Budhia's run

I tried following this ridiculous story on the height of Indian hypocrisy.

This is what I believe is the story...

Budhia is a slum dweller somewhere in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa, India. He is currently 4+ years and is a runner. His mother is below the proverty line.

His coach is Biranchi DAS. He teaches Judo for free and some students, he charges. During one of his jog through a slum, he took a shine on Budhia. He liked the boy and befriended him.
They would meet every day, except on the day he did not find Budhia. Biranchi spoke to Budhia's mother who told him that she had sold Budhia to a street hawker for INR800/-. Biranchi quickly tracked down the street hawker, paid him INR800/- and took Budhia into his fold. He also became Budhia's legal parent and guardian.

Biranchi and his students in his "academy" used to go for jogs in the morning. Budhia was also one the runners. At one time after the customary morning jog, Budhia said he wanted to run some more. Biranchi consented. When Biranchi checked later, Budhi had been running for several hours! Biranchi had also seen a Kenyan marathoner on ESPN. Biranchi thought that the running styles of Budhia and the Kenyan were identical and decided that Budhia was going to be a marathoner. Then on, the pair began training intensively.

One day, Budhia ran a competition for 65 kms. He was encouraged by some CRPF jawans who thought they were doing a great job by appreciating and goading the boy. These jawans did not know or did not care about renal failures, myocardial infarctions, respiratory ailments, electroencephalographs or electrocardiographs. They only knew or cared about achievements or perseverance. These jawans probably were trained to ignore pain and suffering because they cannot really raise their heads from the trenches and call out for time out so that they can stop fearing the spate of bullets for some time. They probably suffer from high blood pressure and temporary kidney failure at that point of time and their heart rates and every thing biological are far beyond normal at that point of time. But what do they know about human welfare. They were only appreciating and encouraging, right?

This is what I believe ...
Nobody really cares about Budhia. I do not think the women and child welfare organisation(s), authorities that be and other entities really visited the slum from where Budhia rose. The highest truths come from the simplest form of sophistication, the mother. She merely wanted to know where were all the media parasites when the slum children were dying. I believe in China, children are picked up from the age of 4 to start training in gymnastics and various other things (notwithstanding the theory that if such individuals or organisations raised their voices in China, they would be blind not to see the army tanks). I believe todays children the world over are being forced to learn colours, shapes, rhymes, rhythms and tables far before their ability to pick such things up naturally. But what do I know about such trivial technicalities, what I do not know will not hurt me, right?

The women and child welfare organisation(s), authorities that be and other entities who claim to protect the child welfare will not feed clothe or bathe the slum children and will not bother to seek and nurture talent, right?

But all this reinforces in a school story I was told ... India is like a box of crabs. Ever see one in a market place, they are always in an open box. The hawkers have no fear of the crabs scurrying away to freedom, because any time a crab tries to crawl out, there are 3 others to drag it back.

viva la inde!