With a new wife, house and bike, Majhi makes a fresh start
BHUBANESWAR: First a house, then a wife, and now a motorbike. Life has turned on its head for Dana Majhi, the poor Odisha tribal man who was forced to carry his wife’s body home from hospital on his shoulder.
On Tuesday, Majhi travelled from Bhawanipata in Kalahandi district to his village Melghar on a spanking new Honda motorcycle. Last August, a penniless Majhi, accompanied by his sobbing daughter, had walked the same road carrying the body of his wife, Amang Dei, tightly wrapped in a cloth, on his shoulder.
The hospital where Dei died of tuberculosis did not have an ambulance. And Majhi could not afford the transportation cost.
Images of the hapless Majhi’s 10-km walk had triggered global outrage and prompted many, including Bahrain Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, to loosen their purse for the farmer.
The turnaround in Majhi’s status has been swift. While Al Khalifa gave him ₹9 lakh, other organisations also chipped in and Majhi, who never had a bank account, now has a sizeable fixed deposit that will mature in five years.
Even the administration came to his aid and allotted him a house under the Pradhan Mantri Grameen Awas Yojana. The house is under construction while Majhi spends his days at the village’s Anganwadi centre. His three daughters are in a residential school in Bhubaneswar after an institute offered them free education.
In between, Majhi remarried. His new wife, Alamati Dei, is now pregnant.
Naturally, not everyone is happy. “Dana is not the same Dana now. He got all the benefits while we got nothing,” complained Gundal, a neighbour of Majhi.
Majhi still cultivates the small patch of land he owns, but his main worry is that he doesn’t know bike riding. His nephew chauffeurs him on his new bike, for now.