No one has loved a bridge more than Lt Col. Nicholson, the ramrod-straight officer in The Bridge on the River Kwai whose obsession with the structure he and his men built ends in tragedy.
Perhaps it is time to set the record straight: an octogenarian in Bengal’s Nadia has been displaying as much, if not more, devotion as the colonel to a bridge and certainly much longer.
Rajkumar Pal, 82, has been cleaning the bridge with his bare hands every single day for the past 23 years.
The retired headmaster had immersed himself in the tireless upkeep long before Prime Minister Narendra Modi made Swachh Bharat fashionable.
Pal has a concrete bond with Jugal Kishore Setu, the bridge across the river Churni in south Bengal. In 1984, it was his relentless effort that moved Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to sanction funds so that a 185m two-lane concrete bridge could come up to connect Aranghata and Khisma in Nadia.
Now, Pal is on his next mission: seeking proper illumination for Jugal Kishore Setu. “I have written to the Khisma gram panchayat and the chief minister. The panchayat said it did not have funds for the project. I am waiting for a response from Nabanna,” said Pal, a former headmaster of Ghoraghata Primary School in Nadia.
Since the bridge was inaugurated in 1995, Pal has been its de facto custodian, arriving at 9 am every morning to clean it with his hands.
Pal, a resident of Aranghata, sees a touch of religiosity in this. “This bridge is named after Jugal Kishore (another name of Lord Krishna) because there is a Krishna mandir on one end. When I feel His presence on the bridge, how can I use a broom on it? My hands are enough.”
Other residents and district officials alike have been heartened by his efforts. “He cleans the bridge — the road and the rails — every day and spends four hours on keeping it spick and span…. I have been watching him doing this for the past 23 years. I have never seen any exception in his routine. He arrives after taking a bath and in fresh attire, as one would to a puja,” said Chhayarani Das, a resident of Aranghata.
Pal’s relationship with the bridge goes back to a different political era and he fondly remembers how Indira made his dream of a bridge on the Churni come true.
“The bridge was a necessity,” recounted the retired headmaster while explaining how students missed school because they and their parents were unable to cross the river.
Frustrated, Pal wrote to district and state authorities, but was repeatedly turned down. He also wrote to then chief minister Jyoti Basu for a bridge, but he apparently expressed regret, citing funds constraints.
Pal finally wrote to Indira, who sanctioned Rs 2.33 crore for the bridge in 1984.
Pal recalls: “After a series of communications, Prime Minister Gandhi allotted Rs 2.3 crore in central funds in 1984. But she met her untimely death shortly after. Jugal Kishore Setu was finally constructed in 1995 by Mackintosh and Burn Ltd.”
In 2014, grateful residents affixed a plaque onto the guardrail of the bridge commemorating Pal’s efforts.
The plaque does make Pal happy, but his biggest pride is the cleanliness that marks the bridge. Although he doesn’t know much about the structural stability of the bridge — a common question since the Majerhat bridge collapse in Calcutta earlier this year — he is happy that all the government agencies are now taking extra care for upkeep of bridges.
Pal is a well-known social worker in the area and received an award from the Centre in 2001 for his work on the local census. PWD officials in the area are also grateful to Pal for his daily commitment. A PWD official said: “With Sir around, our work has been made easier.”
Pal stressed that the bridge needed proper illumination. “Lighting, solar or otherwise, would be immensely helpful for people who use the bridge in the night as it reduces the chances of accidents…. Besides, if there is proper illumination, the upkeep can also be carried out after sundown,” he said, awaiting a reply from chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s office.
