Ketan Mehta, known for films like Bhavni Bhavai, Mirch Masala, Holi, Sardar and Mangal Pandey, wields the megaphone for yet another film rooted in the soil of India and we must say that Manjhi-The Mountain Man is, to use its lead character's famous dialogue, 'shandaar, jabardast, zindabaad!'

At one point, more than half way into the tale of the Mountain Man, Dashrath Manjhi, a scribe rues to him that he has become nothing more than a mouthpiece for political parties. Manjhi asks him why he doesn't start his own newspaper. The scribe says you think it's easy to start a newspaper? And Manjhi says, 'Is it tougher than breaking a mountain?' Who can argue with a man who is literally breaking a mountain, striking hard and bruising its pride with a hammer and a chisel for over a decade.

Dashrath Manjhi's is an extremely inspiring tale but surely not an easy one to narrate. Manjhi (played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui) , a fiercely determined man, spends years breaking the mountain's back, because that's where his beloved wife slipped and fell to her death. Twenty two years (1960-1982) later, he manages to do what he sets out to.

There's a wondrous quality to grand gestures, hyperboles holding true and against-all-odds triumph. With so much to be disappointed about and so little inspiration, any shred of truth in extraordinary achievements and impressive individuals infuses hope. Such magnificent reality carries much promise on celluloid.

The film starts with a monologue between a man, Dashrath(Nawazuddin) and a mountain. Wearing blood-soaked clothes, the diminutive hero admonishes the mountains,(captured beautifully by cinematographer Rajeev Jain) that stretch endlessly before your eyes, saying, ``So you think you are too big? Well I'm not stopping till I reduce you to rubble.''

Amongst all the popular genres in Bollywood, the one genre which is fast gaining popularity is that of biopics. The recent times have seen the silver screen mirroring the biopics of many distinguished and iconic personalities. Be it PAAN SINGH TOMAR, THE DIRTY PICTURE, RANG RASIYA, BHAAG MILKHA BHAAG, MARY KOM, Bollywood audiences are opening up to such real life stories. This week's release MANJHI - THE MOUNTAIN MAN, is a biopic of the late Dashrath Maanjhi, who is popularly known as the 'Mountain Man'.

'Manjhi-The Mountain Man' is the biopic of Dashrath Manjhi, a real life hero who moved a mountain in the real sense with his pure courage and unflinching conviction. The film follows the life of Dashrath Manjhi (Nawazuddin Siddique) , who hailed from the Musahar (Rat-eaters) caste, regarded the lowest of the low in Bihar's caste-ridden society.

How do you take the true and inspiring tale of a man who breaks through a mountain to build a path for his villagers and turn it into a flimsy one? Filmmaker Ketan Mehta shows you how. In Mehta's version on the life of Dashrath Manjhi (played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui), his love for his wife is comparable to that of Shah Jahan, the Mughal emperor who had Taj Mahal built in the memory of Mumtaz.

Ever heard of people moving mountains for love? Someone just did that in real life. Not in a novel or a film. Dashrath Manjhi achieved this feat between 1960 and 1982. Manjhi - The Mountain Man chronicles this period in Manjhi's life. It was an inspired act of superhuman achievement. It's a rare and unique story that deserves to be told to the world. But not in a mediocre fashion. A man dedicated his entire life and spirit to a cause. He rose above the limitations of an ordinary existence.

When reality paints images on screen, what transpires is something stranger than the ordinary. The story of Dashrath Manjhi, a man from Gehlaur, Bihar who single-handedly reduced a mountain to rubble to avenge his wife's death (she fell off it), offers great fodder for a feature. Ketan Mehta's biopic dramatises events to offer an exciting tale that salutes his conviction and celebrates his achievement.

A man trying to cut through a mountain with a hammer and chisel is akin to a man trying to walk on water. Dashrath Manjhi, native of a tiny village near Gaya, manages this unbelievably stupendous task he sets out for himself, and in so doing proves that old adage: where there is a will, there is always a way.

Dashrath Manjhi's name needs to be carved out in history for his astonishing work of actually disintegrating a mountain to make a path in Bihar's Gehlor district. The film flows in a timeline where in we see Dashrath (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) growing up in a poverty stricken village post independence. The Zamindari system is headstrong in his village and even twenty years of freedom has not gotten them rid of their caste system and untouchability.

Ketan Mehta's biopic tells the story of Dashrath Manjhi, who carved a path through a mountain with just a hammer and a chisel after toiling away for 22 years in Gehlaur village of Bihar's Gaya district. With a powerful story and adept actors like Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte, Mehta has ensured the film is true to its hero.

Director and co-screenwriter Ketan Mehta brings the stranger-than-fiction true story of mountain man Dashrath Manjhi to the big screen with the aid of dollops of drama. This approach, which liberally draws upon the Bollywood narrative idiom in structuring a tale rooted in harsh reality, might make Manjhi - The Mountain Man more accessible to a wider audience.

Post-intermission, when the film trains its gaze upon Dasharath and his mountain, the film turns into 127 Hours, Bihar-style. Before that, it's an earnest film with a social message. Through all this, Manjhi - The Mountain Man is a salute to the acting skills of Nawazuddin Siddiqui. As you leave the theatre, you'll find yourself giving thanks that Siddiqui caught Salman Khan's eye. At least now he doesn't have to carry the weight of films as unwieldy as Manjhi - The Mountain Man on his shoulders.