Dashrath Manjhi was a poor Indian worker who was called “Mountain Man” because he carved a path through a hillock using only a mallet and a chisel. It took him 22 long years to cut a path through the ‘Gehlaur’ mound. This is a shining example of what an ordinary man can do when the odds are against him. Manjhi used to be a simple villager who made a living by cutting down trees in the jungle and selling the wood at the market. He had to leave his home and work as a miner in one of Dhanbad’s coalmines because he was so poor. Dhanbad is in the state of Jharkhand and is known as the “Coal Capital of India.” After working in the coal mines for a few years, he moved back to his hometown with his wife Falguni Devi and set up a home. Falguni had to climb up and down the hillock every day to bring her husband’s lunch to him while he worked in the fields or cut down trees. Falguni fell while carrying Dashrath’s lunch one day, hurting herself so badly that she died from her injuries. Manjhi was very upset by what happened, so he decided to cut a path through the knoll so that no one else would have to go through what happened to his wife.
Early years and childhood
Dashrath Manjhi was born in 1934 in the village of Gehlour in the state of Bihar to very poor laborer parents. India was still ruled by the British at that time. Gehlour is in Muhra Tehsil, which is part of the Gaya district. Gaya Town is a few kilometers away.
We don’t know much about his childhood or early life, except that he started cutting wood when he was still in his teens to make money. Dashrath got married when he was young because that was what people from his caste did.
Dashrath Manjhi’s Career
Concerning Hamlet Dashrath Went Dashrath was born in the village of Gehlour, which is still very backward. The people there still follow the traditional caste system, which is inherently disruptive. Villagers at the bottom of the caste system are seen as outcasts, and their women are seen as nothing more than property.
Most of the people who live in Gehlour are Dalits. They usually make a living by helping others and picking up trash. Before Dashrath pounded his way through the hillock between the Wazirgunj and Atri subdivisions in Gaya, people had to walk over a narrow, steep path on top of the hillock to get a ride.
Weds Dashrath Falguni Devi: The Story of a Devotion That Lasts a Lifetime
Manjhi left his village and went all the way to Dhanbad, which is the second largest city in the state of Jharkhand. It is in the Damodar Valley, which is known as the “Ruhr of India” because it has 60% of India’s coal deposits. He worked in a Dhanbad coal mine for about seven years before going back to his village.
Dashrath fell in love with Falguni, a pretty girl from the village when he got back. He found out later that the young woman he liked was the same girl he had been forced to marry when he was young. But Falguni’s father told Dashrath not to take her with him because he was out of work.
Manjhi was so determined to get back together with Falguni that he ran away with his childhood bride. After that, they became husband and wife and moved in together. Soon after, they had a baby boy, and in 1960, Falguni got pregnant again with their second child.
Dashrath’s life was changed by a tragedy.
Falguni, who was very far along in her pregnancy, was climbing a hillock to bring lunch to Dashrath, who was working in the fields when she tripped and fell. Dashrath didn’t know about the sudden change or the accident that happened while he was waiting for his wife in the scorching heat.
Falguni Devi tripped and fell off the Gehlour mound, where she rolled down and fell asleep. A person in the village told Dashrath about what had happened to his wife. In a state of panic, he ran to the scene and found her covered in blood. He took her to a hospital 70 km away.
After Dashrath rushed Falguni Devi to the hospital, the doctor who looked at her said that she was dead. He had a lot of trouble coming to terms with the fact that his wife had died. He was filled with a lot of grief. Falguni Devi had just given birth to a girl when she died.
Manjhi was so sad that he couldn’t be comforted, so he started praying to the hill that had taken away his love. After he got over his sadness, he made a promise to break the hillock’s pride. He decided to keep chipping away at the hillock until a wide path was made.
When his father and other villagers found out about Dashrath’s plan, they did everything they could to stop him by telling him again and again that what he was about to do was impossible. But it was his deep love for his wife that made him even more determined to do something that seemed impossible.
How the Mountain Man Came to Be
Dashrath didn’t even try to ask the local, state, or central government for help, whether it was money or something else, because he knew he would be turned down. So, he did it all by himself and cut through the hillock to make a path.
He sold a few goats to buy a hammer and chisel and started the job in 1960. He would start working on the Gehlour mound at 4 a.m. and keep going until 8 p.m., stopping for a few hours in the afternoon to work in the fields.
The name “Mountain Man” was given to him because of how hard he worked at being a missionary. Often, he would go for hours without food or water, and sometimes he would just eat leaves. A few years later, when there was a bad drought, most of the people in Gehlaur left, but he stayed.
Dashrath’s dedication to his mission and his willingness to keep trying got him noticed by the media, and he even got help from villagers and neighbors who had criticized him in the past. In 1982, he finally got to live out his long-held dream of digging through the knoll.
After 22 years of hammering and chipping constantly, he did the impossible: he built a path that was 360 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 25 feet high. By digging a tunnel through the hillock, the distance between Atri and Wazirgunj was cut by 40 km, from 55 km to 25 km.
Soon after that, Manjhi did something else that was hard: he walked for three months to get to New Delhi to ask the government for help. In the end, the government helped out by finishing the Herculean task of carving a path through the hummock and also helping to set up a dispensary.
The Terrible End
On August 17, 2007, Dashrath Manjhi passed away. He was sick with cancer of the gall bladder. The state government made sure that his funeral was open to the public.
What the Mountain Man left behind
In 2006, the Bihar state government sent a proposal to the central government suggesting Dashrath for the “Padma Shree” award, which is given to civilians who have done a lot of good work for society.
In 2011, a film called “The Man Who Moved the Mountain,” which was about Dashrath’s life came out. In August 2015, a Bollywood movie called “Manjhi: The Mountain Man” was made available to the public. Dashrath Manjhi was also the subject of two Kannada movies.
In 2011, the government of Bihar gave the name “Dashrath Manjhi Path” to the road that goes through the Gehlour mound.
Estimated Net worth
Unknown.