I want to start by saying that I DO NOT condone child marriages. In this case however, for the good of Mother India, I think we should all consider the merits of such an arrangement. In the past we have blogged about young (4 year old) Budhia Singh who was running upwards of 30 miles on an average non-competition day. Some overly cautious adults banned him from running marathons in the state of Orissa and charged his coaches/handlers with abuse. Officials said that they didn’t want him to be exploited but I’ll bet it was to protect the other runners (who may have had friends in the government) from embarrassment. Now we get word of another young runner. Meet the hard charging Anastasia Barla:
A 10-year-old tribal girl from a remote village in Sundargarh district ran 72 km in eight hours on Monday but failed to break Budhia Singh’s record.
Five-year-old Budhia had run 65 km non-stop on May 2 in his bid to enter the Limca Book of Records, while Anastasia took a five-minute break after running 58 kms.
Anastasia Barla’s target was to cover 105 km. She began her marathon run from Sundargarh stadium at exactly 5 am amid cheers from a large crowd.
But she stopped at Rambahal near Rajgangpur at around 1 pm, after covering 72 km.
Her coach Dominque Lakra said Anastasia could not achieve the target today as she had ran on hard surface. “The girl is comfortable on soil which is soft…” [Link]
Look, if India wants to get serious about competing athletically on a global stage then they need to start making some tough decisions now. Even if Budhia and Anastasia are held back by the corrupt Indian system, at least their offspring might have a chance to be the great brown hopes. Can you imagine the running abilities of their kids given the genetic stock of Budhia and Anastasia? An arranged marriage seems to this blogger to be the most reasonable course of action. Damn any caste differences if they exist. A modern India calls for pragmatic solutions.
not funny, I show a documentary last night about this kid… child abuse wasn’t far from the mark. You could see the greed driping from the eys of his handler.
His coach even went as far as saying that if Budhia died while running he would be a martyr, therefore there was no reason for him to stop.
disgusting………
I have to agree on the lack of humor in this post. Distance running can be a brutal endeavor. Their young, developing bodies are not designed for that kind of abuse. I’m sorry that they’re in the care of people that see value in inflicting damage upon innocents.
As my mom would say, “A match made in heaven!”..:)
OK I’m not humored by this at all. These distances are ridiculous for a small child to be running. Unacceptable.
Yeah. How about fostering athletic ability in adults?
you know i originally thought this guy budia was missing the sense of pain… yes there is a medical term for that.
but then there was this other guy and now anesthesia all from the same region … i suppose there really must be to these hardy oriyas. no wait a minute… this cant happen… the gene data does not say so and we know the scientists have it all mapped out thus it must be false. off with their little legs.
nooooooooooooo!!! why you gotta take everything away from Africa? huh?
Geez people chill out.
Interesting article – Read this!
I do agree, we need someone to train these kids for a possible athletic future (for both him and India), not abuse for short term fame and money.
The kid must be named Fantasia 🙂
Don’t worry, Abhi, I thought it was funny.
There ought to be a SM post on names! I find the names of (converted) tribals quite fascinating; Gregory, Anastasia, Domnique in Orissa – was there a French or Russian missionary at work there? In Tamil Nadu, you find Lenins, Stalins, Gagarins and Valentinas – clearly the Periyar movement’s admiration of all things Marxist. I’ve also heard of a sikh who was born in 1979 and was called Skylab Singh (not joking). After 1992, there were according to newspaper reports, a lot of little tykes with the name Saddam in Uttar Pradesh. There was a UP cricketer in the 1990s called Ashish Winston Zaidi. Now that’s a true bhelpuri.
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Quizman:
The likes of “Ashish Winston Zaidi” are usually referred to as “Amar Akbar Anthony” names. btw..he still plays for UP.
Boys are better than girls, la-la-la-la-laa-laa…
Abhi, howd your foot get in your mouth
You people seriously do not know how to take a joke do ya? Stop embarassing yourselves…
Not about child abuse, no. Sorry that doesn’t make me as cool as you are.
A pr!est and a 10yr old b0y walk into a bar….
