If you ever get an opportunity to visit north-eastern states of the country, you’d be surprised by how innovative the locals are! Especially in the tiny villages which are surrounded by mountains or deep forests, locals have to come up with different jugaads because of lack of basic resources.
For example, in a remote village in Arunachal Pradesh named Gasheng which consists of a small population, locals built a bridge entirely out of cane and cable so that their kids could go to school.
The school is located in a town named Kaying which is 50 kilometres away from their village. The lack of concrete roads and transport facilities forced the locals of the area to come up with this innovative solution.
The kids live in hostels and visit their village once in a while.
A woman named Keerthi, a Zoology student at the University of British Columbia, recently visited Gasheng and its nearby areas. She took to Twitter to post pictures of the bridge and highlighted the kind of struggle these villagers have to go through for mere medical and schooling facilities.
She also mentioned that such bridges get particularly treacherous and deadly during monsoons.
Have a look at her tweets here:
A bridge enroute 'Gate' via the village of Gasheng. Made entirely of cable. We heard that a man from 'Gate' carried a Mithun calf on his back across this. 2/5 pic.twitter.com/fcUUFKkxS5
— Keerthi (@cholanayakar) July 9, 2020
….. and this bridge… This one is made of Cane and cable. That little girl in red at the far back was the youngest. They all schooled in Kaying, a town ~50km from their village and lived in hostels is what their parents said. They visit their village once in a while. pic.twitter.com/j1UsK9BFca
— Keerthi (@cholanayakar) July 9, 2020
These images show the struggle which some people go through to merely access medical and school facilities. The villagers here have access to only one Sumo during the day at 9am leaving from the main road to the nearest town which is ~60km away. 1/2
— Keerthi (@cholanayakar) July 9, 2020
Sometimes these bridges are treacherous and during the monsoons make it a matter of life or death! Think that before Wowing at their craft! 2/2
— Keerthi (@cholanayakar) July 9, 2020
People on the internet are lauding the villagers for such an innovation. Here’s what they said:
Look at this bridge. Local innovation. Awesome. https://t.co/iO39nkiZp6
— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) July 9, 2020
North East is very organic nature is worshipped more than anything
— Nisha rai (@nisharai_ggc) July 9, 2020
Beautiful engineering specially this polygon shapes to distribute load equally to every cable.
— 2 CupTea (@2CupTeas) July 9, 2020
Mujhe bhi chalna h iss bridge par😩, this one is really cute ❤️❤️
— Tanu🌠 (@Jaishre86308357) July 9, 2020
What a beauty!
— Farah Khan (@FaraaahKhan) July 9, 2020
Wow.its very beautiful.
— Sakthi Muthu (@sakthiashrav) July 9, 2020
While we salute the locals of Gasheng for their spirit, we also wish they had access to basic resources so their lives could get easier.