Hi! I have a question for you. Tell me what emotion comes to mind when you think of disability? I am guessing joy would not be anywhere on your list. Perhaps your mind brought up words such as sadness, grief, pity, sympathy, empathy, guilt, anger, frustration, fear, loss, dismay, tragedy and so on. And honestly, I get it. I can understand where that is coming from – I have myself felt many of these emotions at one time or another in the last many years as a mother to a disabled child. But there is another side of the coin.

Joy, Not in Spite of Disability — But Because of It

Today, on the International Day of Persons with Disability, I want to talk about joy. Not joy that is “despite” the disability – but joy that is “because” of the disability. I’m not talking about finding happiness in every circumstance — but about the joy we’ve discovered precisely because of our circumstance.

If you have been reading my blogs, you would have already seen Anvay’s brilliant smile, and how I talk about his unfettered joy at the smallest things and his uncontrollable excitement. Excitement where his entire body tenses up and shakes in anticipation (and also due to his spasticity!)

This is the kind of joy I am talking about – uninhibited, unbridled, unrestrained – the kind none of us have the capacity to feel anymore – not even children. Because something holds us back – stops us from feeling the emotion to its full. For as we grow and become self-conscious, we learn to restrain, we learn to measure our responses and we worry about being judged. Our joy becomes tethered to social conditioning.

But Anvay? He has retained his wholesome, uncalibrated joy and delight. He will scream the house down the minute he hears the slightest footfall of his big brother, or go into helpless giggles when he farts (!!), or completely lose his mind trying to blow out the magic candles – that light up soon after being blown out! Or just the mention of a photograph makes his hands go up to pose – never mind he never sees the photographs! Just this weekend I took him to the pool and his infectious laughter at the simple pleasure of splashing about in the water brought smiles to total strangers.

Joy That Spreads Beyond the Skin

And yes, that joy is infectious. It spreads. It emits a glow that totally envelopes us. It has been our special blessing to be able to see and feel this joy. We call him our sunshine – because his smile can really cast away any clouds of worry! His joy is the pure kind – the kind we need to safely keep and treasure.

On Raksha Bandhan, we tell our boys to protect and take care of each other for the rest of their lives – and I know that Anvay will be physically dependent on his brothers – but I also know that when his bothers get weary of life and its struggles, he will be the one to offer them solace, peace and joy. They already feel it – Arnav says that joy is so pure he can’t describe it and Abeer believes that this is Anvay’s superpower.

But unfortunately, the world sees the wheelchair first, the body in it drooping on one side with drool on the face. If they look closer, they will notice the brilliant smile and if they look deeper, they will perceive the joy. Living with Anvay has taught us that this joy is a part of him. It is part of his worldview. He does not seem to be bothered about his disability as much as we are – this is how his world is – which he has accepted. His joy is his way of being. It is how he makes sense of the world, how he feels it, how he holds it. He is just a child living exactly as he is — delighted, curious, unfiltered, alive.

And in more ways than one, his joy has taught us how to enjoy simple pleasures of life. To remember to stop running and just enjoy the moment. To soak in the pleasure life has to offer. And to realise that joy is not “in spite” of the hardship, it is “because” of the hardship.

A Life That Is Full, Real, and Unapologetically Human

Most of the world thinks disability is one long tragedy you learn to “deal with.”
But I have learned that disabled lives carry a kind of happiness that is as real and textured and meaningful as anyone else’s — sometimes even more so because it is stripped of pretense. That many disabled people can and have lived full and wholesome lives, as real and layered and meaningful as anyone else.

And I am not the only one to realise this or think so. While researching the internet for this blog post, I discovered that #disabledjoy is actually a term. Disability advocate Andrew Farkash observed that disability is often incorrectly associated with unhappiness. In response, he created the Twitter hashtag #DisabledJoy in March 2018 to highlight that joy is an essential and valid part of disabled people’s lives.

In announcing the hashtag, Farkash explained that a widespread misconception assumes disabled people cannot experience or express happiness—and that when they do, their disability or pain is somehow dismissed. The hashtag was intended to counter this narrative and provide a space for disabled individuals to share and affirm their joy. In the years since, his post has been shared by thousands of disabled people around the world, many of whom have tweeted their own #DisabledJoy responses.

#disabledjoy is a response to the cultural habit of assuming that disabled lives are defined only by struggle, sadness, or inspiration. The idea pushes back by saying:

• We feel joy too.
• We feel joy differently.
• Sometimes we feel joy more intensely because of who we are and how we navigate the world.

#DisabledJoy — Rewriting a Narrative

And hence, #disabledjoy is a way of reclaiming the narrative. “Yes, there are challenges -but there is also a full, rich human experience here.”

The real tragedy is the lack of support, absence of inclusive systems and infrastructure. Disability is not the problem. The barriers are. The stares are. The pity is.

So today it is important to talk about joy, because society has trained people to associate disability with pity, limitation, dependence, suffering. And I would like you to understand that disabled people are not objects of grief, joy in disability families is not an accident – It is built, nurtured, and often deepened by the very things that make life harder and joy does not erase struggle, just like struggle cannot erase joy.

And if I can just have you take away one thing, it is this – disability is not the opposite of joy. It can hold difficulty, grief and frustration but it can also hold wild delight, deep meaning, and a kind of purity that reminds you what being human actually feels like.

And remember – the story is bigger than the wheelchair you see….

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Thanks so much for reading! Please comment, share and spread the word!

Regards, Sakshi aka tripleamommy
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