The Bridge on the Mountain

Long ago, in a village on the high mountains, lived a boy called Nabam Tacho. Tacho’s father was the headman of the village. He was a very clever and smart man, though he had never gone to school. He had learnt to read and write from the priest in the village temple. That was how it was done in their village. For many years, the temple priest was also the teacher. Tacho’s father was not happy with what the priest had taught him. Whenever travellers came to the village, he asked them for newspapers and books. Whenever anybody from the village travelled, he asked them to bring back books. So, he knew about the world outside their village – beyond their mountains, and also about far-away lands and the people who lived there. He longed to send Tacho to those countries, but that required money and he was sad because he did not have enough.

When Tacho was still a little boy, running on unsteady feet around the village, falling down in mud pools and becoming dirty, his father took a trip outside the village – his first. He went with the peddler who came every year, passing through with various necessary things on his back and his donkey – pots, pans, oil, spices, clothes, shoes, and thread and needle – in short, everything they ever needed in far-away villages on the high mountains. Tacho’s father and the peddler walked, because they did not have cars or roads in those days. Rich people rode horses, donkeys, or mules, or travelled in palanquins. The poor simply walked. In the winter, they rode a sleigh on the snow, pulled by horses or men.

Tacho’s father walked all day and reached a small town in the valley. There were only some five hundred houses in the town, but it was much more than what Tacho’s father had seen in his life. There were only fifty houses in his village. He looked in wonder at all the houses, all of them were much bigger than his. Then he came and stood in front of the building he had come to – the school. He wanted to meet the Principal.

Tacho’s father was poor. His clothes were shabby. His shoes were not smart. He felt uncomfortable to go in. He felt nervous. The building was large, there were so many children running around, the teachers looked stern as they passed by.

The principal, however, was very nice to him. He sat Tacho’s father down in a chair and gave him tea. They chatted for a long time.

“Your village is not small,” he said. “I come from a village with only twenty three houses! It is far away, too! I used to walk three days to reach home. I haven’t been to my village in five years, I am too old to walk so far.”

The Principal took Tacho’s father around. He showed him the classrooms and the library where the children studied, the fields where they played and the tiny stream behind the school where they learnt how to fish using a rod and a line!

“My teacher, the old Priest in the temple, would only scold and beat me!” said Tacho’s father, surprised.

“Oh, we do scold the children if they are naughty,” said the Principal. “But we never beat them. They have fun in this school. That is why they learn so much.”

They went to the hostel, for the school had place for children to stay as many came from far-away villages.

“Your son will be happy in this school,” said the Principal. “You don’t need money to study here. The King takes care of everything.”

Happily, the village headman walked back to his village.

When Tacho grew up a little more, his father told him that he was going to study in a school far away from home. At first Tacho was sad and scared. Later, two of his friends came and told him that they were also going with him. Tacho’s father had talked some of the other villagers into sending their sons too, for he was worried that Tacho would feel lonely and scared there. Soon all boys and girls from Tacho’s village would go to the same school to study, but that was later.

“You must study hard and become a doctor,” his father told him. “We have no doctor for miles and miles. As a doctor, you will be able to save lives.”

Tacho didn’t know all that. He was happy to be with his friends, learning what his teachers taught him, playing in the big field and being naughty at times, like all children are.

Every year, soon after the snows melted in the spring and the mountain passes cleared, Tacho and his friends trudged, in their thick woollen sweater and coats, heavy boots on their feet, through the last of the snow to the school. They were happy to go back. They played all the way to school, walking all day to reach there, tired and happy. His father and other parents would walk with them, too.

Every year, in autumn, Tacho’s father would come back with the other parents to take Tacho back home, before the storm clouds came, with heavy snowfall that would stop all travel in the hills.

Tacho was now a teenager. In a couple of years he would finish school. Tacho was a good student. Teachers said that he was so good that the King would gladly pay for his college, too. His father dreamed of the day when Tacho would come back as a doctor and take care of them.

That year the snow was heavy. Tacho’s village was completely cut off from the world. There was a white silence all around. Every morning the villagers had to shovel snow from their doors to go out. Tacho helped his parents to shovel. They were growing older and weaker. He helped his mother cook and father to keep the fire burning in the stove. They could not let the fire go out. It kept them warm and alive.

