There was so much I wanted to say to her but all I could manage was a sorry ‘So?’

I wanted to tell her about how I had represented India for Wheelchair Tennis in the Australian Open in Melbourne and in Isuka, Japan. I wanted to tell her that I recently acted in a play directed by Feisal Alkazi. I wanted to tell her that sometimes children (the little angels) come up to me at airports or on the Delhi Metro or in malls, and ask me, their eyes brimming with excitement: “Are you Jugadoo?” That’s the character I play in Galli Galli Sim Sim, the Indian adaptation of Sesame Street. I wanted to tell her about my poetry that was published in a Hindi literary journal called Tadbhav. I wanted to tell her that I won a short story award this year, held by Unisun Publishing in association with the British Council. I wanted to tell her why I was flying to Chennai – to be part of a core group that is to decide the curriculum for Telecentre operators all over rural India who would like to do the course through IGNOU. I wanted to tell her that she was hurting me and breaking my spirit, but all I could manage was a befuddled stammer and a ‘S...S...So?’

It was a clinching argument, as far as she was concerned. “But you are on a wheelchair, aren’t you?” she had said. Since I was on a wheelchair, I was a sick person and I would have to sign the form that was meant to be signed by ‘sick’ people when they boarded a plane. “But I’m not sick,” I said. “See, I’m travelling alone.” “But what are you sitting on? A wheelchair!” she said triumphantly.

The face of the Brigadier flashed through my mind. “You’re still around,” I thought to myself. After all these years, you’re still around. You’re dressed as ground staff of SpiceJet, you’ve changed your gender and you’ve changed your age, but you’re still around. The retired Brigadier had been working at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association (DLTA), then. I was going to Melbourne to represent my country for wheelchair tennis and I had had to raise funds on my own for the trip. I had made a presentation to Muktesh Pant, who used to be the CEO of Reebok at that time. He had been excited about the tournament and had decided to pay for the airfare and to kit the two-member team. We had received track suits, two pairs of shoes (tennis shoes and jogging shoes), and Reebok had put in place a reward scheme if we managed to reach the quarters, the semis or the finals. Muktesh had taken me around the Reebok facility in Kapasehra, his chest filled with pride. After the tour he wished me luck and then someone from Reebok told me what the kit would contain. The kit was sent directly to DLTA and when we received them I found that the jogging shoes were missing. I asked the Brigadier about them. He was surprised that I knew the contents of the kit. “But you are on a wheelchair!” he said. “You won’t need to jog, since you are on a wheelchair.” I had reasoned that, in that case, I didn’t need to wear the tennis shoes either, because my feet wouldn’t touch the court at all. But since I would wear the tennis shoe while playing my matches, I would like to wear the jogging shoes when I went for my morning warm up ‘run’ on the wheelchair. We got the jogging shoes finally, but we also got an education in sports management in India. And it had hurt then, too, for someone to look you straight in the eye and say you were lesser because you were on a wheelchair.

Back to the SpiceJet counter at Delhi airport. Since I insisted on not signing the form, the lady went to her senior, a young ‘sardarji’ who spoke to me like someone speaks to a child. “You will not board the flight if you don’t sign this form,” he said. “Why don’t you just sign this? It’s only a signature and we can’t use it against you.” Here I was, parked in a corner behind the desk, the other passengers wondering about by stubbornness, the airline staff reminding me that I was different because I was on a wheelchair. I felt everyone was against me. The whole damn system was singling me out. I finally wrote in large letters, my hands shaking uncontrollably, my eyes brimming over. I wrote in letters that were shaking with heartbreak. I wrote, “Mai Bimaaar Nahin Hoon,” and I refused to sign.

On the way back from Chennai, it was nicer, but only for a while. I didn’t have to sign any form and the ground staff gave me a window seat as I had requested. The supervisor, on his own initiative, kept the seat next to me empty so I could put my legs up if I wanted to get more comfortable. I was reminded of the friendly flight steward of Qantas who had come up to me and had offered a beer. “This is on me myte (mate),” he had said. “This is Foster’s, better than Haywards!”. And then he had sat next to me and had discussed my game and playing style. I was also reminded of the young British coach who had taught me how to serve with a snap in the wrists so the serve was flat and cocked up. He used to play the ATP circuit and had volunteered his time with the British team as a coach. He had told me how he used to spend six hours on a wheelchair every week, playing the game from that perspective so he could train sportspersons on a wheelchair. Perhaps this flight will be different I thought. But things changed when it was time to board the plane. I had insisted that they board me before other passengers, as was the international norm. But they didn’t do that and I was carried in the aisle by two untrained porters who carried me like a sack of potatoes while I tried to keep my trousers from slipping and closed my eyes to save myself from the embarrassment as all passengers turned their heads to look at me.

I braced myself as the aircraft lined itself for landing at the Delhi airport. I asked the air-hostess to make sure that my wheelchair was taken out of the hold and brought to the aircraft so I could sit on it directly. But the wheelchair was taken to arrivals and I spent an hour waiting for it to arrive. It was midnight and I was feeling exhausted, but the body pumped in some adrenalin to wake me up. The flight steward shook his head at my stubbornness. “Why can’t you use the airline chair?” he asked me. “It’s against the rules to give your chair from the hold.” That was a new one for me. How could I tell this clean-shaven, smart, cheerful young man that a wheelchair is not a wheelchair is not a wheelchair. Every wheelchair is different as is every person on a wheelchair. He wouldn’t understand how I had spent the last two months recovering from a fall at the Bombay airport because I was on an airline wheelchair. He wouldn’t understand how I had spent the flight to Chennai covering up the wetness on my trouser and hoping no one would be able to smell the pee. He wouldn’t understand that just because they were not trained properly, the porters had lifted at the wrong places and the tube to my urine bag had been pulled off. After sometime he came to me and said, a polite smirk on his face, “It’s late and I am leaving now. The security will take care of things from here on.” The security was busy telling me how it was impossible to get the chair back from arrivals. During the flight I had been re-reading Ben Okri’s ‘Songs of Enchantment’ and had spent most of my flight mulling over one line that had sprung up from the page, had wrapped itself around my being and had taken my mind on a fascinating journey. “Love is the real power,” Azarro’s father says to him in the novel. It had held me in trance because of the magical way the line had been set up in the novel. I asked Ben Okri, as I waited in the aircraft for over an hour for my wheelchair, security staff and flight attendants irritated by my insistence, “How does one love all this, Ben?”

I thought about my wife waiting for me at the arrival for the past two hours. For no reason I suddenly recalled how she stood on top of the bed so I could reach the end of her saree and adjust it for her. And I felt relieved and smiled to myself. Love, indeed, is the real power that guides us through our lives. SpiceJet needs to learn how to love. So what, if I’m on a wheelchair.

When the chair finally arrived and I was taken out of the aircraft, I was offered a can of Coke. I knew none of the staff would understand that I had stopped drinking Coke (even in my rum) since the Plachimada incident. Not wanting to hurt their sensibilities, I took a sip from the can and threw the rest of it when they weren’t looking. By this time my wife was with me and I was feeling loved and complete again. Close