Wednesday, April 05, 2006

The world from a wheelchair.

Ok, ok, the title is slightly misleading.. I must have spent a total of just 4-5 hours on a wheelchair, and only at the airport. But it is a different world indeed!

Continuing from this post - When I tore a ligament in my ankle, I had to fly home to Bangalore from Mumbai. I had not booked a wheelchair with my ticket, but the authorities saw that I really could not walk, and provided me with a wheelchair.

Now the wheelchair was quite trendy and comfortable. I sat on it and felt very conscious, and I giggled for the first two minutes. Then, as is the case with anything, I got comfortable and made it my temporary home. A wheelchair-attendant(let's call him WA) appeared and took complete charge of me. I zoomed through the check-in counter [no having to stand in the queue, mind you], and I passed as easily through Immigration check. [The flight was an Air India one in transit, hence the Immigration check]. Halls and escalators and people became a blur as we whizzed past them.

Where people used escalators, we used lifts [elevators, for the Americans among you!]. Some of these lifts were so tiny that there was just space for a wheelchair and a man. It was quite uncomfortable, in that cramped space, with the WA standing so close to me. Thankfully, nothing unpleasant happened [sad, how we are always wired to think that a strange male will take advantage of a helpless female] and we arrived at the waiting lounge. "There is still time for the security check, I will be back", he said, and disappeared.

I sat there, immobile, clutching my bag. No company. Totally dependent on someone else to move around, and that someone is nowhere to be seen. I got weird thoughts. What if the WA forgot about me? What if he could not recall where he had left me? What if....? I kept my thoughts in check and busied myself with a book.

A cursory glance at the electronic board revealed that the passengers of my flight were being called for security check. I looked around. No WA. I waited for half an hour. A painful thirty minutes where I could envision all my creepy thoughts coming true. People were queuing up and disappearing inside. And I was still here. I even tried to work the wheels of the wheelchair but it spun out of control. So I just sat and waited. A very helpless feeling indeed. Suddenly I was in motion. I looked behind me, to see the WA pushing me towards the gate. "Yippee! Yay!" I said in my mind, and bestowed upon the WA a grateful million-dollar smile. He just looked at me quizzically, and mechanically continued to push the wheelchair. "Humph!" I said, as I cruised through security check. The WA then deposited me at another waiting lounge, asked me if I needed anything, and then disappeared, leaving me waiting for the boarding call.

This time I was not that uncomfortable. There was another wheelchair in the hall, with an elderly lady, her husband hovering near her. She gave me a smile, it seemed, of compassion or solidarity. I sat, my book forgotten, observing the ways people gaped at me. Some people are so deliberate. They look at me, look at my foot and then back at me, and then again at my foot... sheesh!

The boarding call, finally. My WA appeared surprisingly quickly, and I was pushed through, clutching my boarding pass, and deposited on a kind of portico, overlooking the tarmac. The non-wheelchair passengers [Ha! See how perspectives change?] were getting into the bus which would ferry them to the aircraft. While I was wondering how we would commute, I found myself being pushed on to the tarmac, and taken well near where the huge flights were standing. Then I was suddenly alone. My WA had disappeared. This was the worst bit. Alone in the dead of night in the middle of the airport, with huge aircraft monsters all around me, the noses of some of them pointing menacingly towards me. I know I know, they were still and all that, but I could hear sounds of engines all around me. So what if I was just a few feet from the terminal, I was still immobile. What if one of the aircrafts lost its bearings and came right at me? I would just have to rely entirely on my childhood hopscotch experience! Frightening feeling!

Soon, my WA came back with the old lady, and just then, there came into view, the coolest contraption I have ever seen. People go ga-ga over cars and bikes, I have gone ga-ga over only one machine, and that was this.

It was a van with a closed cuboid passenger compartment. The rear end opened backwards, and touched the ground, and became a ramp. The old lady and I were wheeled up the ramp, into the compartment. The ramp closed up and once again turned into the rear end. The inside was quite plush. It had huge glass windows, and comfortable seats for the escorts. There was place inside for at least 4 more wheelchairs. We moved quickly, and within 5 minutes, we came to the aircraft. Then the entire passenger compartment started moving up, until it reached the level of the ceiling of the drivers cabin. The front end of the compartment opened up and became a platform, and we were moved onto this. Here there was another platform which whirred and extended itself, and adjusted itself beautifully such that the end of the platform came up just to the door of the aircraft. We were moved on to this, and wheeled directly into the craft. How perfect! I was totally impressed. [The van looked approximately like this.]

The wheelchair could not be moved into the aisle, and so I just hopped over to my seat, which was thoughtfully close to the exit. The air hostesses were very attentive and all that. I settled into the seat and turned to thank my WA, but he had disappeared. Sigh!

The flight was uneventful, though it did occur to me that if anything untoward happened, I wouldn't be able to run for my life! Anyway the flight touched down without incident, and at Bangalore, it was not much of a problem. A waiting wheelchair took me through the vestibule from the aircraft to the terminal, and it wasn't too long a distance from there to the exit. My father was waiting near the baggage collection area, and from then on, everything was cool.

