Show Boy

DESPITE the fact that the first chapter of the Budhia story is heart-wrenching, it failed to make it to the headlines. It went unnoticed when a poor widow from a Bhubaneshwar slum sold his son for Rs 800. But things changed when a judo coach Biranchi Das adopted him and took note of the boy’s insatiable urge to run and his stamina. And as Budhia hit the road he was soon caught in a jam.

The coach on a bicycle and a heavily garlanded Budhia alongside became main focus of the travelling show that extensively toured Orissa and also ventured to Delhi. Soon the child that was once on sale became everybody’s main concern. State Child Welfare Board, Orissa Council of Child Welfare, State sports minister, chief minister blamed the coach and mother for exploiting the child.

PT Usha said the kid should slow down, Olympic star Daley Thompson met Budhia in Delhi and advised the coach on grooming his prodigious ward. But whenever the mike was pushed to the marathon kid he just said, ‘‘I just love to run’’. And it was evident that he has been tutored when he would add, ‘‘for my country, my state and my coach’s judo club’’.

THE tug-of-war around Budhia just showcases the typically Indian tradition of reducing rare talent into a freak show or a tamasha. When Bela Karolyi first saw the barely five-year-old Nadia Comaneci doing those perfect summersaults in the backyard of a Romanian primary school he didn’t hire a caravan and move all over the country. Nadia and Bela spent countless hours to concentrate in the gym — they aspired for a Olympics medal and not a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest girl with the maximum number of summersaults.

No one heard of Ma Jung and his Army until they broke every existing middle-distance record by his teenaged runners. Budhia needs to spend time on a synthetic track under scientific guidance and not on a tarred road with a healthy crowd cheering him and a vociferous group of protesters waiting for him at the finish line.

It remains to be seen if Budhia’s early promise can see him become an international athletics star but he has helped India figure in marathon trivia. Fauja Singh has been famously the oldest marathon runner the world knows and now Budhia can be the youngest. They can be of novelty value at any meet but that doesn’t guarantee India’s position on the podium.