Public Transport: A Mirror of Reality (But Whose Reality Is Seen?) By Nandini Gakhar

They look,
and in looking,
they decide.
Not who I am
but what I must be.

“People look at me and think they understand what they see. But they don’t see me—they see
their own ideas about me,” writes Riva Lehrer.

(Riva Lehrer is an American artist, writer, and disability activist whose work explores identity, embodiment, and the experience of being visibly different in society. Born with spina bifida, her work like her memoir Golem Girl, focuses on how disabled bodies are perceived, stared at, and often misinterpreted in public spaces.)

Public transport is often described as a reflection of society. It brings together people from different backgrounds, lives, and realities into a shared physical space. But what it actually reflects is discomfort, assumptions, and the limits of social awareness.

Over the past two years of travelling by metro in the capital city of India, Delhi, I have repeatedly noticed children with disabilities accompanied by their parents. What stands out is not just their presence, but the reactions they evoke. The atmosphere of the coach subtly shifts as people stare, some with curiosity, some with pity, and others with quiet judgment. Very rarely does one see an individual.

In some instances, I observed parents who were well-informed and actively supporting their child’s needs. In others, it seemed that even the parents were still in the process of understanding the child’s condition which was sometimes made visible only when a co-passenger asked questions like whether the child was receiving occupational therapy to which parents were left baffled as if something like that even exists. These moments revealed how awareness itself is unevenly distributed, even within families.

What becomes more complex is the idea of invisible disability. Not all conditions are immediately identifiable. A child may appear “normal” to an untrained eye, yet be experiencing sensory overload, communication difficulties, or cognitive challenges. During one of my metro journeys, I observed a young boy becoming visibly overwhelmed each time the train moved underground and the sounds within the coach became louder. He repeatedly banged his head in distress, while trying to regulate himself by holding a mobile close to his ears and listening to songs on Youtube, almost using the music as a refuge from the overwhelming sensory environment around him. To many passengers, this behaviour may have appeared unusual or disruptive, but it reflected an invisible struggle that most people around him could neither recognize nor understand. In such cases, the lack of visible markers often leads to misinterpretation and being judged as “hyperactive kid”, or even “possessed” because of some cultural and social notions.

In How the Disabled Body Unites the National Body: Disability as ‘Feel Good’ Diversity in Urban India, Friedner (2017) argues that disability in India is often represented in ways that make non-disabled society “feel good” while avoiding deeper structural conversations about ableism, accessibility, and exclusion. She explains that disability is frequently framed through inspiration and emotional appeal rather than rights, politics, or lived realities. According to Friedner (2017), such representations create a version of disability that is “non-threatening” and emotionally consumable for society. 

My observations in public transport reflected this contradiction. Society appears more comfortale either pitying or romanticising disability than engaging with its everyday realities which includes the exhaustion of caregivers, sensory distress in crowded environments, inaccessible infrastructure, or the emotional labour involved in simply occupying public spaces. Friedner (2017) also discusses how disability becomes visible only in socially acceptable ways particularly when disabled individuals are seen as inspirational, productive, or non-disruptive. However, children in public transport often do not fit these idealized images. They may cry, stim, move unpredictably, become overwhelmed, or struggle with crowded environments. In such moments, public sympathy frequently turns into discomfort. Disability becomes acceptable when it inspires sympathy or admiration, but discomfort arises when it interrupts social norms of “appropriate” behaviour in public.

Public transport, then, becomes a mirror. It reflects a society that is more comfortable reacting than understanding, more inclined to look than to acknowledge. It reveals how visibility determines legitimacy: what can be seen is responded to, what cannot be seen is often dismissed. 

This, now, raises an important question, whose reality is truly seen in these shared spaces? The child navigating an overwhelming environment? The parent managing both care and social scrutiny? Or the onlooker, whose gaze defines the moment? The readings on anti-ableist environments further emphasize that disability is not merely located within the body, but within inaccessible systems and social structures. The WAARC collaborative research project (n.d.) highlights how disabled individuals frequently experience exhaustion and exclusion because environments fail to accommodate their needs. Participants in the study discussed inaccessible spaces, sensory barriers, poor support
systems, and the emotional labour required to continuously adapt themselves to society. This reflects the experiences visible in public transport, where crowded spaces, noise, social scrutiny, and lack of sensitivity can intensify stress for disabled individuals and caregivers alike.

Similarly, Satendra Singh, an Indian medical educator, disability rights advocate, and professor at University College of Medical Sciences, argues that society and institutions often normalize ableist assumptions without recognizing them. In his presentation on disability and advocacy, he emphasizes the need to “visualise invisible patient suffering” and identify structural barriers that are routinely ignored. This idea resonates strongly with invisibledisabilities, where suffering may remain unrecognized simply because it does not visibly manifest according to societal expectations.

One of the most powerful lines from the reading states: 

“Who needs fixing?
Me or my surroundings?”

This question fundamentally challenges the medical model of disability, which treats disability as an individual problem requiring correction. Instead, the social model of disability suggests that disability is produced and intensified by inaccessible environments, social stigma, and lack of accommodation. In the context of the metro, the problem is not merely the disabled child navigating the space, but also the environment that responds with discomfort, inaccessibility, judgment or just with pure lack of awareness. 

Public transport therefore becomes more than a mode of travel. It becomes a social space where power, normalcy, visibility, and belonging are constantly negotiated. The reactions within the coach reveal whose bodies are considered acceptable in public and whose are treated as disruptions. Invisible disabilities complicate this further because  legitimacy often becomes tied to visibility.

If public spaces are to become truly inclusive, the shift must move from passive observation to informed sensitivity. Because the absence of visible signs does not mean the absence of struggle and recognition should not depend on visibility.