Pyapon
A Karen Township
Southern Burma
Behind the Line of Control
1949–1950
The town was actually an enlarged village that had developed a haphazard infrastructure out of necessity, taking upon itself the need to support a swelling populace descending from the hill tracks near the Thai border; families that had sought to escape from the war of attrition between the insurgents and the government troops. Otherwise its features were typical of Karen village, with bamboo houses elevated on high stilts. The stilts were a geographical and climatic exigency which prevented these houses form being washed away during the torrential monsoon that poured upon the region seasonally. The wealthier of the inhabitants used teak instead of bamboo.
Pigs and buffaloes—the main domesticated livestock of these simple people—milled about the mud, sparking an occasional quarrel when an animal strayed onto a crop of vegetables painstakingly grown by a neighbour. Almost every home boasted of a coop of chickens, a pen of ducks or a gaggle of geese, while the earlier inhabitants owned, in addition, acres of rich paddy land.
The people themselves personified a state of existence which was untouched by the inhabitants and complexities of urban living. Their festivities were great moments of excitement, pronounced by a sense of joyous abandon when the young and supple would energetically entertain a mesmerized community with native balladry and their spirited traditional dance—rapturously hopping in and out of the clashing bamboo, the movements of their nimble feet dictated by the rhythmic beat of an ancient folklore.
Gloan Na Na Gloan Na na
Too Ley Ley au Ley, Too Ley Ley au Ley Hey
Too Lay Ley au Lay
Too Ley Ley au Ley
These occasions would be heralded with a display of colours, for the entire community would adorn their best, bright and distinctive tribal costumes, differentiating age and gender and bringing out the inherent friendliness and generosity of the people. Every home would have a ready menu of the choicest food, and would not let a visitor depart without relishing the exquisiteness of its hospitality.
These quaint people could have easily been taken for pagans or animists until one saw the big gathering at an unostentatious church on the hill on a Sunday morning—all singing with their lovely voices, with touching choirs and solemn hymns, praying to God and Jesus Christ with fervour for deliverance from their sins and protection from an occasional wayward Burmese soldier. Generations ago, an evangelical Adoniram Judson and his fellow missionary George Broadman, spreading the Gospel along the pagan hill tracks of Burma and unmindful of the perils of death and disease, had reached these white Karens and converted the majority of them to Christianity. In 1828, Judson found in Ko Tha Byu, a fierce guerrilla fighting the Burmese, their first Karen apostle. Tha Byu spread the message of Christianity, and since then, those converted have remained staunch Baptists.
But much before the Bible reached them, the Karens talk of a golden book which depicts the creation of man—stunningly, an echo of the Old Testament’s Genesis!
The book, according to them, said that Father God created heaven and earth and having created heaven and earth, He created the sun, the moon and the stars. Having created the sun, the moon and the stars, He created man from the earth. Having created man, He created woman from a rib out of the man. Having created woman, He created life. Having created life, Father God said, ‘I love my son and daughter; I will give them my great life’, and took a little portion of his own life, breathed into the nostrils of the two persons and they came to life, and were real human beings. He then created food and drink. He created rice, He created water, He created fire, He created cows, He created elephants and He created birds.
Having created animals, Father God said, ‘My son and daughter, your father will make and give you a garden. In the garden are seven different kinds of trees, bearing seven different kinds of fruits. Among the seven, one tree is not good to eat from. Do not eat of its fruit. If you eat it, you will become old, you will die. Eat it not. All else that I have created, I give to you. Eat and drink to the full. Once in seven days, I will visit you. All that I have commanded, you observe and do. Forget me not. Pray to me every morning and night.’ The Karens made sure that they never missed on Sundays.
Life was good to him, thought U Saw Too fleetingly on one such Sunday morning. He was an elder and respected widely by the townsfolk. His family had plenty to eat and clothe themselves. They lived in a large house, the only one built with brick and mortar— considered an edifice of wealth in the community. Complying with the Japanese occupation forces for supply of food and route directions, and the British for intelligence gathering on their return to Burma, his family had survived the Japanese occupation, the allied bombing and the repercussions of the abortive insurrection. All seemed well with U Saw Too’s family for the present, except that Dora wasn’t satisfied.
