This week’s Weekly Wikipedia is of a man motivated by his wife. Dashrath’s wife died of an illness with no treatment from a doctor because the nearest town with a doctor was over 70km away.
Dashrath Manjhi was born in 1934 into a poor labourer family in Gahlour village near Gaya in Bihar. Dashrath Manjhi was also known as Mountain Man.
Dashrath Manjhi’s claim to fame has been the herculean task of single-handedly carving a 360-foot-long (110 m), 25-foot-high (7.6 m) and 30-foot-wide (9.1 m) road by cutting a mountain of Gehlour hills with a hammer, chisel and nails working day and night for 22 years from 1960 to 1982. This passage reduced the distance between Atri and Wazirganj blocks of Gaya district from 70 km to just 7 km, bringing him international acclaim. He died on August 18, 2007 at the age of 80 years.
Dashrath Manjihi on Wikipedia.
