Let Budhia Run in Peace...

57

A tiny, thin, bony boy is running on a 36.8 degree Celsius and 94 per cent humid day on the busy Puri-Bhubaneswar highway. His lolling head sways; his trembling feet grope for the concrete ground beneath; his sweat-washed face has exhaustion written all over it. 65 kilometers is a long distance. Even the Masai tribes from the Rift Valley in Africa, who took the long distance event in athletics by storm in the late last century, would agree. Even the best of wandering-- but walking! -- tribes of the yore would nod. Even the hard taskmaster Junren--notorious for his turtle blood soup and grueling training schedule--would have taken the boy in his now disbanded army which descended from the high mountains of China and stunned the world by running away with a bagful of medals and world records. Budhia Singh is special because he's only four! That's....