December 23, 2020 • 13 mins
This is the story of how my grandfather was offered a bribe while working as a civil engineer in Shimla. I’ll also introduce you to a husband who literally moved mountains for his wife.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Today's stories about bribes, headstands, and literally moving mountains. It's
also about me your host pump care. But mostly it's
about making you smile, welcome to an pump cares cha,
carving your own path. You know, when you are young,
(00:36):
there's often that one person that you idealize, the one
person you want to be when you grow up. For me,
that person was my grandfather pundit an Care, and in
a way, I'm still trying to be him. Growing up,
I thought my grandfather was a saint. He was the
(00:57):
most disciplined person I had ever known, and once he
created a schedule, it could not be changed. For instance,
my grandfather did yoga every day, and he could bend
his body and hold all sorts of difficult positions, including
the shishassan the yogi had stand. No one in my
(01:24):
family could do that. As I told you, my grandfather
was incredibly committed to his schedule. So imagine this. If
I or my little cousins needed to talk to him
while he was doing his head stand, he wouldn't come
down to listen to us. Instead, we would have to
PLoP down onto our backs, shimming up to his forehead
(01:47):
and tilt our heads up to talk face to face.
Whenever his friends or neighbors happened to drop by and
saw us chatting like this, they would burst into laughter.
But even this couldn't break my grandfather's concentration. I have
(02:11):
so many wonderful memories of him, but perhaps the thing
I loved most about my grandfather was the way he
told stories. My whole family would sit in a circle
around him as he stood delivering tales about everything far
away lands, heroes, on quests, tragedies, comedies, romance, and no
(02:35):
matter what story he was telling, it always ended with
a model. I learned more from those stories than I
ever did in school, which may say something about me
as a student, but I think it says more about
him as a teacher. Of all his stories, though, my favorites,
(02:57):
were always the ones he told about his life, and
this is one I think about a lot. Right around
the time I was born, my grandfather was working as
a civil engineer and he had just landed an important project.
He was tasked with constructing a helipad that would open
(03:17):
up Shimla to more tourism and medical services. As he
told it, my grandfather was very excited about the project.
He believed in shim last future. Then, when he was
interviewing contractors, one of the contractors offered him a bribe.
Thirty thousand rupeest was a huge sum in the nineteen fifties.
(03:43):
Now you probably know from the way I have described
my household, but my grandfather was not a rich man,
and his family was growing. That amount of money would
have meant a lot to him. It would make feeding
all those mouths and keeping a roof over our heads
quite a bit easier. For many people, it would be tempting,
(04:04):
but not for my grandfather. The very next morning, he
marched into his boss's office and placed a resignation letter
on his boss's desk. What is this, his boss asked,
Are you unhappy in this position? You're one of my
best engineers and I just assigned you the Alibid project.
(04:25):
My grandfather said, Sir, I have been bribed by a contractor.
At this, his boss waved his hand open the gee,
why are you telling me this? I do not care
which contractor you use, as long as the helipad is made.
And why shouldn't you make a little extra money on
the side. You work hard enough, and God knows, I
(04:46):
don't pay you enough. My grandfather stood firm, no, sir,
I did not accept the bribe. Somehow, that only confused
his boss, mode I understand what is the problem. My
grandfather took a deep breath and said, so, today, my
family and I are getting by. We are not in
(05:09):
a need of more money to live. But what if
someday we are struggling to get by and I do
need more money to provide for my family. And what
if that day I'm offered a bribe, then I would
struggle to reject it. When his boss didn't understand, my
(05:31):
grandfather tried to explain it another way. So of my
most successful projects were successful because I hired the best
contractor for the job. Sometimes these were young contractors just
starting out. They barely had two pazza to rup together.
But if contractors are only awarded work because they can
give the largest bribe, it's an unfair system. The new
(05:53):
contractor will lose every time. And I never want to
hold a job where I may be tempted by bribes.
I always want to know that I'm making my own decisions,
the right decisions. His boss rolled his eyes or punditicy,
don't be a hero, But my grandfather had already turned
(06:14):
to walk away, and he never looked back. More than
any of my grandfather's other stories, I think this represents
him the best. His beliefs were unshakable. He was determined
to do the right thing, even when it was the
hard thing. And even though I'm an adult now, he
(06:38):
is still the person I look up to, He's still
the person I want to be. There's another story I
want to tell now about a man who might be
almost as determined as my grandfather and certainly as committed
(07:03):
to doing the right thing. His name is dshat Manji,
and I think if my grandfather had known his tale,
he would have shared it with the family at story time.
