A unique performance works to change the way society perceives people with “disabilities”
Bharatanatyam has a lot of footwork, but can it be performed on wheels instead of feet? Find out next Saturday in Mumbai!
When we race up a staircase, taking steps two at a time, do we ever notice the absence of a ramp for a wheelchair? Jaywalking across a road, do we wonder how a blind man would cross? Tulsi Das, founder of Utthan Prayash Foundation (UPF), which helps differently-abled people from weak economic backgrounds, is striving to change mindsets around India.
“We need to find the ability in their disability,” he says passionately. Having established the foundation in 2009, Das, who is a general manager with Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, has worked tirelessly, through his NGO, to prepare differently-abled people for integration into the mainstream so that they can face life with courage and dignity.
Equally determined to infuse dignity into the lives of people with disabilities is Guru Sallauddin Pasha, who established Ability Unlimited Foundation (AUF), the world’s first professional dance theatre for people with disabilities, using art to showcase the talents of the differently-abled. AUF organises workshops in the arts for the differently-abled. UPF and AUF are partnering for a first-time performance in Mumbai.
Pasha has a repertory of 14 or 15 people with disabilities who are professional performers. Aged 4 to 25, they are skilled in Bharatanatyam, Sufi dance, yoga, and martial and other performing arts, and they do it all on wheels. Their wheelchairs are a means of self-expression.
As their guru, Pasha himself spends 10 hours a day in a wheelchair (he’s in one as we speak) so that he can understand what it is like to be in his students’ shoes and teach them accordingly.
“I’ve taught them to be dependent on no one,” Pasha insists. He gives the example of Gulshan, 18, who is hearing impaired. Gulshan came to Pasha at the tender age of 6, and is today a professional artiste who has performed in India and abroad. He is now brimming with confidence and hope.
“Not only are they marvellous on stage,” says Pasha, “if you come backstage you will see them changing costumes, rushing to take their places, and doing it all with ease. They are just 13 or 14 [in number] on stage, but they have so much energy and play such diverse roles that you’ll feel you’re watching 10 times that many people fill up the stage before you.”
Promoting his artistes’ self-confidence is important, but Pasha also hopes to gradually change other people’s minds. As Das admits, “we cannot change anything overnight. There are rights for differently-abled people, but these are on paper — there is little or no implementation.”
It is performances like these, Das and Pasha hope, that will help audiences to really see those who are struggling to be recognised as our equals, and understand that they are held back by barriers not of their own making.
“Enable India — Changing Perceptions of People with Disabilities”, January 15, 4 pm, Hotel Rangsharda. Entry free.
To learn more, visit utthanprayash.org and www.abilityunlimited.com
