This man "divided" a mountain for love: he dug through the rock for 22 years, creating a road to his village
How many times have we heard the saying "desire is power"? Often, we tend not to trust our abilities and end up demoralizing rather quickly; in India, however, there was a man who proved that nothing is truly impossible to achieve. Dashrath Manjhi is today nicknamed as "the man of the mountain" because in the past, despite being only a humble worker with no money, he undertook a challenge considered by many to be "already lost": to split a mountain with his bare hands, with only one help of a hammer and a chisel. Dashrath Manjhi began this titanic work mainly for the love of his wife, who was injured crossing that mountain and finally died because she was unable to reach the hospital on the other side in time. Manjhi, with his willpower and strong motivation, created a direct route from his village to the main services and did it alone, in memory of his wife.
via Youtube / Milaap
It took Dashrath Manjhi 22 years of his life to complete the road through the mountain, but he finally made it. Gahlaur, the village where Dashrath has always lived with his beloved wife, Falguni, is a remote and very undeveloped place, where the inhabitants were forced to cross a narrow and treacherous pass, through a huge mountain, to satisfy the simplest needs in their daily life (think, for example, of reaching the hospital). Dashrath Manjhi's personal tragedy, however, positively changed the quality of life in his village.
One day, Falguni decided to bring lunch to her husband Dashrath who worked in the fields; to reach it, the pregnant woman had to cross the mountain. On the way, Falguni's foot slipped and the woman was the victim of a terrible fall. Dashrath didn't see his wife arriving with lunch and when some villagers reported that the woman had fallen, the man panicked.
Dashrath Manjhi picked up his bloody wife, crossed the mountain to the hospital, but by now it was too late for the woman. Falguni died in hospital, but managed to give birth to a girl. From that point on, Dashrath Manjhi, who loved his wife more than anything else, began to cultivate his "revenge". The man sold some meager possessions, including some goats, to buy a hammer and a chisel. Armed with these simple work tools, Dashrath began to dig a path through the mountain. He wouldn't let that mountain cause any more accidents, he didn't want anyone else to die like his wife. All the villagers believed that the man was now mad because of the loss of his wife and no one gave him credit. Still, Dashrath did it: in 22 years he managed to complete a road that connected his village to the other side of the mountain, giving the other villagers a freedom of movement that he and his wife had never had.
Thanks to his work, Dashrath has shortened the walking distance from 55 Km (34 miles) to 15 Km (9 miles)! Today he is celebrated and remembered as a great man who, out of love for his woman, did this great deed. Dashrath passed away in August 2007, but his legacy still carries weight and value around the world.
