Dashrath is a daily wage labourer by profession who took pride in what he did for a living. He hails from a village called Gahlar nestled in the state of Bihar. The nearest town that had a reliable hospital was 80 kilometres away. Water and sanitation, let alone a decent school, was a huge problem in this village. In other words, a child in that village had hard time surviving.
People with health problems found it burdensome to walk on a muddy road for 80 kilometres to get their first ray of hope in the form of a pill or the doctor's advice. Some people even died on the way to the nearest hospital. Now, there was a short cut (relatively) across a hill to the nearest town. Well, the short cut wasn't exactly an easy path to take, which meant that it didn't really serve the purpose at all. Dashrath's family was no exception to the inconvenience. The rough road caused many an injury to people traversing that distance through the hill.
One day Dashrath's wife fell down on that very path when she was on the way to meet Dashrath with his midday meal. It was at this point when Dashrath decided to build a tunnel through the hill to make life easier for his village folk. Obviously the whole village thought Dashrath had gone insane. How could he think that he could dig a tunnel through a huge hill? Some dream it was! We all claim to welcome new ideas, but this didn't seem to go down too well with his people in the village. People laughed and dismissed it even before they heard him out.
Dashrath remained unfazed and began his task of cutting through rocks in his attempt to build a tunnel. His children abandoned him calling him a madman. The new name caught on and the rest of the village called him the same. He earned his daily wages as a coolie, and then devoted a few hours everyday to this new challenge. It was in 1984 when he spelt out his dream and began to make it happen.
22 long years passed him by, but not without the realization of his dream – the tunnel that he had visualized in his mind 25 feet in diameter and 1 kilometre long. Trucks could pass through the tunnel from the nearest town to Dashrath's village and back. The village was blessed with a new lifeline. People from the village could reach the nearest hospital in 10 minutes.
The road lay in front of him, his eyes shone with pride. It is another story that his wife wasn't there, the reason for this noble gesture. But he felt peace in his heart as he knew an entire village benefited from this work of art. The then President Abdul Kalam honoured him with the Padmashree Award for this very selfless act. The government offered to give him a piece of land and a house. It was more of an embarrassment than honour for Dashrath Manjhi. He requested the government to build a hospital in the land given to him. What selflessness before our eyes.
PS: written by Mr. Sandip Pradhan (Software Engineer in Dun & BradStreet TUADC, Chennai) for Radiosai.org
