The Pamban Bridge is situated in Tamil Nadu, India. At the entrance of the bridge you can see a picture of a weeping man holding some human body parts close to his chest.
This bridge was built during the British rule in India and it was constructed in such a way that the center portion of the bridge could be lifted with the help of huge wheels, so that ships could easily pass under the bridge. On the bridge, roads and rail tracks are laid for trains and other vehicles to pass.
A middle aged man was appointed to roll the wheels up and down when ships arrive. Once he saw a train slowly approaching, while he was pulling back the bridge after a ship quietly passed beneath. He had to pull back quickly or else there would be a fatal accident and thousands would have died.
At that time his 9 year old son came with lunch. When he saw his father struggling with the wheels, he kept the lunch box down and started helping him to roll the wheels to put the bridge back. Suddenly his son's finger got caught inside the wheel and he started crying out. At this time if the father tries to save his son, the bridge could not be put back on time. He had no other option but to ignore his son's cry. With all his strength he kept on rolling the wheels to down the bridge. As the wheels rolled on, his son slowly started slipping away into the huge machine.
Tears rolled down his father's cheeks, but he ignored his son's cry. If he tried to save him, the train will surely fall into the sea and thousands of people will die. Slowly the boy's whole body fell into the machine and his father could hear his bones breaking one by one, until with a loud sound, his head cracked.
The train with thousands of passengers slowly rolled on the rails, without knowing what had happened there.
Though this man performed his duty honestly he lost his only loving son. With extreme lamentation, he pulled out his son's body parts from the machine and held it close to his chest and cried bitterly.
British Government honored him greatly and in memory of this incident they placed the picture at the entrance of the bridge.
14 comments:
Where can I find more information on the Pamban Bridge story?
Google it.. :)
Awwww. This is sad.. I saw a video about this in my school during chapel time. But I did not know that his brones broke and his head cracked.. O.0 But I know that he fell inside the hole or something =// It is very, very sad. Hope the boy rest in peace in heaven. =)
Surely, God has a purpose why it happens....Though sad to the fathers side but an encouragement to many...Let's be inspired..
For God so loved the world.
I was associated with the conversion of Pamban Bridge from Metre-gauge to Broad-gauge from July 2006 to March 2007
and remained associated even after the section was opened for railway traffic, till June 2008. I made several trips
not only to Rameswaram, but also to the bridge. There appears to be some melodrama associated with the story. All
that appears in Google may not be Gospel Truth. Details are missing from the story and there are some incongruities
as well.
Now some facts:
1. There is no such picture/ painting placed at the entrance of the bridge, at least since 2006.
2. There are not one, but two lifting spans, each having its own gear mechanism for lifting/ lowering. There is a
bridge-operator's cabin associated with each span. Each span has two decks - one on either side, and a set of
operators work on the handle at the same time - at least 3 persons-a-side, i.e. a total of 12 persons.
3. In addition, there are two persons who coordinate the command for opening/ closing, because the spans are
interlinked, and unless proper sequence is followed while lowering/ lifting, the spans may not sit properly and the
rails would not close.
4. The decks are at a different level than the cabin - say about 5 metres higher, and the cabin was about half a
metre higher than the rails in MG period (now about 1 metre). One has to climb to the deck in order to operate the
crank moving the gears.
5. When the lifting spans are opened by about 10 degrees, the entrance to the bridge-operator's cabin gets blocked
by the span itself and nobody can get in from the railway track side.
6. Presently, there are signals at either end of the bridge, which cannot be made green (permissive aspect) unless
the spans are properly closed and locked. This situation, however, could have been different in distant past.
Now the incongruities:
1. It is supposed to be lunch time. The driver of the train would have certainly seen that the spans are lifted. He
would have stopped the train.
3. Suppose the boy was the son of the bridge operator. There is no gear in his cabin. Also, how did he enter when
the entrance gets blocked by the span when opened?
4. The bridge operator would be guiding the closing, standing outside the cabin, giving commands to the crank-
operators at the decks and coordinating with his counterpart on the other span. In this case, how did the boy get
near the gears?
5. Suppose the boy was one of the crank-operators' son. The entrance to the deck is through the cabin landing. How
did the boy enter?
6. Assume that he entered somehow, he had to get to the deck. He would not know his father was working which of the
four decks. Even assuming that he was working the deck he got up to, there would have been at least three persons
working the crank on that side. There is no place for a fourth hand at the crank, though the deck can hold more
people. In fact the operators have to move on the deck while the pinion moves on the rack.
7. On the deck, there is a rack-and-pinion arrangement. There is no way you can put your finger between them
because the crank is at the pinion and the operators are standing on the deck to crank it.
8. If a finger does come in between the rack and pinion, the combined strength of three persons (or even a motor)
would not be able to pass it, though the finger might get cruched. It would have to be removed before the pinion
could move ahead.
In conclusion: A touching story indeed. But is it true?
My home town is Pamban...
AN I havden't sen any picture of a Father with his son's remainings...
My parents and grand Parents even dont have any idea about this story...
Is this true really??
I cant believe this story...I havent seen any such pix so far...even my parents nd grand parents are not aware of it
This story reminds me of the the corner stone event in history (some 2000 years ago) when the God of the universe gave His only Son (Jesus Christ) to die for every person that would believe on Him! It is the only way you or I could ever have been saved from our sins!
IF NOBODY HAS EVER SEEN THE PICTURE,THEN THIS IS A FALSE STORY
i hope it is not true at all. i had cried after reading the story.Thank you Hemant Kumar, for saying that it might be false, by giving such detailed analysis!
This story is highly scattered all around the internet although at various forum discussions it has been seen that the above story is false.[3][4] There is no such picture at the entrance of the bridge, according to the locals. Neither is this story known to locals as fact or hearsay from previous generations. The story seems to have been entirely manufactured on the internet.
The earliest known version of the story appears as Christian propaganda, and since then the story has been spread in many Catholic schools. The propaganda attempts to draw a parallel between the father's alleged sacrifice of his son, and the sacrifice of the Christian God in sending his son Jesus down to Earth.[5] The propaganda itself, created in 2008, was not original, and was based off an award-winning 2003 Czech film, Most.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamban_Bridge
This story may be a result of wonderful imagination; but I wish that the entire humanity would know that Jesus Christ indeed became a sacrifice for each and every human being in this earth, including all guys who commented to this blog. The amazing truth I want you all know is that JESUS does not belong to any religion. There is only ONE God for all human beings, who is the Creator, your Father, irrespective of their names. Father as the father in this story revealed to the entire humanity through Jesus HE died taking all the punishment that you must have received for your wrongdoings in your life and today lives for YOU. Even if you believe it nor not Jesus shed HIS blood drops for you friends. If you believe this truth, then that truth will set you free. And believe me, I just wrote down these lines not as a propaganda but to convey the ultimate reality that people are misunderstood as religious propaganda.
This story is a copy of the 2003 Czech film, Most.
I have been to that bridge. Its a massive one, you need a group of people to manually operate the lever mechanism. Everyone knows in the british era, there were no automated systems. Single operator thing comes only when the mechanism is motorized. This is a hoax, just like many other hoaxes.
Great story would fit right into a Hindi movie
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