WEST BENGAL: His desire of walking was dashed by a set of rickety, polio-affected legs, but his powerful arms kept rolling the wheelchair, speeding up his progress. Jagannath Mahato, a young man in his early 30s who lives in a village in the underdeveloped area of West Bengal known as Jhargram’s Gopiballavpur, battled all odds to follow his dream, even crawling up the steps to get to his classroom.
Mahato, a geography graduate, ran pillar to post for a government job but all his efforts proved futile unless he caught the attention of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s while sitting on his wheelchair beside a road through which her convoy was scheduled to pass. With the CM’s intervention, now he works in the receiving section as a casual worker of the Jhargram district collectorate.
Now he, after duty hours, spends his free time giving free tuition to poor children. “I don’t anyone to suffer like me. I don’t want anyone’s dreams to get shattered. Within my limited capacity, I offer help to those poor children whose parents are not in a position to bear the expenses of private tuition,’’ said Mahato.
Mahato was one of the few hundred locals who were waiting to greet Mamata during her visit to the Gopiballavpur assembly constituency in 2012. “I was returning from my coaching centre. I decided to have a glimpse of our CM and waited along with others. She was waving to the crowd and sitting in her car. I also responded by raising my hand. Her convoy stopped and she got off. I was surprised when I saw her looking at me and coming towards my wheelchair,’’ he recounted.
Mahato can recall his interaction with the CM. “She first asked my name. She wanted to know whether I came in my wheelchair only to greet her. When I said was returning home after taking tuition of my students, she asked about my education. When she came to know my qualification, she was surprised. And she was moved by it. She directed the officials accompanying her to look into my issue. Hours after the chief minister left, senior officials of the district administration visited my house,” he said. The 32-year-old man, whose legs became dysfunctional shortly after his birth, travelled nine km sitting on the pillion of a bicycle to complete his school education. The high school from where he passed Class XII was 15 km from his home and he had no option left other than paddling his wheelchair every day. “I had to crawl up the stairs at school to reach my classroom and sometimes, my classmates used to help by lifting me,” Mahato added.
When Mahato decided to pursue geography honours, it was a challenge for him. The Gopiballavpur Subarnarekha College was 55 km from his home. “I had to rent a small room and earn the cost of education by taking private tuition. I had to crawl inside the room to do all the household work and on the road to reach the college. The classroom of my honours subject was on the ground floor but for the other course subjects, I had to crawl up to the first floor,” he said.
After graduation, Mahato had to earn bread and butter for his parents and wife, by taking private tuition and peddling his wheelchair for over 20 km every day to teach 120 odd students. He had to wait for three years after Mamata assured him of a job. “I met her once again in an award ceremony where I was felicitated for my fight against the odds. She recognised me and I told her that I was yet to get a job,’’ he recounted. In 2015, Mahato received a call from the office of the sub-divisional officer and he was offered the job as a casual worker in the district collectorate.