Back in the nineteen fifties, the little village of Ghelor
was very isolated from the rest of India. Located in
(07:27):
the middle of Bihar, Gello was nestled between the treacherous
Gallo Hills, So if you wanted to visit the market,
or trade goods or go to a doctor, you pretty
much had no other choice than to hide the narrow
cliff side trails to reach the next town. It was
just the way of life in Galore. One day, a
(07:50):
woman named Falguni. Davy was walking along this dusty path
when her foot slipped out from under her. The world
suddenly became a blur as she tumbled down the mountain.
When her husband, a laborer named Dakshat Mangi, discovered her,
fal Gni was barely clinging to life. She needed help,
(08:13):
but the nearest hospital was all the way around the mountain,
roughly thirty miles. It would take Mungi two days to
get there on foot, but there was no other way.
So Many carried his wife and traveled as fast as
he could, But the distance was too great and Falgoni
(08:34):
passed away. Mangi was heartbroken. He cursed the mountains that
had stolen his wife's life, and he vowed her death
would not be in vain. Then he became obsessed with
an idea. If that path had just been shorter, if
(08:58):
they could just have to the mountain instau of going
around it, maybe Falconi would still be with him. Once
he arrived back home, Many sold his most precious belongings,
his three goats. With the money, he bought a hammer
and a chisel, and in he began taking his anger
(09:22):
out on the mountain, slowly chipping it away. The villagers
laughed at him. It would take a dozen lifetime to
reshape the mountain with such rudimentary tools, they said. Everyone
dismissed him as a grieving madman. They made jokes about him.
They called him the mountain Men. But maung he didn't care.
(09:48):
He knew there was another path, a faster path through
the mountain, and so he worked. Each day he woke up,
went to the mountain and chiseled until this giant peak
was just a few millimeters shorter. As he worked, he
thought to himself, slowly but surely, he would bend the
mountain to his will. Weeks blurred into months, months blurred
(10:15):
in two years, and through it all many kept hammering,
and as the villagers continued to laugh, five years past,
and then ten years passed, then fifteen. But slowly, with
the passage of time, something began to change. It was
(10:38):
the landscape. The people of Bihar began to see that
Mani was actually carving his way through the mountain, and
those same villagers who had spent years laughing at the
mountain Man, they started to help, bringing him food, water,
and spare tools. Then, after twenty two years, okay, the
(11:02):
sound of the chiseling stopped. Standing at the base of
the mountain, Mangi looked upon his creation and smiled. Driving
down a total of thirty ft, he had carved a
three ft long path. At some parts the trail was
(11:23):
ten yards wide. But the most important number was the
distance between Bihar and the hospital. With that new stretch
of trail, Mangi had reduced the distance from thirty five
miles to just nine. Suddenly, Gello wasn't swice so later,
(11:47):
after all three decades later, the local government finally got
around to paving the bath, freeing up the road to
small vehicles. And when Mangi died of bladder cancer in
two thousand seven, he was no longer being treated as
a Priya. He was celebrated as a hero. Today there
(12:11):
is chatter that a new medical center near Bihar will
wear Mangie's name. If that happens, it would be an
appropriate tribute. It's impossible to know how many lives is
shortcut has already saved a legacy literally carved in stone.
