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Man who was a mountain

By: Chitra Padmanabhan

Where: state of Bihar, India

August 19, 2007: It’s the kind of superhuman deed that seems so hard to believe because it is true. One man hacked away at a rocky hill for 22 years to create a three-km-long road linking his village to the outside world, armed with nothing more than a hammer and a chisel. What drove the frail man on was a resolve much higher than the hill facing him.

His name: Dasrath Manjhi.

Dasrath Manjhi was from village Gehlour in Gaya District, one of the poorest districts of the western Indian state of Bihar. Poor and illiterate, he worked as farm labour on fields that lay on the other side of the hill, as did many other villagers. The villagers had to scrabble up the hill with its narrow and difficult pass to buy even the smallest thing; skirting it took hours.

One day, Manjhi’s wife, Faguni Devi, slipped on the hill and broke her ankle as she was bringing him lunch. Enraged, Manjhi decided to cut the hill down to size. He sold off his goats to buy a hammer, chisel and rope. He even shifted his hut closer to the hill so that he could work day and night. People called Manjhi a madman but he did not care. He was unstoppable; even hunger could not win over him.

Taming the mountain

Manjhi started his work more than 40 years ago. As time passed, the villagers noticed that the hill was a bit more climber-friendly. It was no longer so steep – Manjhi’s hammer and chisel had seen to it that a flat stretch had made its appearance. Those who had called Manjhi a madman fell silent. A few even joined him.

By the early 1980s, a three-kilometre road had been hewn out of the rock. It was wide enough for even vehicles to pass through. A 50-km journey to the nearest block headquarters of Wazirganj had now shrunk to a 10 km journey! (Several villages and small towns comes under one block. All the important government departments looking after the affairs of the block are located in the town which functions as block headquarters.)

Sadly, the woman who had inspired Manjhi to take on the hill could not live to see the fruit of his labour. Manjhi’s wife had died of illness some years ago. Reason: it took a long time to skirt the hill and reach the hospital in time.