Through their own lens: Storytellers with disabilities bring personal experiences to screen

Persons with disabilities take the director’s chair to share stories on social barriers, tech access and climate justice

Director Punam Bhujel, main character Yashoda Bohara, and her assistant Bimala Bohara during the production of a short documentary capturing the hardships faced by persons with disabilities. Photo: Salpa Films

KATHMANDU: The camera focuses on a young woman’s face. Sitting in a wheelchair, someone can be seen applying makeup to her. While the makeup is underway, a voice asks, “What do you spend your days doing these days?” The young woman says, “I make vlogs; my day goes by editing vlogs.” Now, the person asking the question, the person answering, and the person applying makeup all appear in the same frame. The aforementioned scene is the open

ing segment of a short documentary based on the daily life of Yashoda Bohara, a person with a disability.The one initiating the dialogue is Punam Bhujel. She is the writer and director of this documentary. The main character of the documentary is Yashoda, while the person applying makeup is Bimala Bohara. Bimala is Yashoda’s assistant. Both Punam and Yashoda are wheelchair users. Through dialogue, both have creatively presented in the four-minute documentary the social and structural barriers that persons with disabilities face in their daily lives.

Participants of a short documentary production workshop organized to cover the hardships faced by persons with disabilities.

From the sports field to the wheelchair

Yashoda once played football and rugby. She was building her own identity as a national athlete. However, during a game, she met with an accident. After her neck was fractured, her arms and legs stopped working. Despite medical treatment, she could not return to her former physical condition. She arrived in a wheelchair from the sports field. But she kept her self-confidence strong. Currently, she plays boccia, a sport accessible to persons with disabilities. Apart from this, she creates vlogs. She strives to make every part of her daily routine productive.

In the documentary, Yashoda and Punam guide viewers through the busy streets of Lalitpur and Patan’s Krishna Temple while rolling in their wheelchairs. Yashoda steps out of her room to make a vlog. Punam inquires about the obstacles wheelchair users face when navigating the streets of Kathmandu. Yashoda responds that commuting is difficult mainly due to potholes on the roads. This highlights that even the country’s major city roads are not disability-friendly.

The documentary uploaded to The Disability Justice Project’s YouTube channel has been viewed 27,868 times as of September 27.