Looking out from the terraced front of the Museum Cafe at the Marina, you can see the statue of Avvaiyar, Tamil Nadu’s famous woman scholar-poet of the Sangam era.
She is leaning on a stick. Her verses resonate through the centuries as rhythmically as the waves crashing against the sands. The stick in her hand could be a symbol of the diverse aids to special visitors, as they are helped into the newly opened Museum of Possibilities by the Commissionerate for the Welfare of the Differently Abled at the Lady Willingdon Institute campus. There are people on crutches, on mechanised wheelchairs, on walkers, or those who have come with families or personal assistants, being led into this newly designated space along a sloping red tiled gradient.
Inaugurated in early June by Chief Minister MK Stalin, the museum has a cafe on the first floor above the actual museum, which is an integral part of its planning. It has been collaboratively designed by people with disability, or PwDs.
