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| Lynti Jingkyrmen Kharjarin |
As nine-year-old wonder kid, Lynti Jingkyrmen Kharjarin blasted across the finish line, people hugged and raised her so high she might have well seen Budhia Singh jogging away down the horizon.
If our memory fails to reach Budhia of Odisha, let’s recap. Budhia who ran from Puri to Bhubaneswar (65 km) at the age of 5, is one of our many failed dreams.
Such dreams, in a cricket-crazy nation, are built like sand castles for those brash moments of pride and pleasure before these crumble with the slightest wave of reality.
With Budhia our collective aspirations ran and ran out of steam and lost out on many precious things, like Budhia’s childhood. The murder of his coach Biranchi Das’ followed and of course the dream to hoist the tricolor on the highest pedestal went off-track.
To start with Kharjarin is another beautiful dream. She has won the Pinkathon held in Guwahati recently. She came first in the women’s 5k long distant running.
Immediately after Guwahati, the same girl came second in the “10 km marathon” organized by the State Government during the recent National Milk Day.
What is highly commendable is that she came second in the open category and competed with some fine “adult” athletes from Mawkyrwat, West Khasi Hills – probably the Mecca of long distant running in India now – and rest of the State.
There is more: Kharjarin came second with a timing of 46:14 minutes in the race. That’s about 7.5 minute per mile or 4.6 minute per kilometer.
Anyone into long distance running would vouch that a 6 minute per mile is awesome and Kharjarin’s 7.5 minute can be termed as promising because of her age and also the terrain she ran on.
The 10k distance she covered was from Polo grounds to the State Central library which has an elevation of about 74 meter overall on an undulating terrain and freezing temperature in the morning.
Like Budhia, Kharjarin also comes from an economical backward family. Her parents are farmers from Sakwang village in Mawkyrwat and she has seven siblings.
She too is being guided by her local coach Jomsingstar Ramsiej, who recently received his coaching certificate from Kolkata and is an athlete himself.
“Kharjarin’s diet…she takes normal food. We train regularly sometimes running long distance, sometimes through rough terrain and on other days fast walking,” Ranseij informed about the kid’s daily training regime.
It all sounds fine till here, but if Kharjarin were to compete with the Kenyans or say the Ethiopians one day, as she dreams of, it would need more than normal food and training she gets now.
This is where the Government needs to step in and of course those enthusiasts who are into long distance running to support the kid. It would be great if this Class 4 student from Tenset Secondary School is provided a scholarship.
If in another four to five years she keeps on running, the Government must assist her in not just in getting her better sports gears (not like the one’s she wore in the last race,) training facilities and all necessary support.
But most importantly, she shouldn’t be pushed to achieve greatness so as to snatch away her childhood and lastly not paraded as a trophy like Budhia.
