A vast majority of disability representations within the canon of the Indian short story tend to deploy disability as a metaphor or present disabled characters in a negative light. They are either projected as a source of threat or as a living embodiment of human suffering. This restrictive form of characterization inevitably sacrifices the humanity of disabled characters (Mitchell and Snyder 2001), leading to their ontological invalidation. Disability representations of this kind, however, not only abound in literature, but they also appear to resonate with readers across time and space begging the question of whether disability can ever be represented as signifying anything other than a devalued version of the human. The article begins by trying to understand the impetus behind the cultural production of pejorative images of disability and the role that these images play in the constitution of disabled subjectivity. However, it concludes by suggesting that of late the Indian short story has witnessed a move towards more affirmative representations of disability—representations that dovetail into the pragmatic needs of disabled people and the political imperatives of the disability rights movement.