End of the road?

Report: D.N. Singh

Bhubaneswar: It was a scene about three years back of a toddler scratching his dust-caked hair and sobbing out of hunger. A lady came out of the shanty hut to wipe his running nose and take the child back into the jhuggi made of polythene. Outside the tattered polythene tents, the world was unchanged. The fading evening lights from the nearby buildings were barely able to disrobe reality. And in that light someone noticed the same lady coming out with that little boy and from behind the darkness emerged a man slowly tip-toeing towards her. The lady was Sukanti Singh who was going to sell her son Budhia. The man was Biranchi Das. That`s how the new morning for 4-year-old Budhia Singh started. Within months the little boy shot himself to fame, as the marathon wonder accomplished a feat of a non-stop 65 km long marathon under the scorching son in March. Then the boy from society’s deprived section suddenly became an inspiration for hundreds of youngsters. Budhia’s coach Biranchi was charged with torturing Budhia and a usually slow-moving police took hardly anytime to push Das behind bars. `It was very clear that all the wounds on his body were at least two-years-old`, confided one of the police officers in the police station where Budhia dragged his mentor to. Undisputably, it was something else between Sukanti Singh and Biranchi Das that had become the roadblock. Exaltation suddenly became passive frustration and Das now cools his heels in the silent terror of the cell. But, now the big question is, where is Budhia Singh? Can he once again weather the cockeyed delusions of the society that had once tried to disown him? There are rumours in town that now the state is ready to take care of Budhia and will make an Olympian out of him. Although, there is no precedence so far that the state government has produced a single such talent at the national or international level from the state. Biranchi may be buoyed out of jail by a legal lifebelt but for Budhia, can he flourish in this peril of liberation?