Disability: A Result of Cultural Ostracism

Abstract

After reading some of these travails of heroic courage and resilience of disabled people, my problem seemed to be too trivial to share. Yet, I know that it has drastically impacted me. One can’t imagine how a drooping eyelid, they call it ptosis, could cause so much pain and give me an inferiority complex that has been so hard to shrug off. This problem was so personal that a reticent person like me could share it with none. Perhaps, now I am bereft of those complexes, which were really gnawing at my entrails as a child. Here, I try to untangle the web of my life to reveal how I came out of my shell. In the course of this journey my academic learning also came in handy. Delving deep into literature and theosophy, I looked at myself with renewed vigor and understanding. I also went further ahead to discuss with some of my colleagues about the nature and reasons of a variety of psychological and physical disabilities that occur both in the human and non-human world due to the interference of culture. As a culmination to my odyssey, I would say that an all-inclusive growth pattern needs to be recognized and adhered to for a symbiotic relationship. This chapter asserts the need to recognize those mental and physical handicaps as disabilities which are the results of social and cultural disregard or unwarranted intrusions that are often overlooked and therefore cause permanent damage to the affected persons.