On the way back to Mumbai from Bangalore, I had pre-booked a wheelchair, for, though I could walk, my ankle was still painful. But this time, i was a veteran with the wheelchair! The flight was again not very eventful, apart from a particularly charming head steward, who was exceptionally attentive.

Our airports, I concluded, are quite friendly to the physically challenged... but wish I could say that about our cities too! Anyway that's a different story altogether!

20 comments:

Raj said...

That was a really cool decription of your wheelchair experience. That van looks cool too. I've never really bothered to see how the wheelchair bound people move around at an airport so this was completely new info for me :)

Anonymous said...

I thot once you get to the "reaching Bangalore" part, you will fill us up with the details of how S* and S* met(this some of us know) and got to-gether.........;-)

In any case, I respect your wish to keep the details private......

Wishing both the S*'s all the best always......

Swathi Sambhani aka Chimera said...

this sounds like an 'experience' , i alwayz wondered if the disabled in India get a raw deal compared to the West but looks like it is not the case(atleast while flying...)

Sri Harsha said...

Well i don't think our airports are quite disabled friendly tht u say they are. On wht i've seen here they aren't commuter friendly yet all to say the least......forget abt being disabled friendly.

We have a lot to do in terms of making things easy for the disabled in India.

PRIDERA said...

Nice descriptive blog.
Hey, Shruthi ... I stumbled upon your blog by chance and ever since have been reading it regularly.
THere are some similarities between us which drew me to your blog ... the primary being "Mysore connection".
When you get a chance hop on to my blog ...

Manasi said...

NOw thats something. Its really nice to know that 'handicapped' persons are so cared for at the airports. Thats really heartening.
And so how does being a 'wheelchair veteran' feel?

Shruthi said...

Raj: Thanks! Yup, I had not observed either! This came as a revelation to me!

Anon: Thank you, so kind of you ;) - but who are you? Obviously I know you - please leave your name! :O

Swathi: Yes, I at least felt quite comfortable!

Shruthi said...

Harsha: I agree we still have a long way to go.. in terms of commuting within the city... that's why I ended my post that way. But I do not have any experience in travelling on wheelchairs abroad - and I don't want to either! :O - but I felt that the airport experience was quite comfortable.

Pridera: Thanks! I visited your blog.... I see what you mean :) Why did you not comment earlier? :)

Manasi: Yup! And wheelchair veteran is doing great, thank you! :) This was two years ago.. and my ankle is back to normal now. Haven't been on a wheelchair since then, and I don't want to either! :O

Nirwa Mehta said...

Aha!

Luckily, I've never been confined to a wheelchair, ever!

Liked your description! :)

Nirwa

Shruthi said...

Nirwa: Heaven forbid! :O and Thanks ;)

Anonymous said...

Is your husband the WA??

Anu said...

Yes, A small change, and the whole view changes isnt it? The world looks different, and you observe entirely different things! And going gaga over this van, I fully understand! I once went gaga over a small broom and scoop contraption I saw being used in the airport in Tokyo. A simple necessity, and a great invention! That deserves a post of its own!

AMODINI said...

Kind of makes you aware how depending on a person is difficult. When we depend, we lose control, and losing control is the worst form of helplessness.

Well described.

Shruthi said...

Mani: Very funny, but thankfully, no.

Anu: Yeah! That's why new experiences are necessary, yes? :)
Broom and scoop? Now that's something I am sure many people will like to read about!

Amodini: Perfectly put. And thanks!

Anon: Well, obviously a lot of people do! And I am surprised that you care enough to even put a comment on the post! You could have just ignored it, yes?

Shriedhar said...

Hi shruti,
long time since i came here.

i need a help frm u .

can u suggest me 5 really good books(fiction).
(barring davinci code,alchemist)

waiting..

ANKIT said...

a nice write up of your WHEELING experience!

Shruthi said...

Shriedhar: I need to know what kind you read, before I tell you. But for the present, you might find something in these two posts - http://nychthemeron.blogspot.com/2006/02/book-tag.html
and
http://nychthemeron.blogspot.com/2006/02/seven.html

Ankit: Ha ha :) Thanks!

Shriedhar said...

Shruthi,

i njy both serious suspense thrillers like davinci code and straight entertainments like Five point someone,one night at the call centre.

I prefer these kinda stuff.

plz help.

Shruthi said...

Shriedhar: Umm.. I guess you can try Arthur Hailey, Jeffrey Archer, etc..

Anonymous said...

came here via vijay's post ...

"Where people used escalators, we used lifts [elevators, for the Americans among you!]. Some of these lifts were so tiny that there was just space for a wheelchair and a man. "

two points:
1) how come your comments have americanized dates? what about the indians among us?

2) i missed your square brackets after 'man' (last quoted sentence above) - you ought to have added the following:

"[or woman, for the politically correct among us!]"

or do you think that women will not make good 'wa's?

- s.b.

- -