One evening Tacho’s mother said that she was not feeling well. She did not eat dinner and went to bed saying she would rest. She woke up with a severe pain in the tummy in the middle of the night. The night was quiet. The moon was full and its white light glittered on the snow. The nearest doctor was three villages away. Tacho’s father brought out the sleigh and the villagers came out to help.

They dragged the sleigh over the snow towards the village where the doctor lived.

They could not go far. The recent storms had made the mountain stream outside the village very fast and very deep. It roared and foamed as it rushed towards the plains. All night they tried to cross it with Tacho’s mother, but every time they failed.

Tacho’s mother cried in pain all night and when the morning sun had made everything pale grey, she died.

Everyone cried for Tacho’s mother. She was liked by all the villagers. The day Tacho had to return to school, his father reminded him: “If the village had a doctor, your mother may have been saved.”

Tacho said nothing. He went back to school quietly and studied harder.

When Tacho finished his final examinations, the Principal called him to his room. His father sitting there, too.

“You have finished your studies here, Tacho,” said the Principal. “You have done very well. Now you will go to college. I think you want to become a doctor, don’t you, Tacho? Should I talk to the principal of the medical college about you?”

Tacho did not say anything for a while. He looked at the carpet at his feet. Then he said, in a soft voice: “I don’t want to be a doctor, Sir, Father.”

Tacho’s father was aghast! “What are you saying, Tacho?” he said. “I sent you to school far from home to become a doctor – so that you could look after the villagers when you grow up. Now you don’t want to become a doctor? Have you forgotten how your mother died?”

Tacho looked at his father sadly. “I remember, Father,” he said. “I remember how Mother died. That is why I want to become a bridge builder. Doctors can found in many of our villages. That night, when Mother died, we may have saved her life if we had been able to reach the doctor three villages away. We could not, because there are no roads and no bridges across our mountains and rivers. I want to build bridges across rivers. So that people can travel easily and quickly. We take so long even to come from our village to school. Imagine, if we had good bridges, we could have come to school in half a day!”

“You know, I think Tacho has a point there,” said the Principal. “Doctors can be found, but people often die because the ill cannot be taken to the doctors in time.”

Tacho’s father had to agree, though he wanted Tacho to become a doctor and come back to his village. If Tacho became a bridge maker, he would have to build bridges all over the country – not only where he lived.

So, Tacho went to the engineering college and learnt to build bridges. He did so well in his examinations that the King himself sent for him in the palace.

“You are a brilliant student, Nabam Tacho, and I am glad you want to build bridges,” said the King. “You must learn much more about it, though. Your bridges must be strong and light. It is not easy to build bridges. I want you to go to different countries to learn how they build bridges and bring back the best methods.”

So Tacho took leave of his father and his village and travelled to several mountainous countries for many years. Everywhere he saw how bridges were built and learnt from the builders. Building bridges in mountains was not an easy task. They were usually made of thick ropes. They needed frequent repairs because strong stormy wind would damage and break the bridges.

“Do you know how to make the bridges stronger?” Tacho asked every builder he met. He knew they didn’t know the answer, yet he asked.

No one could tell him.

Tacho returned to his country, saddened. He did not know what to tell the King. He was afraid that the King would be unhappy, or even angry, if he said that he had failed. He came to the Palace to find that the King was out, visiting the city. He wandered around the garden. Soon, he saw the mahout returning with the King’s elephant.

The mahout took thick iron chains and wound it around the elephant’s legs. He fixed the chains to wooden pegs stuck to the ground.

“Can these chains hold the elephant?” asked Tachho.

The keeper nodded. “She can break them if she really wants to, but they are really very strong.”

Tacho asked the mahout if he had a little bit of spare chain. When the mahout brought him a piece, he took it and went to meet the king.

He told the King about the other mountainous countries he had visited. He told them that no one knew how to make bridges that would last for many years with little repair. He told the King that to make bridges every year would be very costly.

“What can be done?” asked the King, worried.

Tacho showed the King the piece of chain. “If we make the bridge with chains instead of rope, I think they will last longer.”

