Dashrath Manjhi was a poor man from the lowest of the low castes, living in a remote village cut off from the world by a rocky mountain range. Dashrath Manjhi, also known as “Mountain Man”, was a poor laborer in Gehlaur village, near Gaya in Bihar, India, who carved a path through a 360 ft long, 30 ft wide and 25 ft high hillock using only a hammer and chisel. He started hammering the hill in early 1959 in the memory of his wife He is also known as Mountain Man.
Dashrath Majhi’s wife died without any treatment, because the nearest town with a Doctor was 70 km away from their village in Bihar, India. That could have been a far shorter distance, if not for a hill in between the village and the town. So he decided to carve a path through the hill so that people could get easier access to medical care in the town. While doing so he had to face a number of challenges, people called him mad and various other difficulties. But interestingly he was a one man army and completed his mission in 22 years with just a hammer and a chisel.This is how Dashrath Manjhi became Mountain man. Dashrath manjhi was born in Gehlaur village,Bihar,India. He used to work at Dhanbad coal mines.He carved Gehlaur mountain and carved a path through it with dimensions 110m long,7.6m deep and 9.1m wide. What was once a precarious passage just a foot wide is now an avenue that can accommodate cyclists and motorcyclists and is used by the people of nearly 60 villages with great ease. The road has also reduced the distance between Gaya’s Atri and Vazirganj subdivisions from 50km to just 10km. Children from Manjhi’s own Gahlaur and other nearby villages no longer have to walk eight kilometers one way to attend school they can now study at a school just 3 km away.
