 "'Mountain Man' comes alive on the silver screen")
The trailer of Ketan Mehta's Manjhi- The Mountain Man, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte, was released this week.
We take a look at the real “Mountain Man”, and his achievements.
The film is based on the true story of Dashrath Manjhi (1934 –2007), a landless labourer from Gehlaur village, Atri block of Gaya, Bihar ,who single-handedly carved a path through a mountain using only a hammer and chisel so that his village could have easier access to medical attention. This was after Manjhi's wife died. The doctor was in Wazirganj, which stood on the other side of the mountain, but the road leading to it was 75 km long. Unable to make the journey, she passed away in 1959.
Manjhi carved out a 360-ft road, which was 20 feet wide through the mountain; it took him 22 years to finish the task. After that, he was known as the “Mountain Man”. This road benefited people from 60 villages in Atri.
“That mountain had shattered so many pots and claimed so many lives. I could not bear that it had hurt my wife. If it took all my life now, I would carve us a road through the mountain,” reports thebetterindian quoting Manjhi.
He would start early in the morning, chip away at the mountain for a few hours, then work on the fields, and come back to work on the mountain again. The villagers gradually began to respect him, and started donating food to his family. He eventually quit his job and started spending as much time as he could, making the road.
His feat reduced the distance between the Atri and Wazirganj blocks from 75 km to 13 km, bringing him national acclaim. “Though most villagers taunted me at first, there were quite a few who lent me support later by giving me food and helping me buy my tools,” he remembered.
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The government rewarded his efforts with a plot of land; Manjhi promptly donated the land for a hospital. He was also nominated for the “Padma Shri”, but forest ministry officials fought the nomination, calling his work illegal. “I do not care for these awards, this fame, the money,” Manjhi had said. “All I want is a road, a school, and a hospital for our people. They toil so hard. It will help their women and children,” the betterindia website quoted him as saying.
On August 17, 2007, Manjhi, the man who had conquered a mountain. lost his battle with cancer. The people of Gaya district have nothing but gratitude for the “Mountain Man” who made their lives so much easier.