Javed Abidi

People said, what can we do?

And I said, well, look, even if it's a symbolic gesture, we have to come out on the streets.

We have to, if nothing else, at least register our protest.

They are the samurai.

We organised this march.

I remember talking to my father and even he sort of said, look, you're wasting your time.

You're a small minority.

Nobody will listen to you.

It's a waste of time.

One of the advantages of growing up in a small town is everybody is very helpful.

I was lucky enough to be able to go to a normal school.

I don't remember any extra facilities being made for me, except, of course, that the principal ensured that my class remained on the ground floor.

And then from the school to the university, again, everybody knew everybody.

Even if there were two steps here, four steps there, somebody would invariably help out.

Somebody would lift my wheelchair for me.

After I graduated, I managed to get a scholarship and I went to the U.S.

at a university in Ohio in Dayton called Wright State University.

And the entire university was completely accessible.

I mean, there was not a nook or a corner where I couldn't go as a wheelchair user from the classrooms to the library, to the gymnasium, to the swimming pool.

And that's when a young mind begins to question, you know, why is it not like this in my country?