Differently abled enjoy outing on the Marina

CHENNAI: They have lived all their lives in this coastal city but Saturday evening was the first time many of them felt the waves settle on their feet and crash into their wheelchairs. The

Marina beach

looked festive on World Disability Day with Arabian tents, colourful mats on the sands and excited children and adults being wheeled into the waters. From 3pm to 5pm, the Greater Chennai Corporation took a welcome step towards making the public space inclusive for all to enjoy by rolling out a temporary mat from the service road to the water, bringing in mobile toilets and reserving parking for the disabled. A part of the Marina was dotted with a cross-section of residents with developmental disabilities who had a gala time.

Sixteen-year-old

Kashyap

was drenched from the waist down as his frail body drooped into a corner of his wheelchair. “If you want to go to the water again, raise your hand,” said his teacher and the boy grinned heaving the palm of his bent left arm. With a severe level of cerebral palsy and speech impairment, it was the first time Kashyap experienced the beach and he was in no hurry to leave the water and return to the shore. Like him,

Lakshmi Prabha

, 31, was cheering as she neared the water. “I’ve never felt this water before, so I was scared it would be cold. I let it touch only my wheelchair,” she said.

“Until now we could only see the sea and not go there. The platform was our limit,” says Kavya Shivakumar, 23, who has cerebral palsy and who wrote to the corporation last week urging it to make the beach accessible. “We should be able to come to the beach whenever we want to,” she added.

Anandhi Chandrasekharan

, mother of Nagamanjari who has cerebral palsy, says that she has avoided bringing her daughter to the beach though she loves it. “They have missed out on so much, so I’m elated we could do this but it is unfair that they can come and enjoy the beach only occasionally,” she said.

Concurring with that sentiment, Rajul Padmanaban, director of NGO Vidya Sagar, which works for the welfare of the

differently abled

, said, “Disability day should just be a facilitator to move forward and not the only day when beaches are accessible.”