Dashrath Manjhi-The Mountain Man

Faith moves mountains and faith loaded with lots of determination and perseverance builds a road on the mountain. This is the story of Dashrath Manjhi- the Mountain Man. He is the man who built a road across the ridge… In order to connect his otherwise inaccessible village with a lot of essential services.  I had heard about Dashrath Manjhi way back in 2014. This was on a TV show called Satyamev Jayate hosted by Aamir Khan (Bollywood actor). In 2015, a Bollywood movie named “Manjhi-the Mountain Man” was released. This created a lot of awareness about this unsung hero of India.

Who was Dashrath Manjhi, the Mountain man ?

Dashrath was an agriculture labourer from Gehlaur district in Bihar.  He became the mountain man of the village. Dashrath Manjhi carved a path in the Gehlour hills, using very simple tools like hammer and chisel.  It took him 22 years of rigorous effort, round the clock, to create this path. He used to work as a daily wage laborer during the day. By dusk he would start his next job of road construction. Initially, the villagers apprehensive of the results and mocked him. But later, some of them joined hands with him to complete the task.

Why did Dashrath Manjhi take up such an arduous task?

Villagers used to walk for hours around the hills to get to their fields on a daily basis. The same was the story for school kids. Gehlour village didn’t even have basic healthcare facilities. The nearest town for medical help was around 70 kilometres away.

Dashrath Manjhi’s wife’s name was Phaguni Devi. She used to carry food and water for her husband every afternoon. For this, she had to cross a narrow path across the hills. One day while taking lunch for her husband, she slipped and fell down from the mountain. Dashrath came to know about the accident. He rushed his critically injured wife to the nearest medical facility. But that took time since there were no roads. It became too late and she did not survive.

Shah Jahan had built the Taj Mahal in memory of his wife Mumtaz. And Dashrath Manjhi built a road for the entire village in his wife’s memory. He completed the work in 1982. The path that he carved was  360 feet long. It was around 30 feet deep in places and 30 feet wide through the ridge of rocks. It reduced the distance between the two sectors to just 15 kilometres.

Posthumous recognition for Manjhi

Dashrath Manjhi, the Mountain Man  was diagnosed with gall bladder cancer in 2007. He died in a couple of months at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. The state government of Bihar offered him a state funeral. They built a proper road at the same place and named it after him. A postal stamp was released  by the state government to honor his services.