a hundred mile race

Balwant Gargi

        In a low thatched mud-hut the peasants sat and discussed how they could get word to all the villages about their urgent meeting. They asked me what they should do. I could not help them.

Suddenly a low timid voice startled us. ‘Please give me your message. I’ll take it.’ He was a tough looking young man of about twenty in a frazzled shirt and patched carrot-coloured shorts.

‘To which village?’ I asked.

‘To all the villages,’ he replied.

‘All the villages! Do you know that the meeting is to be held tomorrow?’

‘Yes, I know that,’ he insisted. ‘There are only ten or twelve of them...the distance cannot be more than sixty miles. I’ll cover it within a few hours.’

Did he mean it? I looked at him. His thick lips were like furrows in a freshly-ploughed field, and above them spread the bluish down of a moustache which merged into a sprouting beard. He had a long neck, a thin belly like that of a leopard and big knees, round like bronze shields. On his bulging calves there was no hair, only the tattooed figures of two peacocks. His eyes were dull. How on earth could he cover sixty miles in a few hours? Was it that he did not understand what we said?

Inder Singh, an old peasant with a brown gnarled beard, rapped my shoulder with his metallic hand and said, ‘It is Boota Singh... from Bhagoo village. Don’t you know him? He can run a hundred miles at a stretch.’

‘A hundred miles?’

‘Yes. A hundred miles. When he runs he leaves the storm wind behind...’

‘A hundred miles!’ I was puzzled.

‘Have you never heard the name of Boota Singh?’ asked lnder Singh.

‘Never.’

‘Boota is the son of Rakho,’ began Inder Singh. ‘He comes from my village. Soon after he was bom, his mother put him in a basket in the field where she was harvesting and went on with her work. The family lived in one corner of the field under a tattered straw awning. Boota’s father guarded the crops from jackals, pheasants, rabbits and other animals. One frosty night he died of pneumonia. Rakho lived in the field with her little son. She got a small hill dog from a gypsy family. Soon the little puppy grew into a full-mouthed dog. Along with him grew Boota. He would twist his tail and the dog would yelp and howl and romp about mischievously, playing with Boota like an elder brother.

‘Boota’s childhood was spent chasing camels, colts, jackals and squirrels. He would run after the rabbits jumping over hedges, his dog at his heels. He became so agile that he could chase a rabbit, catch it, let it go and catch it again. A rabbit can run four miles, a jackal about eight, a horse forty at the most and the fastest camel not more than fifty miles. But Boota can run a hundred...’

‘How long does it take him to cover that distance?’ I asked.

‘Twelve hours. A horse can run faster than Boota no doubt, but it cannot run a hundred miles at a stretch.’

Inder Singh looked at me and said, ‘If you doubt my word you can test it. Give him the papers and he will deliver them by tomorrow.’ He turned to Boota and said, ‘Boota, my son! Take these messages and deliver them to all the villages. Go, my lion.’

He handed Boota the letters, told him the names of the villages and gave him full instructions to deliver them to the proper persons.

The following day, the secretaries of the peasants’ unions assembled at the appointed time for the meeting. I asked each one of them, individually, who had given them the message. Each one replied, ‘Boota brought it.’

After the meeting was over, Kumar Sain, the lawyer, Jugal Kishore, the retired headmaster, Ajmer Singh, the judge, and a few others gathered around Boota and talked to him. We felt grieved that such a wonder was not known beyond his village.

‘If Boota had a chance to go to London and run a cross-country race, he would make the name of the little village of Bhagoo shine on the map of the world,’ declared the headmaster.

‘Our country is full of wonders,’ added Kumar Sain. ‘We have great divers, wrestlers and hunters but they waste their talent and die unknown.’

‘If Boota can run a hundred miles, no power on earth can stop him from attaining world fame,’ concluded the judge.

An aged military havaldar said, ‘His Highness the Maharaja of Patiala is very fond of games and sports. If somehow we can get this news to the ears of His Highness, he will surely send Boota to an international athletic tournament.’

