time everyday I am sometimes afraid to think what I’ll do after this is all over, when I will finally have enough time and I will still complain about having too little of it. (That, however, would be because I’ll just keep wanting to do so many things all the time!) So then why does it scare me when it should be a beacon of light, a goal, one of the best case scenarios for me? Simply because I’ve longed for it so much now, yet been involved in doing something so far away from it, that I fear it might take me years to get used to that kind of freedom. The one where I can just run about if I want.

I am afraid, I am exhausted, I just want to lie down for a while, and I will.

And after all is said and done, I will fight again.