Roy Exum
In the year of our Lord, 1927, there was a very poor child born to a very poor family in a very poor place. His name was Dasrath Manjhi and he was a native of the Musahar community somewhere in India. We know he had no education and, as a member of the lowest Hindu scheduled castes, he didn’t have a cut dog’s chance from the very get go.
But after spending considerable time in my morning readings, I would give anything to be like him. He was nothing but a poor farmer and, as he eked out a hardscrabble living as a farmer, his wife – Falguni Devi -- would bring him his lunch and water high in the hills, walking a high and dangerous path through the jagged rock.
What you need to know is there is this rugged mountain right next to the village of Gahlour. It was nearly impossible to cross, with just a one-foot-wide footpath across treacherous terrain. So to get to the village where the hospital and markets were located, everyone had to go around the foreboding hill, a journey of almost 50 miles.
In 1960, Falguni was bringing Dasrath his meal when she fell off the path. Since there was no way to get her to medical attention, Dasrath had little choice but to hold her, watching her face as she died. Not many days after, he woke up at 3:30 in the morning, fetched a chisel, a hammer and a rope, and attacked the mountain that had killed his wife.
Everybody in the village laughed, calling him crazy, a fool, a lunatic. For years the villagers had begged the government for help but low-caste Hindus are at the bottom of the food chain. Dashrath banged on the hill until around noon and then stopped to tend to his fields until dark. But at 4 o’clock the next morning, he was banging on the rocks again. On and on it went. Weeks became months, months turned into years, yet Dashrath kept pounding, or as one witness described, “hacking on the hill as though he was possessed.”
People started calling him “The Mountain Man.” No worries there – call him anything you wish as long as you stay out of his way. “My love for my wife was the initial spark that ignited in me to carve out a road. But as time went by, what kept me working without fear or worry all the years was the desire to see thousands of villagers crossing the hill with ease anytime they wanted.”
One man, with a chisel, a rope, and a hammer, eventually fashioned a pass that is 360 feet long, has rock walls 30 feet high on either side and is 25 feet wide. He worked every day for 22 years. No one offered to help, although some did donate food and new tools as he reached completion. Children who had walked eight miles to school now walked two miles. Instead of 50 miles to the hospital, it was now just nine miles, and, since Dasrath’s pass was easily traversed by motorcycle, people from 60 villages on either side soon used the pass regularly.
Think of that, 22 years. “What I did is there for anyone to see. When God is with you, nothing can stop you,” he said when the international acclaim came but he was unfazed by it. He said, “I am neither afraid of any punishment from any government department for my work nor am I interested in any honor from the government.”
In 2007, at the age of 80, Dashrath died after a prolonged fight with cancer and was buried by the state. But look at what he took with him when he died. He was an acclaimed master of patience. He had an attitude that never could be dissuaded. When people laughed it only strengthened his hands, his back and his heart.
When his wife died he did not wallow in despair – he quickly recognized a need and he filled it. He didn’t have a pedigree and nobody on this planet can offer a better example of “the power of one.” My goodness, if other men had helped it would have cut the time of the project exponentially but, no, there were no offers and, no, Dasrath made not the first complaint.
What is equally interesting is that upon his death, the India government hurriedly installed a metal-protected road over the hill and two years ago the Dasrath Manjhi Hospital, in tribute to “The Hillman of Bihar,” was built to cater to about 50 villages near the house where Dasrath once lived as a lowly Hindu laborer.
When the hospital opened, Simlesh Kumas, from the village of Bela, told The India Express. “We have grown up listening to stories about Dasrath Baba. He was our superman,” while Pappu Kumar Singh, from a nearby village, proudly told the reporter, “The entire area came into focus because of one man, Dasrath Manjhi.”
What he did took every day for 22 years with just a chisel, a rope, and a hammer. And it took almost as long for a lunatic to morph into Superman.
“When God is with you, nothing can stop you.”
royexum@aol.com
Dasrath Manjhi "found a need and filled it" by worked at it every day for 22 years.