Dora was his fourth child and had, since her young years, displayed a precociousness which had surprised him, for he hadn’t expected it in a daughter. She saw no future in the town and was disenchanted with the prospect of settling down with a townsman and perpetuating a life of tediousness, nor was she enamoured with the prospect of being widowed by a local hero. Like a few of her generation, Dora had yearned to seek emancipation from the confines of provincial life, and longed instead for brave new horizons in the quest for self-discovery. She had done well at school and was equally successful at the secretarial institute, and was ready to test her mettle in a large city environment. She was confident of doing well in Rangoon.
U Saw Too had his own apprehensions about the future of the town, although he seldom spoke about them. The town, he knew, had a commercial significance for the KNDO; like many other towns, it was not free of its filial ties with the KNDO. Apart from the purchase of goods and medical supplies, the KNDO had occasionally fallen back upon it, seeking temporary sanctuary after a raid across the line of control. What saddened U Saw Too was that, whether it was a question of political obligation or moral rectitude, there wasn’t a way of stopping this dangerous traffic; the prevention of commerce or the hiding of a fugitive.
It would only be a matter of time before this placid little town lost its beatitude, he sighed with regret. There was already a murmur spreading among the youth, their imagination inflamed by the exploits of some leaders against the Burmese. Audacious and unorthodox, these leaders were creating a legend of their own and becoming venerated by a cult-prone youth, feared U Saw Too, but what alarmed him was the nature of some of these exploits.
The insurrection was a wound yet to heal in the national memory, and in the absence of a truce or negotiation, military skirmishes were to be expected in the defence of one’s ideals and principles. But penetrating into the army camps deep in Burmese territory and massacring soldiers was outrageous, felt U Saw Too, with disdain. He was further appalled at the news of rail bridges being blown up along with the trains, including non-military ones, inflicting death and injury upon innocent civilians.
All these were inexcusable provocations that would only tarnish their cause and strengthen the government’s resolve to avoid dialogue, U Saw Too thought wearily. He was, therefore, not surprised at the reprisal of the soldiers—deplorable as they were—whenever they chanced upon an unsuspecting Karen village across the line of control; plundering, burning and killing some of the luckless villagers who hadn’t escaped. It was a small price the Karen people were paying for the adventures of a few foolish men, he thought, but for how long the price would remain small, he wondered.
The government was predominantly Buddhist and pacifist, the army still adolescent and weak at the moment, mostly engaged in police action in a country that was going through the throes of political evolution, but U Saw Too’s wisdom warned him that the situation could change and when it did, he had no doubt that the Burmese would exact a stiffer price from his people.
As U Saw Too was engrossed with his concerns of the future for the Karens, he noticed a fellow elder who was a covert visitor from Kawthoolei on a regular intelligence-gathering mission. The elder passed him and whispered, ‘Sea Prince has blown up a bridge again, I heard.’ After a pregnant pause, ‘Full of soldiers…full of soldiers,’ said the man, his eyes aglow with awe.
‘What! Sea Prince?’ stuttered U Saw Too in disbelief. ‘Again?’
‘Yes, Brother Saw Too,’ replied the elder, ‘last night.’
‘But the papers said that he was shot dead by the soldiers last month!’
‘The papers tell you mostly what the government tells them, Brother Saw Too,’ replied the fellow elder. ‘The man is indestructible.’
‘Yes, yes, I suppose so,’ U Saw Too replied hesitantly.
The papers had reported, recollected U Saw Too, the death of Sea Prince several times, but each time a report came, the elusive Sea Prince would arise from the ashes like a phoenix and blow up another bridge—waiting until the next report when he would blow up yet another bridge. Sea Prince was a self-styled commander who assumed fancy names and preposterous ranks that usually hovered between brigadier and general. He went by the title of Tharah, which was an equivalent of the English ‘Master’. And now he’s blown up another bridge, U Saw Too learned from his fellow elder.
