On the heels of the highly successful sports film Saala Khadoos comes another thrilling tale of the underdog beating impossible odds. Directed by Soumendra Padhi, Budhia Singh: Born To Run is a biopic on Odisha’s Budhia Singh, the world’s youngest marathon runner. By the time he was five, the boy had run 48 marathons, including a 65 km marathon, with his coach Biranchi Das by his side. The film stars child actor Mayur as Budhia and Bollywood veteran Manoj Bajpayee as his coach. It also won the National Award for Best Children’s film and is slated to release on 5 August, 2016.
The trailer opens with Manoj Bajpayee telling everyone that India has never produced a world-class marathon runner, and Budhia is going to fill that void. Marathon running isn’t exactly cricket or hockey; so it’s debatable that Indians can relate to this longing. Nevertheless, the cute kid runs, the crowd cheers him on. We wish for good things. The trailer then cuts to him standing before an inebriated man. He asks for more food. The man beckons him, then gives him a whack instead of food. You expect him to cower, or cry; do something piteous and meek. Instead, the boy grabs a glass bottle from the floor and smashes it on the man’s head. Then, he runs. Passing through the unkempt lanes around his house, without looking back, he runs. The message is clear in the trailer of Budhia Singh – Born to Run: Budhia Singh is destined to run; poverty, hunger, and anything else life throws at him, isn’t going to stop him.
Food, space, shelter, not knowing how to tie shoelaces – all these don’t matter. Budhia keeps running, and the background music keeps beating, undaunted. Scene after scene shows Budhia and his coach hurtling past obstacles and criticism. The coach gives him protein and is upbraided for giving it to such a small boy. His response is to ask, ‘Are you a doctor?’ The trailer doesn’t tell us whether Biranchi Das is right in training Budhia the way he does. It does show that they don’t wait on right and wrong, on ‘proper’ diets, on whether it’s ‘risky’ to have a five-year-old boy run 65 km in 50 C heat. They just keep going.
In the second half of the trailer, the visuals get more menacing. The questions are harder to brush off. “Aren’t you stealing his childhood away from him?”, to which the coach valiantly replies, “all your questions will be answered by Budhia when he runs.” There are no real surprises in a sports film, least of all in a biopic, but the trailer promises a nuanced, realistic, and moving account that can draw audiences in, and make them laugh (Q: Tell the class what you did today, Budhia. A: I shat, and I ran). And whether Budhia will emerge as “the pride of Odisha” or just a “performing monkey” remains to be seen.
Budhia Singh, born in 2002, lost his father at a young age. When he was two, his mother sold him for Rs. 800 to a travelling businessman. Discovered by a local judo coach and orphanage operator, Budhia was cared for and trained to run every morning. His athletic abilities gained recognition when Budhia ran and broke the Limca Book of Records as the world’s youngest marathon runner in 2006. He was just five years old.
While Budhia became the talk of the town, Biranchi Das was accused of exploiting the child for monetary gains. Budhia eventually stopped training under him. In 2008, Biranchi Das was found murdered at a Judo training centre by local gangster Raja Acharya. The murder had nothing to do with Budhia.