By P. Patnaik and Jatindra Dash, IANS
Bhubaneswar : The tug of war continues over Budhia Singh, billed the wonder kid of marathon. While the Orissa government has arranged for his stay at a hostel, his mother refuses to part with the five-year-old boy.
“I don’t want to leave him at the sports hostel,” his mother Sukanti Singh told IANS. Budhia at present lives with her at the Salia Sahi slum here.
Today it is almost difficult to distinguish him from the other slum children who play with him. He does not wear expensive clothes; neither does he have his sports shoes. In fact, he either wears just slippers or moves about barefoot.
“Women and Child Development Minister Pramila Mallick and her men had assured me they would provide a government accommodation where I could stay with Budhia and my daughters and take care of his study and coaching,” said Sukanti.
“Now they want to separate Budhia from me and want to keep him at the sports hostel,” she said. “Who will take care of him?”
The state government had Monday announced that the boy would be kept at the state sports hostel at Kalinga Stadium here.
“According to prevailing rules, the minimum age for admission into the sports hostel is 12, with the educational qualification of Class 6. But considering the extraordinary talent of Budhia, the government has relaxed the age and qualification limit for him,” a senior official of the state’s sports department told IANS. He will be taken to the hostel soon, he said.
“Budhia will also be awarded a sum of Rs.2,200 per month towards his accommodation and other expenses,” the official said.
The boy himself is sure about one thing. He does not want to return to his former coach Biranchi Das. In fact Budhia says point blank: “Under no circumstances will I go back to Das”.
Little Budhia continues to generate controversy.
He had been sold for a paltry sum of Rs.800 by his impoverished mother to a man as a labourer. But Biranchi Das took him away from the man and he and his wife adopted him and trained him to become a marathon sensation.
The five-year-old boy created a record in May last year by running 65 km from Puri city to his hometown at Bhubaneswar in seven hours. The Limca Book of Records acknowledged his feat. But many also saw it as exploiting the child.
Das had earlier this year enrolled Budhia in the Boxi Jagabandhu (BJB) English Medium School, one of the leading institutions here, as a lower kindergarten (LKG) student.
But he was separated from Das last month after his mother Sukanti lodged a complaint with the police that he had been physically and mentally tortured by the coach.
Police arrested Das. The boy returned to the straw hut in the slum where his mother lives.
Budhia seems to be the biggest victim of this controversy. He has not been going to Boxi Jagabandhu English Medium School since then. Neither his mother Sukanti nor minister Pramila Mallick has so far taken any step to ensure the boy’s education.
Das claims Sukanti is not bothered about Budhia’s studies, as she has to feed all her four children by the dint of hard labour. She cannot afford nutritious food or physical care for Budhia, he says.
But others say Budhia is finally free, away as he is from the restrictions of Das and his Judo Hall training institute.
Das is now busy providing training to four other young boys and says he does not want to take Budhia back. However, he is extremely unhappy over Budhia discontinuing his studies and prays to god that Budhia should be back to school.
He says he will be happy to see the boy lead a respectable life with his family members and bring glory to the country. But he doubts whether under the present circumstances, Budhia will be able to nurture his talent.