‘Did you say a military train?’ asked U Saw Too, suspecting the contrary. ‘Where were the soldiers going?’
‘They are after Alexander. You must have heard of his attack on the Burmese garrison.’
‘Ah! You could be right,’ U Saw Too remarked. He had heard about the attack as well, and shuddered at the mention of Alexander’s name.
A contemporary of Sea Prince, Alexander was another growing legend of a ubiquitous Karen general who was a master military tactician. His specialty was attacking garrisons of the Burmese Army. Ruthless and uncompromising in his beliefs, the Burmese Army had, on every confrontation, suffered staggering losses at his hands. While Sea Prince remained enigmatic and surreptitious with his escapades, this general had the habit of firmly imprinting his signature on his exploits, and was famed for forewarning the enemy of his impending attack. He was known to never have taken prisoners, and was feared by the Burmese. This Karen general, flushed with incredible success, even had the audacity to sneak into Rangoon to visit a mistress. The Karens themselves rarely contradicted him, for there were none amongst them who had the temerity to tame the violence in this general.
‘I hope there weren’t any civilians on the train,’ said U Saw Too.
‘What difference does that make?’ countered his fellow elder. ‘It’s the civilians who are sending these troops, aren’t they? The Burmese have to realize that they can never dominate us and the sooner they give us what we want, the sooner we will leave them and their bridges alone.’
‘Brother, don’t you see that all this will only hurt us and undermine our cause?’ implored U Saw Too. ‘The Burmese papers will only write stories of Karen atrocities and the world is going to believe them.’
‘We aren’t worried about the world or what it thinks,’ snapped the elder. ‘Look at what that Indian did! Sent a shipload of arms just when we were about to capture Rangoon.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m talking about—international opinion,’ argued U Saw Too. ‘We aren’t legitimate in the eyes of the world yet, and the only way we can achieve it is by negotiation. Even the British left us stranded.’
‘Yes, you see? It’s exactly what I mean. The world is not going to help us, and it’s up to us now to find a place under the sun for ourselves, our wives and our children. We have no other way,’ the elder insisted.
‘The government will send more and more soldiers until there will not be a Karen left to go to the negotiating table,’ retorted U Saw Too.
‘Ha!’ scoffed the elder. ‘Let them just try. As long as we have the likes of Sea Prince and General Alexander, no soldier of the Burmese Army will dare come near us. There won’t be a bridge left even if they wanted to.’
U Saw Too recoiled at the elder’s remark and wisely decided to refrain from further talk. He had no desire to provoke the elder into denouncing him as a traitor to the KNDO, who were a bunch of ill-disciplined hot heads as far as he was concerned, and was certain that the lack of discipline in the ranks had been the chief cause of the failure of the insurrection. The Indian shipload of arms was still a week away when they began losing their grip on the initiative. The KNDO didn’t seem to have a major or a colonel, let alone lieutenant and captain in their clandestine army—they were all generals, U Saw Too thought sarcastically, and didn’t know whether to laugh or to be angry when he suddenly felt a great anxiety from the ignorant youth who would spill their blood, extolling these legends. He grieved for a generation of maidens who would never attain motherhood.
‘The Burmese don’t understand the meaning of negotiation. They understand force, Brother Saw Too,’ the elder nodded his grey grim head in finality. ‘Just pray that we don’t run out of heroes like Sea Prince and Alexander.’
‘Yes…yes, of course,’ hastened U Saw Too in reply, concealing his personal misgivings.
These were the kind of legends that U Saw Too feared most, the kind of legend that had a double edge—one, of a criminal, and the other, a hero; a kind of legend the youth worshipped and a kind of legend that would pervert the original perspective of the cause of nationhood for a people.
Even some right-thinking elders had succumbed to these legends, confirming sadly to U Saw Too the need of a people for their heroes. All these thoughts were storming his mind when he remembered that he had to take Dora to Rangoon the next day. The girl had been difficult and wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise. She wanted to leave the town at the earliest opportunity, and stay with a relative’s family in the city until she secured suitable employment.
