Movement in Black and White.

A sobering image of the Patan Community-based Rehab Center (MFB)

KATHMANDU – The “disabled” is so loosely defined but is treated almost formulaically in its editorial coverage: success stories of rehabilitation and integration, failures of government and industry in creating protections and employment, and the denouement act, the empowerment of the so-called “differently-abled.”

I accompanied Nepali Times reporter Paavan Mathema with my camera to profile the Patan Community-based Rehabilitation (PCBR) Center, a quasi-childcare center, quasi-clinic serving children with “neurological development disabilities.” Her article gives a fair glance at the center’s work and financial hardships, but shirks off the elephants in the room that caused me particular discomfort.

As I snapped photos, a boy took my arm and started to gnaw gently on my palm. His eyes led away to an ever-shifting corner. I took my hand away and fell foot into a damp spot in the carpet. A girl set in a highchair reached her arms out towards my lens with a wide smile. Her neighbors, however, weren’t as animated: one lapsed in and out of sleep and the other garbled in tantrum. I felt awkward and even guilty as if I were showcasing for the sake of amusements. My eyes desperately searched the room for some speck of hope to which I could direct a genuine expression of optimism or gratitude.    

Terms qualifying the disabled, challenged, and differently-abled (the derogatory or politically correct) pervade languages throughout. And Nepali is no exception. But what occurs in Nepal is a translation of blanket terms that describe a whole range of abilities/disabilities (manasik santulan thik nabhaeko or baula) into blanket treatment.

Among the autistic at the center were children with Down-syndrome and epilepsy and, perhaps most disconcerting, the blind and the deaf. Partly to blame is the dearth of facilities and specialists in the country. So in turn, what exists is a regressive clumping of individuals deemed handicap or overly dependent. PCBR becomes a warranted haven for misfits, who would otherwise be left behind.

A more significant factor that effects the blind batching of baulas is an endemic stigma with the Other, a reoccurring theme in class and minority struggles. It’s classic Spivak and the subaltern set aside for lack of better understanding and a great unwillingness to break the sphere of ignorance. 

Movement in Black and White.