Amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown and with transportation services not becoming fully operational in the country, several reports have emerged, detailing the herculean efforts made by aspirants to reach their exam centres.
This heart-warming tale has been reported from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh where a man from Jharkhand reached the city so that his pregnant wife could appear for the D.El.Ed exam. The man rode his scooter for 1,300km, all the way from Jharkhand.
It took three days for Dhananjay Kumar Manjhi to reach Gwalior on his scooter from Godda district in Jharkhand, which shares the border with Bangladesh. Manjhi’s wife Soni Hembraman was to appear for Diploma in Elementary Education (D El Ed) in Gwalior. The couple lives in Ganta Tola village in Jharkhand’s Godda district, which is 150 km away from Bangladesh.
Manjhi rode his two-wheeler for 1,300km and traversed through the difficult terrains of Jharkhand, Bihar, and UP before finally reaching Gwalior. However, the journey wasn’t a smooth one as the couple had to wait for two hours under a tree when heavy rains halted their ride in the way. At Bihar’s Bhagalpur, they also had to brave the floods.
The hapless couple sought shelter in a lodge in Muzzafarpur and for a night, they stayed at a toll plaza in Lucknow. The heartening fact of this tale is that Manjhi has only studied till Class 8 and wishes that his wife becomes a teacher. A cook by profession, Manjhi used to work in a canteen and was jobless for three months and so was compelled to pledge his wife’s jewellery to buy petrol for this arduous road trip.
Dhananjay and Soni got married in the year 2019, and Dhahnajy also drew inspiration from Dashrath Majhi, the mountain man who had carved out a road cutting across the mountain in the memory of his wife. However, the prolonged journey was no easy task for Soni, who is seven months pregnant. “At times I was left with numb feet or I felt acute pain in the back, waist and stomach,†said the brave woman. Despite the rains and flood, she drew inspiration from her husband’s indomitable spirit. Heaping praise on her husband, Soni said becoming a teacher is her dream.
