India has the largest number of disabled in the world. Six percent or nearly 70 million of the country's population is partially or completely disabled. In other words, the number of disabled Indians is higher than the number of Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains in the country put together. Yet, they are one of the most neglected lot. Apparently, this vast but invisible constituency has so far had no coherent government policy to facilitate its needs.

It was only last week when I went to interview the people bringing out a magazine for the disabled - called 'Ability' - that I realized such a big chunk of self-ostracized humanity existed in our small planet. The use of the term self-ostracized is probably not right, for the segregation of the disabled is also because of the different-ness that we, the non-disabled, feel towards them.

The Ability Foundation, apart from bringing out an audio version of their magazine, also conducts computer courses for the visually impaired. I spoke to some them, and it was a revelation. The confidence with which they approach life surprised me. I wondered if it was the lack of proper exposure that makes them so positive about life, but soon realized that they were no different from us in terms of exposure.

The three persons that I spoke to were smarter than most of my colleagues and ex-classmates. They are really a constituency of their own and think in terms of competition from within their own community. Not even one percent of the disabled in India gets any kind of education at all, and this is probably why the educated disabled feel privileged. Also, they have us to fear.

The odds are so ominously stacked against the disabled in India, right from the absence of basic facilities in public places, the lack of educational and vocational training opportunities to the non-existent options for satisfying careers.

In a city like Chennai, I haven't come across a special facility for the disabled except in the second floor of one shopping plaza, where they have a special ramp. Most of the disabled are still unaware of the reservations that are available for them at educational institutions. Most jobs reserved for the disabled in the public and the private sectors are left vacant or filled with persons with the slightest of deficiencies.

I think it is time steps were taken to bridge the gap between the disabled and the others. For them the need of the hour is not charity, but opportunity.