Breaking the Mountain
Doesn’t each one of us have a determination? Doesn’t each one of us aspire to become
something? But what is it that stops us every single time from reaching the zenith? For someone,
it’s the lack of time that stops one to into the depth and explore million possibilities. For
someone it’s the craving for society’s acceptance that stops one from pursuing one’s passion.
While for the rest of us its sheer laziness and procrastination that stops us from taking a step
ahead.
But time and again, ordinary people have done extraordinary things and proved that all the
boundaries of time, acceptance and laziness are just mental limitations that we put ourselves to
justify why haven’t we achieved what others have.
Let’s take this man, for example:
something? But what is it that stops us every single time from reaching the zenith? For someone,
it’s the lack of time that stops one to into the depth and explore million possibilities. For
someone it’s the craving for society’s acceptance that stops one from pursuing one’s passion.
While for the rest of us its sheer laziness and procrastination that stops us from taking a step
ahead.
But time and again, ordinary people have done extraordinary things and proved that all the
boundaries of time, acceptance and laziness are just mental limitations that we put ourselves to
justify why haven’t we achieved what others have.
Let’s take this man, for example:
Known as ‘the mountain man’, Dashrath Manjhi single
handedly carved a path 110 m long
(360 ft.), 9.1 m (30 ft.) wide and 7.6 m (25 ft.) deep through a hillock using only
a hammer and chisel. Resident
of Gehlaur village in Bihar, Manjhi started this
pursuit supposedly after the death of his wife. He contended that this hillock
acted as a major barrier between villagers and medical facilities. In 1960, at
the age of 26 he started carving out a path on the rocky mountain. Being called
‘lunatic’, or ‘insane’ didn’t tamper with the unshakable determination of
Manjhi. It took him 22 long years to build a path that will reduce the travel
distance and time between two villages. In these 22 years, the limitations of
age, illness, physical capacity never bounded him. Nobody in the initial years
lent him any help and rendered his efforts rather pointless. But in the end, the
villagers melted by his strong resolution, helped him buy new tools, and went
to the site to offer him food and few picked up a hammer with him. After 22
years of hardwork, Dashrath shortened travel between the Atri and
Wazirganj blocks of Gaya town
from 55 km to 15 km. With the sole purpose to make the villagers life
easier, Manjhi decided to break the mountain all alone for 22 years. He did not
let his growing age or health become a barrier. All he had was a firm
determination in his mind and a noble cause that helped him to break all the
physical as well as mental boundaries. For his accomplishment, Manjhi became
popularly known as the 'Mountain Man'. The Bihar government also proposed his
name for the Padma Shree award in 2006 in social service sector. A stamp was
released by India Post in the "Personalities of Bihar" series on 26th
December 2016. In 2015, a movie starring Nawauddin Siddique was made to pay
tribute to ‘The Mountain Man’.
Why did Manjhi’s
growing age not act as a boundary and made him stop? Why didn’t his” limited
human physical capacity” exhaust him eventually? Why didn’t being called a madcap
by the society bother him and made him stop his pursuit? Maybe because it takes
some amount of insanity to break boundaries. Or probably, it were the
limitations that were put on Manjhi which made him move ahead. It is from that
moment when we start treating our boundaries as an obstacle in the race, rather
than a finish point, that we begin our journey towards breaking boundaries.