Homeschooled in Hoshiarpur, she went on to study public policy at Oxford. Her wheelchair will roll on until India becomes a better place for the disabled. Meet Pratishtha Deveshwar from Punjab.
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00:00because people constantly kept telling my parents that your daughter is a burden on you.
00:05And now I'm going to pursue a Master of Public Policy from the University of Oxford
00:10and I am pretty excited about it.
00:12When I was just 13 years old, when the doctor comes to me and says that, you know, you will
00:33never be able to walk in your life.
00:35And I in that moment, I felt I could see my dreams shattering.
00:41I really felt at that point, you know, what's the point of living now?
00:57But I was very keen on studying.
00:59I really liked studying.
01:00So although my doctor had told me that you can only sit for two hours in a day, I used to just lay down on my bed and study.
01:07Despite that, for about two years, this went on.
01:11And after that, I was allowed to sit for longer times.
01:13And then I just realized very early on in my life that education is empowerment.
01:20And that is what I stick to thereafter.
01:24And then I did well in my class 10, did well in my class 12.
01:28And then because I was always in the pursuit of independence, so I decided to apply to Delhi University.
01:36And when I got in, everybody told me that, you know, you are a person with a disability.
01:41You should not be going.
01:42You cannot live independently.
01:44But I was I really wanted to do that.
01:47And that's what I did.
01:49So I have a journal.
01:50And in that journal, I made a list of all the abilities that I have that, OK, I cannot walk.
01:57That's out of the window.
01:58What is that I can do?
02:00What is it that I can do?
02:01So I made a list of all those things.
02:03I can use my hands.
02:04I can use my brain.
02:06I can see and all of that.
02:07So and then I converted those strengths into into, you know, into something productive for myself.
02:30So every time somebody saw me smiling, they were like always looking at me with questioning eyes.
02:35Why are you happy?
02:36You're sitting on a wheelchair.
02:38So one is that people really need to understand that even if I am a disabled person, I have a lot of happiness in my life.
02:45And I'm mostly just smiling because everything's OK.
02:47So once there was this once there was this lady who I met in the metro.
02:53And that day also, I think I was going to some parties.
02:55I was I was all dressed up.
02:57And that lady came to me and she said that you're wearing a very nice dress, but it's not looking good on you because you're sitting on a wheelchair.
03:05If you were able to stand, then this dress would have looked great.
03:09And I looked at her and I said, you know what?
03:12Even if I was able to stand, then you would have said, Pratishtha, if you were just two shades lighter, you would have looked great.
03:19If you were just a little bit thinner, you would have looked like, I don't know, Miss World or something.
03:24So people will never be satisfied with what you look like.
03:27I remember once I was giving an interview to a local newspaper in Punjab and those people took the interview.
03:34And then they said to me that, ma'am, remove your lipstick and I asked them why?
03:40They said, because with this lipstick, you're not looking disabled enough because in their head, they wanted to portray an image of a person with a disability as an ugly person.
03:51And this girl who is all dolled up looking pretty was not something that they wanted to show to the world.
03:56So what I did was I went inside.
03:59I applied even a darker shade of red lipstick and I came back and I said, now click the picture.
04:05But I felt OK.
04:07I kind of broke a stereotype there.
04:10But the sad part is that those people did not put up that picture despite me explaining the whole thing to them.
04:18So that was quite infuriating.
04:20So once I was in this restaurant where I had gone to give a treat to my friends for some good marks that I had got or something.
04:29And then there was this man who was constantly looking at me and my friends.
04:33And then after a while, he broke the silence and he said to my friends that you are all very kind girls.
04:39And they were like, why do you say that?
04:42And he said that you brought your friend in a wheelchair for dinner and that's very kind of you to do.
04:47And I just looked at him and I was like, oh, my God, I brought I am paying for the dinner.
04:52And you're telling them that they are kind because it's just, you know, that's just how the society thinks about people with disabilities.
05:11Oh, my God, there are so many stereotypes that I have been dealing with all my life.
05:16And in all those voices of naysayers, I had to find my own voice that said something positive about me.
05:25And that's something I think all of us struggle with.
05:28I realized that being angry about it is not the solution.
05:33And what I should do is talk about it, make people realize that whatever they are thinking is not the reality and share the reality with them.
05:46And I'm really very, very, very, very hopeful that people of India would be very willing to participate in the disability rights movement and kind of raise their voice for people with disabilities and make India more inclusive.