Dear friends I'm in Mumbai these days. I'm on a personal/proffessional visit to the city. I visited many places today such as Siddhi Vinayak temple, Maha Lakshmi temple and Hazi ali. And after travelling by taxi several times, explored local train for the first and the last time in the evening. Now If i come to the straight point,I wonder what these experts/NGOs/ activists are doing there for years. If you are blind,Its impossible that you could go to the Hazi Ali to offer Chadar alone. No railings on the both sides of small steep pathways. And you are bound to fall inside the sea where seawaves continue threatening with resounding sounds. People have to walk that place very cautiously. I also met two persons with locomotor disability their wheelchair was scorted to the Mazar. And some disabled people were literally crawling there. Later I came to know that there was a blind student of Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai who fell in to the sea but strong stones saved him last year from being drowned. However he fractured his left wrist. Given the huge footfall to the shrine Hazi ali and one of the most attractive places in Mumbai,aren't we deserve independent visit to the place? anyway I leave it to Mumbakars to contemplate and deal with the government on local level.
Then I thought why I'm travelling by taxi all the time, let me travel by local train which is considered the 'lifeline of Mumbai. So boarded train at Dadar and found sea of people leaving no place to put one's feet and exchanging their breaths. However one soothing experience, there was audio announcement about the next station inside the train. I got down at Kurla station and found no tactile path to guide me. There were two bridges and somehow I managed to reach platform no 7 to catch up train bound to gowandy. Crowd again was at its best and people were mad when train arived. This audible spectacle was little surprise but I know Mumbai local train is known for this much rush. Alright, I again left the train on gowandy and struggled to go outside. Anyway,I inquired somebody who informed me he was guard about how blind people reach to the boggy meant for them? he told me "there is a beap/sound which alerts them". I didn't hhear that sound perhaps people's uproar subsumed that sound. But in the absence of tactile pathways, and too many bridges with uneven staircases made me feel, its better to bargain with taxi and board buses rather putting one's life in danger as blind by travelling in local train. But what about those who have no other option for whatever reasons, Is anyone listening? -- Avinash Shahi Doctoral student at Centre for Law and Governance JNU Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
