New Delhi, (DMA Newsdesk): Very few people consider disability a blessing and Salil Chaturvedi is one of them. Chaturvedi is the first proud disabled Indian to have sailed from Mumbai to Goa.

Chaturvedi firmly believes his handicap was the best thing to have happened to him. He says it gave him insights into alternate ways of being and brought him close to the real universe...

Triumphing against all odds, TV actor and writer Salil Chaturvedi, who is paralysed below the waist, led a four-member sailing expedition from Mumbai to Goa in a campaign for equal access for the disabled.

Chaturvedi — who currently acts in, and writes scripts for the Indian version of “Sesame Street” “Galli Galli Sim Sim” — was accompanied by a crew of three that included his wife Monika Kshatriya, as also Umaji Chowgule and Shaunik Chaturvedi. They sailed in the Bombay Harbour Seabird, a 21-ft sloop. Designed in 1920 by Derrick Morgan Giles, an English naval architect, the boat had no modern amenities, apart from a motor, in case of emergencies.

Salil Chaturvedi glides around his spacious two-bedroom house in his wheelchair, giving instructions to the cook and checking on his wife, Monika, who is in bed with a stiff neck, every half an hour.

Everything around - the simple, tasteful décor of the high-ceilinged house, the lovely patch of green beyond, lined with flowers and dotted with trees, the soft folk strain by American composer Ry Cooder playing in the background - are reflective of Salil's expansive disposition and love for all things natural.

"The lawn used to be a patch of mud. We grew everything you can see now, right down to the blades of grass," he says proudly.

The environment is very important to Salil, almost as important as breathing. "I find myself drawn to spaces of silence, which for me lie in nature. I have been working around trees lately," he says. Last year he did a photo-exploration on "working trees" that involved people whose livelihoods revolve around trees.

But Salil is not just about the smooth and fine, he quite likes the hard life and rough outdoors. In fact, he's the first disabled Indian to have sailed from Mumbai to Goa, which he did in eight days, and it is his dream to someday sail along the entire coastline of India. "Maybe I'll work my way up the east coast, and finally sail into Kolkata," he says.

Ask him how he came about the expedition and his face lights up. "Over dinner with friends one day, one of whom is a sailor, I expressed a desire to learn sailing. The sailor friend put me through to Umaji Chowgule, a Goa-based sailor, and soon I was on my way to Goa to learn sailing." As time for the test run drew close, Chowgule told Salil he was apprehensive.

To this, Salil replied, "You have experience in sailing and I have experience in being scared. So you take care of the sailing and I'll handle the rest."

His first sail was a breeze. "The boat was surrounded by dolphins and the sight made me feel that the sea was welcoming me with open arms," he says. After he'd learned how to sail, he wanted to do more, and asked wife Monica and cousin Shaunik, a pilot, if they would sail with him from Mumbai to Goa. They agreed. "People close to me always refused to bring down the bar because of my disability, and that has gone a long way in making me what I am today," he says.

Chowgule, too, was confident about the expedition and the team set sail from Mumbai on November 24 last year, arriving at Goa on December 2, 2009, the eve of World Disability Day. They were in a basic boat, which was followed by a fancier support vehicle. The eight-day long sail was the high point of Salil's life. "It was amazing to be so far away from land, in the midst of nothingness, surrounded by water and with the starry sky above at night.''

The sail, Salil says, brought him closer to nature. "It taught me patience and made me realise how small a part we play in nature's scheme of things. For instance, during periods of lull, the boat would rock gently about in the sea for hours and not move an inch, and there was nothing we could do about it. It reminded me of my position in the universe."

It was a fateful accident that left Salil crippled at the age of 16, but he belongs to that rare breed of human beings who define their own destiny and turn adversity into advantage. "My disability made me a bit of an outsider. I have always lived on the fringes, from where I have looked into the world. But this has made me insightful and sensitive to the synergies of the universe. It has also, to a large extent, shaped my decisions, goal and philosophy of life," he says.

But Salil is done with 'working' the way most people do. He says he is trying to undo his social programming to realign his reason for being on this planet. "I have a bit of an anti-development stance; I don't like what we are doing to the world, and find it difficult to reconcile my thought process to all the destruction we have caused to this planet."

Through the Godrej Brighter Horizons sailing expedition, Chaturvedi and his team intended calling attention to the potential of persons with disabilities and the power of collaborations.

“I wanted to demonstrate that magical things can happen with partnerships,” said Chaturvedi. “At the same time, I hope to draw attention to the dismal situation of access in India. A disabled person can still not go out and do the most basic of things independently, such as shop, board public transport, go to places of leisure and entertainment such as parks and cinema halls, or government offices.

“It’s really surprising that in a nation that is trying to become an economic powerhouse, more than 10 million of its disabled population find themselves largely under house arrest,” he added.

The expedition, Chaturvedi said, “was meant to showcase what can be achieved when people join hands and things are made accessible. It’s been 240 nautical miles for me, and India needs to travel many miles to empower its disabled citizens”.

Chaturvedi is not new to adventure, though he said that he has not undertaken anything as risky before. He has represented India at the Wheelchair Tennis tournaments in Melbourne and Japan in the early 1990s.

Chaturvedi is is also a proficient writer, having won several awards for his short

stories and poetry, the latest being the Commonwealth Short Story award of the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association in 2008.

The couple even recycles their water and composts their organic waste to turn it into khad. "I am trying to find my tiny doors to the universe, under bushes and rocks, in the little nooks and crannies in nature, and I think I have already found some," he says.

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