Rangoon 2019
Pablo Neruda was posted as Chilean Consul to Burma in 1927
Pablo Neruda was posted as Chilean Consul to Burma in 1927
Neruda wrote evocatively of Myanmar’s bustling, multiethnic colonial capital:
“The street became my religion. The Burmese street, the Chinese quarter with its open-air theatres and paper dragons and splendid lanterns. The Hindu street, the humblest of them, with its temples operated as a business by one caste, and the poor people prostrate in the mud outside. Markets where the betel leaves rose up in green pyramids like mountains of malachite. The stalls and pens where they sold wild animals and birds. The winding streets where supple Burmese women walked with long cheroots in their mouths. All this engrossed me and drew me gradually under the spell of real life.”
Today I walked around the multi ethnic multicultural part of Yangon, capital of Myanmar
the length of Anawrahta Road..
It is like taking a step into the cultural past
A person who had lived here 70 year ago, like Pablo, would instantly recognize the scene..
betel leaves lay flat with dabs of whilte chalk waiting for customers in flimsy little carts, while the areca nuts are piled in a corner..
while the recent modernization affected the young of the Burmese society, these grandsons of immigrants from India dress like they did a century ago.
I was walking among them as if I was in a dream.
I am lucky that I am mistaken for a Burmese by most people, my external symbolism has no meaning for them. I look Burmese so they speak in Burmese to me, I smile weakly at them.
In one glance, you will learn to know whether the person is a muslim or a hindu; indian or bamar, and each goes about their routines, no sense of dislike or hatred and certainly the atmosphere is relaxed. Burmese of Indian origin sit or squat in their longyis and burmese shirts, their attire not changed, they chew betel nuts which gives their mouth the colour, a shade of red.
My mind drifted back
centuries perhaps
Damascus
Baghdad
Jews would have done the same thing, they were busy with their shops and their little businesses, distinct in their dresses but like in Burma, all speaking the same language and greeting each other with warmth.
Here along the street, one does not get any bad feeling when one views one dress or another, a hijab or a burqa or a turban or a long coat.
Today alone, I went by a Tamil temple and entered yet another Tamil Temple where the devotees were singing and the young priest was dispensing blessed foods.
Once again I prayed for the same four people I have been praying for .
Two of them are sick, one has conquered Cancer and the other a very bright child
After saying Kaddish, the jewish prayer for the dead for the late Moses Samuels, I prayed once again..
I entered a store to greet Aung Kyaw Kyaw a painter. At another store the old lady who used to print my business cards had dim vision and just ignored me but her niece did recognize me. A man named George spoke perfect English from his colonial days..I was calmed by the gleaning tower of the Sule Pagoda..
People with faces from all over the world, all major religions, but they all move around like clogs in a watch...
I felt so content
Palermo and Jorge Luis Borges
Cuernavaca and Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Rangoon and Pablo Neruda
all in the past one month..
I ducked into a shop selling perfumes and i admired the thanaka paste on the face of the woman and made some pleasant conversation. When I left the woman gave me a bottle of the Thanaka paste ..which i plan to use as it truly has medicinal properties to rejuvenate ones skin.
why such generosity of the spirit?
even though there has been some modernization of the Myanmar society, the general gentle warmth of the burmese remain intact
I am certain of that ..
