My research explores the everyday lives of young people with intellectual disabilities – and those close to them – in a north Indian city. It asks what is important or valued in young people’s lives, what helps them achieve this and what prevents them from doing so. The research context is one of India adopting disability legislation and policy in line with international agreements, while disabled people’s lived realities are poorly understood. The research is an ethnography, with participant observation the main method, and draws on a social relational model of disability as a theoretical starting point.