Got to Goa on Sunday, January 7th for the 2nd edition of the Purple Fest. Aditi had been chosen as the Purple Ambassador for Autism, so we were here for a bunch of panels, meetings and general networking in the space of disability.
One of the biggest learnings from the festival was that awareness is still a huge issue. We must have sat in about 10 panels across 7 days, and in almost all of them someone or the other brought up a general lack of awareness about disabilities and neurodivergence.
On the 2nd day Aditi had a talk at the Goa University about the Gen-Z and the future of inclusion. It went really well. She spoke about using social media as a tool for storytelling and self-advocacy, and the importance of building a community around your work. Some of her lived experiences were also shot on the 1st day as part of a campaign called Love All, which a bunch of the other ambassadors were also part of.
After the panel, someone came up to her and asked if she had had a hard time connecting with her parents as a kid, because apparently that's how all autistic people are. Triggered her quite a bit.
Among the panels I enjoyed were:
- Championing Inclusivity featuring folx from Keystone, SoHo Mumbai, and a couple of other other companies
- The All-state Commissioner's Meet where Aditi brought up stem cell therapy and bad disability representation
- DRR, Gender & Climate featuring Raj Mariwala and Pranav Sethi aka the boy who grew up as an aspie organised by Rising Flame
- A couple of NCPEDP panels featuring Amar Jain, Saurabh Prasad, Abhishek Kumar and Dan Van Sant from the Harkins Institute
Met some old friends, made some new. Finally hung out with Pranav (whom we call Aspie because of his Insta monicker) and hung out lots with Tayzeem from Kashmir, who now lives here.
Parts of the festival were loud and disorganised, parts of it were informative, and parts of it were just emotional and deeply touching. On the last day, I bumped into Pooja Barot, a deaf tattoo artist from Navi Mumbai. We attended a cultural event featuring deaf children from around the country. Found it to be extremely neurodivergent-friendly.
The kicker was the fashion show, where Aditi walked with her sensory aids. And Kailash Kher performed at the closing ceremony.
Among some cool people we met were Praveen Prakash Ambashta, the Dy Chief Commissioner of PwD, central govt, who spoke to us about our work and the scene in general. And, of course, Mr Phal Dessai, Mr Guru Pawaskar and Mr Taha Haaziq, who were instrumental in putting together the festival.
We discovered this small dive bar called Joseph in the lanes of Fontainhas, where we spent almost 2 evenings having feni and Limca. The other days we were at the Fisherman's Wharf, which was quite bad in terms of alcohol, food and service, and terribly overpriced.
Aditi and I walked a lot. Daily from the hotel to the venue and back. Bought some kaju one of the days, and took lots of pics overall.
Nice chill week.
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