All

❮

❯

“Don’t keep wondering about ifs and buts. Create your own life path and make the most of it”

Pooja Chaudhary (29) leads an action-packed life alongside her job in the BPO sector. She models, writes, goes on long rides, works for NGOs, and is in her second year of M.A. Sociology. During Vicky Roy’s photography session she posed with an array of 11 trophies. Given her achievements, it might seem surprising that she occasionally wonders how her life would have been if she had had better and earlier support and educational opportunities. But there is one thing she has never regretted – her inability to walk.
 
Pooja lives in Greater Noida with her father Ram Swarth Chaudhary, mother Dharam Sheela, younger brother Vikrum and his wife Roshni. For most of her life she got around by crawling; it was only in 2022 that she received an electric-powered wheelchair through an NGO and gained "full-on independence". Pooja, who had no toys (Ram Swarth was a struggling farmer) or playmates (her disability isolated her), created her own world of dreams, making mud dolls and playing ‘house-house’.
 
Schools kept refusing to admit her and when she finally got into Bal Sagar Public School, the other children ignored her. “I survived only because I was determined to get an education,” she recalls. Initially, Dharam Sheela, who works in an export company, would drop her to school and pick her up after work. Later, Vikrum used to walk to their school while pushing her disability tricycle from behind. This became their routine even after 10th grade: he would push her tricycle on the way to his own school and take her home after his classes were over.
 
After 10th grade there was another frustrating hunt for schools. Finally Pooja joined Mother Teresa Higher Secondary school. Her class was on the third floor and since she was unable to use the toilet she wouldn’t pee the whole day. Here too she had no friends. She wanted to graduate from a regular college but it was expensive and far away, so her friend Kajal helped her apply for the IGNOU correspondence course to finish her B.A. When she joined a computer course at NIIT, Ram Swarth would drop her on his cycle and Vikrum would bring her home on his cycle after he finished class. “Without my family’s support I wouldn’t be where I am,” says Pooja. “They gave me the freedom to do whatever and go wherever I wanted. Therefore I never considered myself as disabled.”
 
In 2015 Pooja got her first job at a BPO, Innova Communication, for ₹8,000 per month. The office staff was friendly but her desk was on the third floor, and the only usable toilet was in the basement. She relied on Vikrum’s trusty cycle to commute 10 km to her office and back. She worked there for three years and joined Cogent E-Services. There she found a friend, Ashish Lakhera, who “cared for me like my mother” and continued to help her even after she quit. By providing financial and physical support Ashish helped her ease into her new job at Digitide, a BPO she joined six months ago. She books a scooty ride to work 19 km away and uses her wheelchair in the office, which has built a ramp and is trying to increase accessibility.
 
In 2016 she met Peeyush Rishi Mishra who became a dear friend, guide and mentor. “Before I started using the wheelchair we used to roam around places with him carrying me everywhere,” she recalls. “He has taught me so much. He has added positivity to my life.” In 2019, when a fashion event organiser Sandeep encouraged her to take up modelling since she had “a pretty face”, it was Peeyush who carried her in his arms for her very first ramp walk. Since then she has done numerous ramp walks and taken up modelling assignments including photoshoots for Meta Facebook and UN Women’s Empowerment. Her passion reached out from runway to highway as she took long distance rides on the retrofitted disability scooter. She took part in the ‘Salute Indian Army Corona Awareness’ ride in October 2020, and in the World’s Highest Accessible Awareness Ride for Women’s Empowerment – 2,500 km from Delhi to Kargil and back – in October 2021.
 
“Modelling and riding became a part of my life,” says Pooja. She began to nurse serious ambitions of getting into the modelling and film industries. She quit her job to focus on her goal but it did not work out as planned. “People might pose with the disabled to click pictures but they don’t give us opportunities, especially in the beauty industry, which sees such fierce competition,” she says. She auditioned for a TV reality show but they didn’t select her, stating that she may not be able to perform all the physical tasks the show required. Disheartened by her experiences, she even contemplated suicide but she willed herself to snap out of it and move on. She realised she had to earn an income before pursuing her aspirations.
 
After joining Digitide, Pooja continues to seek modelling opportunities. Her hobbies include movies and music. “I love travelling,” she says. “Even if you wake me up in the middle of the night and say let’s go, I would happily come along!” She is someone who believes in motivating herself, finding courage in herself. “We have just one life and it will become what we make of it.”