Lack of Proportionate Realities

Hard to believe, but yet another instance of children being encouraged to engage in difficult physical and psychological endeavours that would create difficulties for fit and experienced adults, has emerged out of India. A few years back there was the notorious manipulation of a five-year-old boy whose natural athletic abilities were recognized and encouraged beyond reasonable parameters for a child.

Budhia Singh, whose exploits as a gifted runner became a sensation, made history and world news when it was revealed through film footage aired on international news media that he had successfully run 64 kilometres in several hours' time at the ripe old age of five years. From what I saw personally on the footage screened in the news, the little boy looked anything but pleased with himself at the conclusion of the run.

It seemed clear that he had been encouraged by those who should have known better, to over-exert himself. He looked pained and exhausted, and none too triumphant. And it was bruited about at the time that grooming that child and encouraging him to engage in such a super-human effort would have a deleterious effect on his organs and long-term health.

Now another child, a 9-year-old girl whose proficiency as a swimmer was noted in her school swimming pool in northern India, has caused her to be groomed as a long-distance swimmer. Preparatory to encouraging this little girl, Shristi Singh, to become an international celebrity by swimming the English Channel, she has been exploited in a way no child should be.

In her school swimming pool she swam for sixteen hours and 33 minutes, covering roughly 40 kilometres non-stop. This achievement was lauded by her swimming coach, who is preparing her for bolder experiments in a child's body's ability to tolerate the seemingly intolerable. "Now that she has swam non-stop for 16 hours, I don't see any reason why she shouldn't go for the channel" said her coach.

She already trains for up to 8 hours a day. Child welfare authorities in the country aren't quite so certain that this plan is one to cheer on with great enthusiasm and total lack of concern. One local government official has cautioned: "Swimming continuously could damage the child's organs and retard her growth. We don't encourage such feats."

However, her father has outright rejected the very thought that he had coerced his child to perform so magnificently. He is prepared to encourage her well-coached ambitions. "If she can make money by swimming, what's wrong in that? Whatever she makes it would be peanuts compared to what cricketers get in India."

And that's just it: sounds as though the man has peanuts for brains.