A cunning, one-eyed petition-writer said, ‘Has anyone tested Boota to see if he can run a hundred miles?’

A bald-headed shopkeeper looked doubtfully at Boota and remarked, ‘A peasant’s sense of distance is very vague. If a man runs as much as thirty miles, he believes he has run a hundred.’

‘Why not arrange a race in our town,’ suggested the headmaster.’ The distance round the big common meadow is about 440 yards. If Boota completes four hundred rounds of this meadow, he will have run one hundred miles. All of us will watch and enjoy it. After this we can plan his future.’ Everybody was thrilled by this proposal.

I asked Boota Singh if he would like to run around the meadow. He blinked his eyes and merely said, ‘As you please.’

Maroo, the village drummer announced the news, ‘Listen, everybody! On Sunday morning at seven o’clock Boota Singh, the famous runner, will run a hundred miles race. The people of the town are requested to visit the common meadow and watch this wonderful spectacle.’ Dum! Dum! Dum!

Early on Sunday people gathered in the meadow to see Boota Singh. He was wearing dull, khaddar shorts and a flamecoloured kerchief tied round his long black hair which was rolled up on the top of his head into a big knot. At seven, the retired headmaster, who acted as the referee, whistled and Boota started his solitary race.

People continued to arrive till eight o’clock. The headmaster sat watching Boota going round and round the meadow with the same speed, in the same posture and with the same machine-like rhythm. The women came flouncing their skirts and sat at one side of the meadow, gossiping about village scandals, deaths and births and watching Boota going round and round.

At noon Boota stopped, drank a jug of milk which the drummer brought for him, changed his drenched shorts which were clinging to his body, combed his hair and twisted it into a ball on the top of his head, tied his kerchief around it and again started running. He ran on till evening and finished four hundred rounds of the meadow by-six-thirty, half an hour before his scheduled time. The sun was setting. In its rays the wisps of Boota’s hair, straggling from his flame-coloured kerchief, looked like glowing feathers. His chest heaved and over his bronze body perspiration streamed.

The crowd cheered him. Two people carried him on their shoulders to the bazaar. The news hummed through the village. Boota said, ‘It is God’s will. His strength runs in my bones. That’s how I could run this hundred miles.’

We gave the news to a local paper and made plans to send him to Patiala for an interview with His Highness.

On the third day, Boota’s mother came from the village. She was about sixty years old, a stout peasant woman with thick lips like her son’s and small bleary eyes. She had come to take him back. We tried to convince her that a great future awaited Boota, but she would not listen to us. She said, ‘I can’t look after the farm. Who will drive away the jackals and rabbits from the crops? The old dog is dead. I am left with no one but my son. I can’t live without him.’

‘Old mother, your son is a world champion and you are holding him in a field under your skirt. His place is not in a remote village but in a city. The world must know about him. You are blocking his career. Don’t be selfish and ignorant and foolish. Leave him with us,’ we all implored.

She listened with distrust in her eyes and then repeated with a grunt, ‘I can’t live without my son. I must take him back with me.’

But when the judge said that an interview with His Highness was being arranged, she agreed.

‘Don’t worry, mother,’ said Boota. ‘Soon I shall go across the seven seas and run a hundred miles race in London and then the whole world will know me. Then we shall be rich and I shall come back to the village. Only I must have a chance to go to London.’

The following day she went back to the village, leaving her son.

He stayed with the retired judge at the outskirts of the town. The judge and his friends played bridge in the afternoon and Boota sat alone outside on the verandah, lost in his thoughts. We had sent two letters, one to the Officer of Sports in Patiala and the other to the Maharaja, and we awaited their replies. Early in the morning Boota would run with his long wild strides to the Post Office to bring mail to the judge. Sometimes in the afternoon he would race to the market and fetch betel leaves, cigarettes, ice or lemons for the people who played cards. The number of those who gathered at the judge’s bungalow to see Boota dwindled. The aura of novelty about him disappeared. Three weeks passed. Boota felt as if months had rolled by.