In those days and even now, people in the mountains built bridges for walking across. They would tie two long and strong ropes for holding on and two long and strong ropes between which they would tie wooden planks to walk on. There would be other ropes to hold the ropes together.

The King was not sure. “You think this would last through the storms and the snow?” he asked.

Storms in the mountains would swing the bridges from side-to-side and even the strongest ropes broke soon. When snow piled up in the winters, the bridges became so heavy that the ropes broke.

“I think they will,” said Tacho. “Only time will tell.”

“Build twenty bridges now,” ordered the King. “Let us watch them for some time. Then we will decide.”

Tacho enthusiastically began building the bridges close to the capital city – where he had to live because the king lived there. Soon, he built bridges across mountain rivers and streams in twenty places. Then they waited for the rainy seasons to come.

Rains in the mountains were a terrible time. Clouds began to gather even before the summer ended. The skies became grey. Gusts of wind screamed down the valleys and buffeted against the hills. Trees shook, people took shelter and even animals had to hide. In that wind, bridges swung like pendulums. Often, rains came with landslides. Mountainsides would become muddy and slide off downhill, taking everyone and everything in its way to a grave.

“If landslides come, my bridges won’t be saved,” said Nabam Tacho to his assistants.

“Till then, they are safe from the wind,” said his assistants.

They were! The winds rattled the chains, some wooden planks broke off, sometimes a tree to which the chain was attached was uprooted, but the chains did not break and repairs were easy.

They were happy. They waited for the winter.

When winter came and the clouds brought snow and sleet instead of rains, Tacho’s bridges were equally strong. The piles of snow on the bridges did not break the chains. The King was happy.

“Make more chains,” he said. “Make bridges all over my land.”

Then he told his ministers to invite Kings from other mountain lands to come and see his bridges, so that they could do the same in their country, for he was a kindly King who wanted everyone to benefit from what his engineer had done.

Soon Nabam Tacho was famous and rich. He was called the “Bridge-Maker” in all the mountainous countries. He had taught them to make chain bridges which made life so much easier.

All the villagers of the countries prayed for him. All the villages had one or more bridges built by Nabam Tacho.

All but one village.

Nabam Tacho’s own village.

*

Their village was some distance away from a river that ran through a deep, but not very wide gorge. Without a bridge, they had to waste time climbing down to the river bed, clambering over rocks and stones and then climbing up again, to the path that led to the outside world.

This was the river that they could not cross that night when Tacho’s mother died.

Tacho had built three bridges across that river. There were very conveniently placed rocks on the river banks, two on either side. It was easy to fix the chains around the rocks and that is what Tacho had done all three times. Yet, the chains broke soon, once at the village end, once at the other end and the last time, at both ends.

“There is something wrong with these rocks,” said Tacho’s father, now an old man, when he came to see the last broken chains and the destroyed bridge. “You can’t use them to secure the bridge.”

“There is no better place,” said Tacho. “The trees are too far away. I will need much longer chains. The bridge will swing dangerously when people cross. What could be wrong with these rocks? They look alright to me.”

“Sometimes, things are not as normal as they look,” said Tacho’s father.

“What do you mean?” asked Tacho.

“I have heard it said,” said Tacho’s father, “from my grandfather’s father, that these rocks are not rocks at all. They are human beings.”

Though Tacho was born in the same village, he had left home long ago. He had not heard many stories that his father and other villagers knew. He waited for his father to tell him more.

“Many years ago, when our country was not ruled by a single King and there were many Kings in smaller parts of the mountains, they often fought among themselves,” said Tacho’s father. “When they fought, the people in different villages became enemies of each other. When the Kings were at peace, we lived peacefully, too and were friendly.”

“How strange!” exclaimed Tacho. “How can you be friendly with someone now and enemy tomorrow?”

“And friends again day after tomorrow,” said his father, laughing. “You have not seen those days. Even I haven’t – but such were the times. Now we have one king who looks after us all, so we don’t fight each other.”

Tacho stared at his father, amazed.

“Anyway,” went on his father, “this happened during such a period when the king of this mountain fought with the king of that mountain. This river was the border of their kingdoms. People from the next village were enemies to people from our village. They didn’t speak to each other and shouted insults across the river when they could.”

Tacho’s father sat down. He was old and could not stand for a long time. Tacho sat beside him.