Kind of like the eugenics that led to Yao Ming:
I do hope the above ridiculous remark was made tongue-in-cheek… But that reminds me of an anecdote: When the American dancer Isadora Duncan suggested to George Bernard Shaw that they should have a child, “Just imagine—a child with your brain and my body”, Shaw retorted “But what if it should be the other way around?
Pragmatism, eugenics and modern India in the same breath… please do assure me this was a joke…
Ennis,
It seems like a lot of the successful people are pushed from the start (or even bred) esp. by their parents. May it be musicians, singers, atheletes, sportsmen (and women), spelling bee champs, mathematicians, ice-skaters, gymnasts, tennis players, etc.
i appreciate the funny-making but these coaches are twisted
On a serious side note – how I love me some Limca and Thumbs Up. I found out they’re carried in my local Indo-Pak, along with my favorite: Appy. Pesticides be damned!
I don’t understand this:
Next thing you know these parents will be forcing their kids to enter spelling bees, study for the PSAT in Kindergarten, take the SAT in the eighth grade, and force them to become a doctor.
I thought the article was funny. I got the joke and I fully intend on pushing my daughter to unreasonable limits in order to live vicariously through her in realizing all my unfulfilled athletic dreams.
I love child marriage. Can I be honest here? And nothing, absolutely nothing, beats arranged child marriage. Other than arranged child gay marriage. That’s like a perfect storm of pure cuteness. Should children be allowed to gay marry? I don’t know. Maybe if there, like, both really really cute? If midgets can marry, why can’t children. OK, I’m like being too honest right? But I don’t care. I just want to follow my heart.
The other thing I love is widdle kiddies running and running until their wee widdle hearts almost give out. Oh, how cute! Run my widdle one, run like the wind. Wait, does that make me a bad person? What’s so bad about saying “widdle”?
But, you know what, I think taking five minute breaks is really in bad taste. Like really really. Especially when the record is so close. That won’t do, macaca. Try harder. Don’t let the team down. You’re a model minority, and don’t you forget it.
Abhi_az:
Yes, but does the state “encourage” their parents to marry so that they can have children who are prodigies? Does the state force them to make their child play basketball, even though neither the child nor the parents wants that?
but the state interferes in our day to day life. it tells us pot is bad and i can be imprisoned for smoking pot. it tells us certain vehicles are better for us and prods us to making those selections. the state tells us what land can be owned, for how much and what can be built on it. the state makes these decisions to improve the quality of life for the collective. by extension, it is the state’s prerogative to suggest what a gifted individual should focus her/his talents on for the good of the masses. what’s wrong with this argument?
Achtung! The von Mises weltanschauung smackdown: Rollback the state for it impedes on my freedoms. Achtung again! Kindertotenlieder is the soundtrack for this thread on this wunderkind.
Danke.
I can’t wait to see how many Wimbledon titles the children of Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi win. Probably zero.
well still the good genes wont hurt… and there are some precedents… it could be that having a sportsperson parent provides that extra zip to one’s self-confidence. some examples… that tennis player (Amanda something?) who’s the illegitimate child of the famous basketball player. among desis, leander paes is one. then milkha singh the sprinter’s son is a golfer of some note. i’m pretty sure the graf-aggassi offspring will be able to play at the college level at the least – going beyond is a roll of the die.
First India bans blogs and now they’ve decided to go straight to the source and ban satire as well. Damn, these comments are depressing, except, of course, that of Sr. Kobayashi. Always the good sport, he is.
Yeh Fevicol ki jodi hai
Bindaas
he heh. very funny. vat competition eh! must get to the top hook or by crook!
well, this post + comments is more amusing than anything that’s ever tried to be funny on this site. it’s like listening to roommates argue about who left a dookie in the toilet.
I see more beauty, centredness and potential talent in the tribals of India than in the confused, servile, self-loathing, macaulayite, “english proficient”, colonized house slaves that constitute the indian ‘elite’.
maf54: poor kid but looks like he has endurance lol. their so cute 2. they say what i’m doin is wrong but they just hate gay guys who like drinkin :((
Another bride for Budhia:
8-Year-Old Girl Runs 60 kilometers Per Day