Thiruvanthapuram:  A semi-paralysed man from Kerala has dug a road outside his home after failing to get any assistance from the concerned authorities for his physical condition.

Sashi G, a 59-year-old coconut tree climber, met with an accident in Thiruvananthapuram 18 years ago, which left the right side of his body paralysed.

Unable to earn his daily bread, Sashi, reportedly, requested authorities for a three-wheeler many times so that he could start a small business. But every request of his was turned down with the rationale that there was no road near his home and therefore he would be unable to use the vehicle.

“The panchayat told me there is no point of giving you a vehicle as you are paralysed. They assured me a road which never happened,” Sashi said.

Refusing to spend the rest of his life in bed, Sashi decided to take matters in his own hands. Though semi-paralysed, he slowly began digging a road.

And, for the next three years, he didn’t stop. For six hours everyday, irrespective of the conditions, he kept digging through a plateau that people were forced to climb and managed to dig a 200 metre road through it.

He said, “I just kept digging because people thought I couldn’t. I thought if I kept digging, I will get a road and it will also be physiotherapy.”

“Even if the panchayat doesn’t give me a vehicle, at least people will have a road in the future,” he added.

Proud of her husband’s efforts but also worried about his health, Sashi’s wife was quoted saying, “I begged him not to dig like this. If something happened to him again, we won’t have any money to treat him. We are heavily in debt. Now everyone talks about the road being built but what about us?”

His neighbours also lauded Sashi’s willpower. “It has become so much easier now,” one of them said. “We don’t have to climb that huge plateau. I used to worry seeing him dig for hours. Now I am awe-struck.”

Sashi meanwhile is still waiting for the authorities to reward him for his hard-work.

“It will take me another one month to finish digging this road but panchayat is yet to give me my three-wheeler,” he said.

In a similar incident, in May last year, a Dalit man dug a well in Maharashtra’s Kalambeshwar village after his wife was not allowed to draw water from a bigger well by its upper caste owner.

(source: Huffington Post)