The Prodigy vs. The Normal Boy

Debates are meant to end in a resolution, with one side prevailing over the other or – more often than not – both sides conceding some ground and agreeing to settle for a middle ground. But this one has dragged on for close to seven years now with no end in sight. One is talking about the debate over what is right for Budhia Singh: training and preparing him to be a future marathon champion or allowing him to be a ‘normal’ child; leaving him in the care of a dedicated coach like the late Biranchi Das or providing him ‘scientific’ training that does not take a toll on his tender body; acknowledging the fact that he is a prodigy and grooming him accordingly or rejecting the claim that he is made of some special stuff altogether.
There are forceful arguments to back each of these positions. Those who believe that he could have been groomed as a possible marathoner say champions are made not by pampering children but by putting them through the rigorous training regime that is the lot of every aspiring athlete. A ‘normal’ child leading a normal life with his/her share of fun, mischief and toffees, they maintain, can never become a champion. The counter argument is equally unexceptionable. A child is a child and nothing is more important than his/her childhood – not even the prospect of an Olympic medal some day.
Budhia’s present coach Rupanwita Panda, while acknowledging her ward’s amazing endurance, points to the fact that he was made to run marathon distances at a very tender age with not enough gap between two runs by his erstwhile coach when even adult marathoners are advised to undergo a one-month long period for recovery after every run. Running marathons frequently could have proved fatal for him, she says. But the other side says for all the ‘scientific’ training that Budhia has had at the Sports Hostel, he is not winning even school races, forget about running a marathon. It sincerely believes that for all practical purposes, Budhia has been ‘lost’ for good. The rejoinder to this argument by the votaries of the scientific training school is that Budhia has never really been a short distance sprinter; he has always been a marathoner and his strength has always been his ‘endurance’ rather than his speed.
Budhia’s endurance, however, is one thing over which there is very little argument. He can still take six laps at a stretch of the 400-meter track where he trains (the maximum allowed by his present coach) without any sign of fatigue. His coach still believes that he can be a very good middle distance runner, if not a marathoner, in future. She points to Budhia’s steadily improving timing in doing the laps to justify her belief. But at the same time, she is emphatic that rushing things at this stage could be disastrous.
Meeting Budhia recently was an eye opener. The boy that one met in Kalinga Stadium bore very little resemblance to the Budhia of yore who lived in the Judo Hall in BJB Nagar. He has grown bigger, taller and fairer (may be it is the ‘scientific’ training that has done the trick). He is a much mellowed child now. Gone is the fun-loving, mischievous and at times irritable boy with wild mood swings. In its place, there is now a 10-year old who listens to you with rapt attention, speaks confidently and coherently (though the peculiar twang remains) and even joins his hands in a ‘namaste’ when you finally bid goodbye. The shoeless, shabbily dressed Budhia has been replaced by a neatly shoed, immaculately dressed boy of 10 who even speaks a smattering of English these days (after all, he is studying at one of the most sought after schools in town – the Chandrashekharpur DAV School).
It is clear that his days at the Judo Hall are a hazy, distant memory for Budhia. It does not appear that he misses his old pals at Judo Hall much. He does, however, remember and miss his first coach. He gives the distinct impression of a happy, contended boy at ease with his surroundings and circumstances.
Certain things, however, remain unchanged. As was the case in the Judo Hall, he is still the baby of the team in his new abode – the Sports Hostel. All other boarders of his hostel are at least four years older than him. (The minimum age for entry to the hostel is 14, Budhia being an exceptional case.) Like in Judo Hall again, he is apparently loved and pampered by all his seniors in the hostel.
The distance from the Judo Hall to the Sports Hostel inside Kalinga Stadium is no more than seven kilometers. But in traversing that distance, it would seem, Budhia has stepped into a whole new world. The promise of an Olympic medal in marathon is now a long forgotten dream. He now strongly resembles the ‘normal’ boy that many wanted to make out of him. A ‘normal’ boy who plays a bit of sports!