You can fly! The journey of visually-impaired Divyanshu Ganatra’s first solo flight

I could fly only because a teacher had faith in me. All that it took for him, as a teacher, was to believe in me. And unfortunately, that’s where we’re stuck,” says Divyanshu Ganatra, a cognitive neuroscientist and psychologist, who happens to be the first visually impaired Indian and second in the world to paraglide. He lost his sight to glaucoma at the age of 19.

At the time, people told him, the best he could do is be a telephone operator or make chalk or cane furniture for the rest of his life.

“I was told I would never fly. Every day you’re told about hundreds of things that you can’t do and these are stemmed from stereotypes. And we break the stereotype through our lifestyle,” says Ganatra.

Initially depressed, a few months later, he chose to shift his focus, instead of sitting in his own pity pool for life. And the world opened up. The 38-year-old recalls, “I still could do everything else. Even today I don’t know what is it that I could do as a sighted person, that I can’t do as a blind person.”

“I tried to get a flying instructor but people wouldn’t even consider it. They’d just ask how can a blind man fly? I now am an expert in taking rejections,” adds Ganatra.

After searching for a flying instructor for almost seven years, he finally met Avi Malik, his instructor in 2014.

“When he proposed the plan, Anita, my wife received the call. I overheard ‘You’re blind’ and my heart spontaneously said yes. I was really impressed that somebody like him could dream of flying. Throughout my flying career, I have believed that anyone who wants to fly can fly,” says Avi Malik, an ex-IAF pilot, who has been running ‘Temple Pilots’, a paragliding school for the past 20 years.

For Malik, it was a fun and a creative process since Ganatra was doing it for his love for flying and not to prove anything to the world. Both of them learnt working as a team, guiding each other along the way.

“Words can never explain my first solo flight. It was the closest to the spiritual experience I’ve ever had. It’s joy you don’t experience every day,” says Ganatra. He learnt paragliding in three days and flew solo on day four, without any constraints.

“How do you define what’s difficult? It’s all in the mind. I have done a lot of tandems after the first flight. Now, I will do an advanced course this summer,” chuckles Ganatra.  

He emphasises on the importance of a good teacher. Everyone needs teachers who’d love their students and will bring them up to his own level. Malik reckons teachers are the architects of this world as they influence those they teach.

“It’s a huge responsibility. To first find our own light and then share the light with others. Essentially, we’re all one and we should move towards unity and harmony on the planet,” says Malik.

“Follow your heart and chase your dreams. You live your life  only once,”  says Ganatra.