He no longer gets felicitated by state governments nor does he get film offers as was happening in May 2006, when as a five-year-old he ran a controversial but record-breaking distance of 65 km under a sizzling sun from Puri to Bhubaneswar.

Today, Orissa’s marathon prodigy Budhia Singh is just one of the 144 inmates in a government sports hostel, housed in Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga Stadium. The only signs of his stardom are visible when outsiders or journalists have to seek permission from the director of state Sports and Youth Services Department to meet the eight-year-old.

It was on May 2, 2006 when Budhia, a child from Bhubaneswar’s Saliasahi slum, shot into the Limca Book of Records for running 65 km in seven hours under the watchful eyes of his coach Biranchi Das, who was credited with discovering his rare talent. While awards and money followed, controversy too became a part of the child’s life as he became the object of a tug-of-war between his coach and the Woman and Child Development Department and human rights bodies, who alleged that the boy was being exploited. The state Government then banned his marathon running and put Budhia in the sports hostel in September 2007 for “special care”.

On April 13 last year Biranchi was shot dead by criminals over an unrelated personal dispute, ending his trysts with controversy.

Today, Budhia no longer starts his day by hitting the tracks as he used to do when he was with Biranchi. “He has to go to school. That is a priority. So we don’t make him run more than 4 km a day. Most of the time, we make him do conditioning exercise. Though his endurance level is high, he is just a kid,” said athletic coach Arun Das.

... contd.