(12:37):
That's it for today's episode. I'm an open care Be
kind to yourself and thank you for listening. An Opumps
(13:00):
is a production of Irt Radio, I'm Your host A
pump Care Our executive producer Is Mangis, Senior producer Julian Weller,
Associate producer Morgan Lavoy. Sound design and mixing by Julian
Weller and Dan Bauza. Music by Aaron Kaufman. Production support
(13:22):
from Emily Maronoff and Mary Duke. Writing by Lucas Riley,
Matt Riddle, Margon Lavoy and Julian Weller. Lucas Riley and
Matt Riddle are our story editors. Thanks to Seeking Paro,
Herman de Suza, Godwin Amana, Sidium Studios, Cornel Burne and
(13:42):
Bob Pittman,
Today's stories about bribes, headstands, and literally moving mountains. It's
also about me your host pump care. But mostly it's
about making you smile, welcome to an pump cares cha,
carving your own path. You know, when you are young,
(00:36):
there's often that one person that you idealize, the one
person you want to be when you grow up. For me,
that person was my grandfather pundit an Care, and in
a way, I'm still trying to be him. Growing up,
I thought my grandfather was a saint. He was the
(00:57):
most disciplined person I had ever known, and once he
created a schedule, it could not be changed. For instance,
my grandfather did yoga every day, and he could bend
his body and hold all sorts of difficult positions, including
the shishassan the yogi had stand. No one in my
(01:24):
family could do that. As I told you, my grandfather
was incredibly committed to his schedule. So imagine this. If
I or my little cousins needed to talk to him
while he was doing his head stand, he wouldn't come
down to listen to us. Instead, we would have to
PLoP down onto our backs, shimming up to his forehead
(01:47):
and tilt our heads up to talk face to face.
Whenever his friends or neighbors happened to drop by and
saw us chatting like this, they would burst into laughter.
But even this couldn't break my grandfather's concentration. I have
(02:11):
so many wonderful memories of him, but perhaps the thing
I loved most about my grandfather was the way he
told stories. My whole family would sit in a circle
around him as he stood delivering tales about everything far
away lands, heroes, on quests, tragedies, comedies, romance, and no
(02:35):
matter what story he was telling, it always ended with
a model. I learned more from those stories than I
ever did in school, which may say something about me
as a student, but I think it says more about
him as a teacher. Of all his stories, though, my favorites,
(02:57):
were always the ones he told about his life, and
this is one I think about a lot. Right around
the time I was born, my grandfather was working as
a civil engineer and he had just landed an important project.
He was tasked with constructing a helipad that would open
(03:17):
up Shimla to more tourism and medical services. As he
told it, my grandfather was very excited about the project.
He believed in shim last future. Then, when he was
interviewing contractors, one of the contractors offered him a bribe.
Thirty thousand rupeest was a huge sum in the nineteen fifties.
(03:43):
Now you probably know from the way I have described
my household, but my grandfather was not a rich man,
and his family was growing. That amount of money would
have meant a lot to him. It would make feeding
all those mouths and keeping a roof over our heads
quite a bit easier. For many people, it would be tempting,
(04:04):
but not for my grandfather. The very next morning, he
marched into his boss's office and placed a resignation letter
on his boss's desk. What is this, his boss asked,
Are you unhappy in this position? You're one of my
best engineers and I just assigned you the Alibid project.
(04:25):
My grandfather said, Sir, I have been bribed by a contractor.
At this, his boss waved his hand open the gee,
why are you telling me this? I do not care
which contractor you use, as long as the helipad is made.
And why shouldn't you make a little extra money on
the side. You work hard enough, and God knows, I
(04:46):
don't pay you enough. My grandfather stood firm, no, sir,
I did not accept the bribe. Somehow, that only confused
his boss, mode I understand what is the problem. My
grandfather took a deep breath and said, so, today, my
family and I are getting by. We are not in
(05:09):
a need of more money to live. But what if
someday we are struggling to get by and I do
need more money to provide for my family. And what
if that day I'm offered a bribe, then I would
struggle to reject it. When his boss didn't understand, my
(05:31):
grandfather tried to explain it another way. So of my
most successful projects were successful because I hired the best
contractor for the job. Sometimes these were young contractors just
starting out. They barely had two pazza to rup together.
But if contractors are only awarded work because they can
give the largest bribe, it's an unfair system. The new
(05:53):
contractor will lose every time. And I never want to
hold a job where I may be tempted by bribes.
I always want to know that I'm making my own decisions,
the right decisions. His boss rolled his eyes or punditicy,
don't be a hero, But my grandfather had already turned
(06:14):
to walk away, and he never looked back. More than
any of my grandfather's other stories, I think this represents
him the best. His beliefs were unshakable. He was determined
to do the right thing, even when it was the
hard thing. And even though I'm an adult now, he
(06:38):
is still the person I look up to, He's still
the person I want to be. There's another story I
want to tell now about a man who might be
almost as determined as my grandfather and certainly as committed
(07:03):
to doing the right thing. His name is dshat Manji,
and I think if my grandfather had known his tale,
he would have shared it with the family at story time.