U Saw Too was perplexed at the changing values of this generation. Imagine! She, his daughter! Daring to go to Rangoon? And demanding from him her freedom? On the other hand, he thought in resignation, it must be God’s will for the better. After a pause, he foreboded that the town would hold no future for many of his people.
I will take the river to Rangoon, he decided, at last wanting to avoid the train.
U Saw Too wasn’t very comfortable with the thought and the image of Tharah Sea Prince or his lurking ghost stalking a bridge in the dark.
*
The Irrawaddy River
The waters were of an old river. The Irrawaddy had its tertiary origins in the Himalayan heights. And in later times, when its upper waters were no longer fed by the Tibetan Tsan-Po and in angry demonstration of geographical will, it gathered its momentum from the Chindwin and its twin. Altering character at its confluence and rebelliously coursing through a changing topography in its strife to attain an independent identity, the brownish-yellow surge rushed along with strong currents, carrying away in its torrent debris and refuse of man and nature. And as it neared Rangoon, the river, now burdened with the constantly shifting silt and slush, revolted again and burst into several fractious estuaries, each choosing to travel a different path to self-realization, and its ultimate integration with the Timeless One—the Indian Ocean.
It was symbolic of the torment of a nation grappling with its karma for its ultimate attainment of nirvana. The river had seen the tumult of time devastate this land and, in ancient times, had attested to the birth and purge of local kingdoms, the invasion of foreigners and its own aggression of a southern neighbour. It had seen its great King Anaurata embrace Buddhism, and abolish an evil practice prevalent in the kingdom. Known then as ‘Pun-Ooh Hlu’, the ritual called for the first seeding of the bride by this ecclesiastic segment of their society, whereby the priests had first claim to the nuptials in the land.
It saw Thee Baw, the last king the country was to have, and his vicious queen named Suphahla, whose sadistic delight was in having those who fell from her grace buried alive while she watched elephants walk over the soft mound of earth, crushing the bones of her hapless victims, spirited away on a British ship to an Indian coast where they would be imprisoned for life.
From the boat, Dora could see the magnificent Shwedagon pagoda towering from the river bank with its beckoning golden glitter under the sun, silently promising, as it had in the past, the peace and culture of ahimsa amongst the people of the land, and hoped that her decision to come to Rangoon was indeed the right one.
‘Thank you, Father,’ she said as father and daughter got off the boat, making their way to the city.
U Saw Too remained silent and wondered how many of his family would soon follow Dora, with the hope of escaping the mundane and make a living in Rangoon. He might consider moving to Rangoon himself if things were good enough, he thought, but that had to wait a while, for there were things in town to attend to. He left his daughter in the care of his relatives, providing her with some money, and took the boat back to Pyapon.
Dora was now in Rangoon, a wish fulfilled. And in a few days’ time, she occupied herself with the task of self-support and independence. Rangoon was a city rebuilding itself. Japanese war reparation and Allied compensation were pouring into the country, and the city was fast resuming its commercial significance in South East Asia. With its developing port, shipping increased; with shipping flourished numerous shipping companies. Indians, Singaporeans and Hong Kong-Chinese, and even the Japanese, poured in to forge profitable partnerships in a country that was experiencing a prospering post-war economy.
Managerial and administrative, clerical and secretarial staff, and all kinds of employment opportunities became available to those found enterprising and competent enough to shoulder the responsibility of running these businesses. Dora found no difficulty in obtaining a niche for herself in this post-war prosperity of the capital, and was soon sitting in the office of a Japanese shipping company, awaiting her interview for a secretarial position in the company.
‘Send her in,’ sounded a deep baritone that was authoritative but pleasant. Dora had never been more surprised in her life until she met face-to-face with the source of the impressive voice. He was an Indian!
Stanley sat behind the desk and looked at the applicant, assessing the candidate for potential in the demanding and overworked environment of shipping. It didn’t occur to him then that his Asian dream that had eluded him all along was to culminate with the interview.