The incredible story of Laungi Bhuiyan...

 The tall and lanky Laungi Bhuiyan would look at the terraneous mountain slopes around his village Kothilwa, nearly 80 kms away from Gaya in Bihar, with distress as hundreds of cusecs of water would drain down to the nearby river. 

Kothilwa is surrounded by dense forest and terraneous  mountain. It’s a village no one would ordinarily visit. Agriculture and animal husbandry are the only means of livelihood for the villagers. During summer the crop would wilt under scorching sun as water was scarce. While the villagers, mostly poor, almost compromised with nature’s cruel game, Laungi Bhuiyan had a different dream in his eyes. The water flowing down the steep mountain slopes with gusto and finding refuge in a river would disturb him. His farming instincts would tell him that only if this copious amount of water could be diverted to village fields then everyone would benefit. 

The thought at the back of his mind  became a dream for Bhuiyan. He knew that only a canal dug from beneath the mountain slopes to his village could be the only way. This dream robbed Bhuiyan his sleep even after a bone crashing labour in the fields. Enough was enough for Bhuiyan. The day dawned when Bhuiyan  armed with only a spade and a cane made bucket started digging the canal. No-there was no survey, no mapping, no landscaping, no blueprints-nothing to assist Bhuiyan. A steely determination coupled with that undaunted spirit was his only guiding force. The digging had started. Bhuiyan would leave his cattle in the forest for gazing and he would dig the earth with determination of a single horned rhino. The passerby village folks would look at him occasionally at times mixed with ridicule. But Bhuiyan worked unfazed; nothing would deter him for he knew his goal. Days passed into months and months into years. A man quite young started looking older. At last after 30 long years the 3 kms long tunnel was complete. The water in monsoon would now enter the tunnel head beneath the mountain slopes and run towards the village. A dream was complete, a dream which an ordinary would not even dare to see.

A Dashrath Majhi was reborn in Laungi Bhuiyan. These are the life stories that separate an ordinary from an extraordinary. These are the fact files that should find place in school curricula as everyone needs motivation-more so for the students looking for something to ignite their minds. Ex President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, the missile man of india said “it is a crime to dream small”. An unknown village farmer, not educated in that sense, Laungi Bhuiyan of Gaya demonstrated what Dr Kalam meant.

(www.dprabir62.blogspot.com)