“Two sisters from our village, who were very beautiful, fell in love with two brothers of the other village, who were very handsome,” said Tacho’s father. “No one knows how this came about, but such things happen. They knew that their parents wouldn’t let them marry. So, one day, the girls decided to run away. When their father and mother had left for the fields, the sisters packed up their belongings and left home. Unfortunately, for them, their mother had to come back suddenly. She found the girls were gone. She ran to the field and called their father. Their father ran back and together, they called the village sorcerer. He told the father and mother to go back home and wait. He told them that he would bring the girls back with magic. He followed the girls’ footprints and reached here. They were waiting for the two boys to come and help them to cross over. He hid behind some bushes and heard them discuss their plan. The sorcerer was a bad man. He thought that he would run away with the girls and marry them both. He turned the girls into those rocks. Then he crossed the river, climbed up to the path on the other side and hid in the bushes. Soon, he heard the two boys coming cautiously, so that they wouldn’t be seen by anyone from this village. As soon as they were near, he turned them into rocks too. Those are the two rocks on the other side. He then jumped out from behind the bushes. He wanted to run back and carry the girl rocks far away. There he had planned to turn them back into girls again, marry them and stay away from this village.”

“Nasty man,” muttered Tacho.

“Very,” agreed his father, “but his plan did not work. The moment he jumped out from behind the bushes, he came face to face with a group of young men, friends of the two boys. They were coming to escort them and the girls back to their village.

“They caught him. They were afraid that he would alert the villagers and when they could not find the two boys anywhere, they dragged him back to their own village. They beat him thoroughly and he finally confessed that he had turned the boys and girls into four rocks – two on each side of the river. They took him back to the river so that he could turn the boys and girls back into humans. By that time it was dark. The sorcerer realised that if he did not run away, he would be severely punished by people of both the villages. He broke and ran. The villagers gave chase. In the darkness, he did not see the edge of the road and fell off the cliff somewhere over there...” Tacho’s father pointed at a point on the other side of the river. “He died. So, the rocks remain, with the spirits of the boys and the girls locked inside them. They are angry spirits. They will break your bridge every time you build it.”

Tacho went back home with his father, thoughtful. He didn’t know what to do. There was no other place near the village where he could build a bridge. There was nowhere to fix his chains.

He went to the village priest and asked him what to do.

“You must pray to the souls,” said the priest. “They were good people who only wanted to be happy. They are angry because they were killed without any reason. They want everyone to be punished. Tell them why you are making the bridge. Tell them how people will be saved if you can make the bridge.”

Early next morning, Tacho went back to the rocks. He carried plates of rice and fish broth. He placed a plate of rice and fish broth in front of the rocks on his side of the river. He told the rocks what he wanted to do. He told them that once the bridge was built, it would save people not only the trouble of crossing the river, it would also save their lives. He apologised to them for their untimely deaths. He told them that the naughty sorcerer who turned them into rocks had also been punished.

He carried the other plate, crossed the river, climbed the path to the two rocks on the other side and similarly prayed to the rocks there. He left the plate of food at the foot of those rocks, walked back to his village and waited for the sun to come up.

When the sun was up, he went back again. There was no one on the river banks, but the food on the plates were all gone. Perhaps the village dogs had come there and eaten the rice and fish. Nabam Tacho and his men wrapped the chains on the rocks. This time they felt as if the chains wrapped around the rocks in perfect grooves to accommodate them, as if the rocks were making space for the chains without even changing shape! They tightened the chains easily, dragged them to the other bank and similarly wrapped them to the rocks there. By the end of the day, the bridge was complete.

The chains didn’t break this time. Tacho travelled the country building and repairing bridges. When he became old, he returned to his village, happy, and spent his final years in a small house beside the bridge he had built with love and prayer.

Many years have gone by and roads have been built on the mountainside. Large bridges big enough for cars and buses have been built in the mountains. Tacho has died long ago, but his bridge still stands beside the big bridge crossing buses and trucks. People still cross Tacho’s bridge on foot. As they pass, they place food for the spirits in the rocks and thank them for their help.

The plates are always empty the next morning.

Perhaps the village dogs still come and eat the food at night – who knows!