Nostalgia, or rosy retrospection, is a cognitive bias wherein people tend to exaggerate the glory of the past and overlook their negative experiences. This happens because, over time, memories of the trivial things fade away, and all that remains is what the past meant to us, rather than what it truly was. However, as I write about a decade of navigating friendships at one of the premier law schools in the country as a blind individual, all that I wear are my black shades, not rose-tinted glasses. My intention is to state “what it was,” and I believe it was worth all the exaggeration for its glory.
I had lost my eyesight three years before taking the CLAT, which is the entrance exam for the national law universities. I was absolutely sure I would not make it, but I managed to get into the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru. So here I was, an extremely sheltered girl from a conservative household in Punjab and my single dad, who had lost his partner the year before, at the crossroads between continuing the ordinary life we were living or embarking on a journey to a new future filled with greater opportunities. My father chose the road less travelled and decided to let me go. I became one of those rare blind women who travelled 2,000 km away from home in search of better education
and the chance to become a full-time resident on a not-so-accessible campus.
When I entered NLSIU, I was clueless and lost. During the orientation, as I introduced myself, I confidently declared, “Despite the lack of eyesight, I have vision, and as for eyesight, I believe that my 80 batchmates will be my 160 eyes.” However, that was the most optimistic statement I had ever made without any evidence to support it.
The day after the orientation, I began to experience the academic rigour that NLSIU is famous for. Heavy course readings, demanding project schedules, and difficult subjects coupled with feelings of homesickness, alienation, and imposter syndrome. Although things are significantly better now, the lack of institutional support back then forced me to rely on my peers for even the most basic tasks such as finding my way to the academic block, serving food on my plate at the mess, understanding graphs, and searching for accessible course material, among others. Thus, the foundation of all interactions was based on dependence and inequality.
Most of the times, I received assistance whenever I needed it—to walk, operate Microsoft Word, or understand graphs. But every time, the assistance came in the form of a helping hand, not that of a friend. I had someone to walk me to classes, but no one to go on a late-night walk with after a long day. The abundance of help and scarcity of friendship bothered me for months, and I didn’t know how to earn the trust, friendship, and warmth of every batchmate and senior who was helping me out of niceness.
The chaos within me was finally put to rest after a conversation with one of my batchmates, who later became one of my closest allies in law school. We discussed aspects of responsibility and independence, which made me realise that I could only transform help into friendship once I no longer needed that help. I decided to pick up a cane and navigate independently. My dad was taken aback by the idea of his daughter using a cane, but I convinced him that a cane was not a symbol of limitation but rather an instrument of liberation. He subsequently trained me in the use of a cane and gave me an orientation of the campus.
On November 2, 2019, I independently navigated the premises of my campus for the first time, and felt as if I could fly. The sense freedom soon seeped into my academic performance, extracurricular participation, and friendships.
Once I was capable of doing things by myself, I found more and more peers who were willing to befriend me and do those things for me with much more warmth, care, and belongingness. Once I started believing that I was an equal, I found more and more peers who were willing and happy to treat me as an equal.
Once having people around was no longer a logistical necessity, they started going out of their way to do much more than was necessary for me. As an underconfident and blind individual, I could not fathom crossing a narrow stone pathway amidst a river or attempting a trek; I could not dare to take uncalculated risks or breach conventions. I could not imagine that I would have the courage to speak my mind, stand up for what I believe in, or be my authentic self—the emotional, over-expressive, outgoing, and annoying person that I am. But I got to do all this and be all this merely because of the shoulders and elbows of my friends that I got to hold while I navigated the uneven surfaces of law school and the rough patches of life in the half decade that went by.
This is what my friendships were, and this is what they mean to me. When I look at them through my black shades, I see that they are imperfect and yet so inspiring. I see that they emit freedom and equality despite my inherent difference. I see that they will live on beyond law school.
And here is my message to all the fellow students with disabilities looking to navigate friendships in their universities: friendships can be forged only through freedom and equality. Imposed obligations only create transactions and inequalities in relationships. To befriend others, we first need to befriend our own disability, walk with it, and accept it without complaining. And it is that intrinsic acceptance that will soon translate into extrinsic acceptance.