One day he said to me, ‘Sir, I know a man who was once in the court of the Maharaja of Patiala but now he is staying at Faridkot. He knows the Maharaja very well. If I go to him, he can easily introduce me. Then I can make my way.’

A week later Boota left for Faridkot.

After some time I heard that Boota had gone to Patiala. A long chain of references ultimately led him to the Maharaja’s aide-de-camp, who promised to arrange an interview with His Highness.

Meanwhile the country was partitioned. I shifted to Delhi and lost touch with Boota.

It was sometime in the middle of 1948, the time of the integration of States into the Union. Sardar Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister, was touring the country, negotiating with the Princes.

I was in Patiala that day. There was a big procession. Sardar Patel and the Maharaja sat side-by-side in an open car. People in multi-coloured turbans lined the streets. In the crowd I caught a glimpse of Boota. He was watching the car move sedately behind the military band with its gleaming instruments and well-laced liveries.

I asked him what had happened to his interview. He said, ‘Just now the Maharaja is busy with important affairs of State. When he is free, I shall have my interview.’

I returned to Delhi and did not see Boota for two years. But I kept hearing bits of news about him. He waited at Patiala for his interview. Each time some urgent State matter occupied the attention of the Maharaja. The aide-de-camp asked Boota if he would like to take a job in Patiala instead of going back and forth to his village, wasting time and money. At the first opportunity he would be granted an interview and be sent to the Olympics. This appealed to Boota and he become a watchman in the Royal kitchen. His pay was like a stipend. He had little to do but sit on a small stool, yawn and bask in the sun or roam about in the garden.

Once more his mother came to take him back to her village. But Boota, who had come to know the routine of life in the town, with its delays and red-tape, asked her to return, assuring her that all their troubles would end as soon as he got his chance to go to London. He gave the old woman his salary of the last three months. She tied it in the fold of her skirt and went back to the village.

Boota stuck to his job. Often he felt tired of sitting. Unused to sedentary life, he would shoot off to the bazaar or to the market on the slightest pretext and wander about. Once he stayed off duty the whole day. The matter was reported to the manager of the household and then to the higher authorities. Boota was summoned, sharply rebuked, and threatened that if he left his post again, he would be summarily dismissed. Then there would be no possibility of his going to the athletic tournaments ever.

It frightened Boota. He blinked his timid eyes and promised to behave more responsibly in future. After the warning he become punctual and cautious.

A year later, I went to Patiala to appear as a witness in a case before the judicial court. After a tiring day, I was standmg on the road, waiting for some conveyance when I saw a cycle-rickshaw slowly approaching. Beside it hobbled an old woman with a stick. When the rickshaw came nearer I recognised Boota sitting in it. He was wearing near khaki shorts and fine leather shoes. His shirt and turban were new. He greeted me with a smile and the driver halted the rickshaw.

‘How are you, Boota?’ I asked.

‘By God’s grace and your kindness I am quite well, thank you,’ he replied. ‘His Highness is away at Chail, his summer place. As soon as he comes back, I will be granted an interview. My name is at the top of the list... I hear an athletic team is going to London in the autumn. I hope to be selected...’

I looked at him and asked why he was riding in a rickshaw.

The old woman heaved a sigh and moaned, ‘Oh, my son! My Boota was a free bird. Eternal sitting on a watchman’s stool has been hard on him. Blood has curdled in his thighs and has gathered in his knees. Look, how swollen they are! Oh, my heart!’

She beat her breast with her fists and wailed, ‘Now I am taking him to the hospital to have his knees treated.’

I looked at Boota. His once shield-like knees were now puffed and bulging.

He looked at me with his animal eyes. His lips opened like a freshly ploughed furrow and he said, ‘The doctor is treating me with electric instruments. In a week my knees will be healed and I shall be able to run. Then sir, I’ll go to London and run a hundred miles race...’

The rickshaw slowly crawled along and I stood there watching the mother and the son till they were lost in the distant curve of the road.