What if I say that there is a national record set in the year of 1978 which is unbroken till today, would you believe it. I am not sure but many would say unbelievable or there must be something going on out here.

Shivnath Singh, a legendary long distance runner that India has produced and his career peaked from 1973-1980 and he set a record timing for the Marathon in the Nationals of 2:12:00 in Jallandhar which is not yet broken by any other India.

Shivnath Singh’s humble background is something which has not been highlighted during his peak years and even after his untimely death in 2003 at the age of 56. He was born in a poor family in a village called Manjharia, Bihar. Manjharia is a nondescript small village about 10KM from Buxar with very limited resources.Incidentally Shivnath Singh is the only sportsperson from current day Bihar that has qualified for Olympics and like many others from India, he ran barefooted for most of his running career

As many youth from villages aspire to join army from these villages, Shivnath Singh also join the Bihar Regiment on Indian Army which is where he honed his skills as runner. He started with 5000/10000 m races but his rivalry with Hari Chand where Hari has a upper hand in these races coaches asked Shivnath to run the Marathon.

There are many of the achievements that can easily jotted down here but this write up is not about that. The youth today seems to be lost in these villages, alcoholism and narcotism is very common. The story and role models are people who are able to make money by hook or crook. Everyone has forgotten the real role models who came out of similar circumstances and excelled in national and international events. There needs to be a story built around people like Shivnath Singh and governments should recognize that these role models can be easily identified and there are many ways to easily do this.

We as Indians gets divided by so many things caste, region , wealth and what not. Ideals like Shivnath Singh are the ones who can help us to get over these. Can even one youth is thinking in villages like Manjharia to break 2:12:00. Already the world record is 2:01:39 which is more than 10 minutes faster than Shivnath’s record.

Should we not build a story so that youth can come out of the slumber and start chasing dreams like these. I myself who is very close to the village of Manjharia did not know about achievement of Shivnath Singh which is not just sad but also bad for our society where real role models are missing.