Back in the nineteen fifties, the little village of Ghelor
was very isolated from the rest of India. Located in
(07:27):
the middle of Bihar, Gello was nestled between the treacherous
Gallo Hills, So if you wanted to visit the market,
or trade goods or go to a doctor, you pretty
much had no other choice than to hide the narrow
cliff side trails to reach the next town. It was
just the way of life in Galore. One day, a
(07:50):
woman named Falguni. Davy was walking along this dusty path
when her foot slipped out from under her. The world
suddenly became a blur as she tumbled down the mountain.
When her husband, a laborer named Dakshat Mangi, discovered her,
fal Gni was barely clinging to life. She needed help,
(08:13):
but the nearest hospital was all the way around the mountain,
roughly thirty miles. It would take Mungi two days to
get there on foot, but there was no other way.
So Many carried his wife and traveled as fast as
he could, But the distance was too great and Falgoni
(08:34):
passed away. Mangi was heartbroken. He cursed the mountains that
had stolen his wife's life, and he vowed her death
would not be in vain. Then he became obsessed with
an idea. If that path had just been shorter, if
(08:58):
they could just have to the mountain instau of going
around it, maybe Falconi would still be with him. Once
he arrived back home, Many sold his most precious belongings,
his three goats. With the money, he bought a hammer
and a chisel, and in he began taking his anger
(09:22):
out on the mountain, slowly chipping it away. The villagers
laughed at him. It would take a dozen lifetime to
reshape the mountain with such rudimentary tools, they said. Everyone
dismissed him as a grieving madman. They made jokes about him.
They called him the mountain Men. But maung he didn't care.
(09:48):
He knew there was another path, a faster path through
the mountain, and so he worked. Each day he woke up,
went to the mountain and chiseled until this giant peak
was just a few millimeters shorter. As he worked, he
thought to himself, slowly but surely, he would bend the
mountain to his will. Weeks blurred into months, months blurred
(10:15):
in two years, and through it all many kept hammering,
and as the villagers continued to laugh, five years past,
and then ten years passed, then fifteen. But slowly, with
the passage of time, something began to change. It was
(10:38):
the landscape. The people of Bihar began to see that
Mani was actually carving his way through the mountain, and
those same villagers who had spent years laughing at the
mountain Man, they started to help, bringing him food, water,
and spare tools. Then, after twenty two years, okay, the
(11:02):
sound of the chiseling stopped. Standing at the base of
the mountain, Mangi looked upon his creation and smiled. Driving
down a total of thirty ft, he had carved a
three ft long path. At some parts the trail was
(11:23):
ten yards wide. But the most important number was the
distance between Bihar and the hospital. With that new stretch
of trail, Mangi had reduced the distance from thirty five
miles to just nine. Suddenly, Gello wasn't swice so later,
(11:47):
after all three decades later, the local government finally got
around to paving the bath, freeing up the road to
small vehicles. And when Mangi died of bladder cancer in
two thousand seven, he was no longer being treated as
a Priya. He was celebrated as a hero. Today there
(12:11):
is chatter that a new medical center near Bihar will
wear Mangie's name. If that happens, it would be an
appropriate tribute. It's impossible to know how many lives is
shortcut has already saved a legacy literally carved in stone.
(12:37):
That's it for today's episode. I'm an open care Be
kind to yourself and thank you for listening. An Opumps
(13:00):
is a production of Irt Radio, I'm Your host A
pump Care Our executive producer Is Mangis, Senior producer Julian Weller,
Associate producer Morgan Lavoy. Sound design and mixing by Julian
Weller and Dan Bauza. Music by Aaron Kaufman. Production support
(13:22):
from Emily Maronoff and Mary Duke. Writing by Lucas Riley,
Matt Riddle, Margon Lavoy and Julian Weller. Lucas Riley and
Matt Riddle are our story editors. Thanks to Seeking Paro,
Herman de Suza, Godwin Amana, Sidium Studios, Cornel Burne and
(13:42):
Bob Pittman,
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