Burma’s Spring: Real lives in turbulent times by Rosalind Russell Page A
Authors: Rosalind Russell
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and inevitable self-censorship would warp my news judgement. While I can see in retrospect that interesting stories were dripping from the walls, in Rangoon’s airless atmosphere I was often stuck for new ideas. ‘Why don’t you go and visit Thibaw’s grandson?’ Thant suggested. ‘He lives up in Maymyo, I’m sure you can find him.’
Thibaw was the last king of Burma, ousted by the British when they annexed Upper Burma in 1885 and abolished Mandalay’s Court of Ava. King Thibaw was a weak monarch, but thanks in part to the ruthless urges of his wife Queen Supayalat (who also happened to be his half sister), his brief reign was marked by brutal purges. Dozens of members of the extended royal family were imprisoned and later massacred – some, reputedly, were trampled under the feet of elephants. The new British rulers incorporated Burma into the Indian empire and banished Thibaw, Supayalat and their four daughters to the Indian coastal town of Ratnagiri, where they lived in comfortable yet diminished circumstances in a house on the Arabian Sea. In 1919, three years after Thibaw’s death, Supayalat and her two unmarried younger daughters were allowed to return to Burma.
*
Eighty-five-year-old Taw Paya, the sole surviving grandson of Thibaw and heir to the Konbaung throne, was living quietly in Maymyo. My guidebook had described thetown’s Home Counties feel and its colonial houses, most famously ‘Candercraig’, the 1920s turreted house which had served as the British officers’ club and was now a government-run hotel. As it was
de rigueur
to avoid such state-run places, to avoid paying into the regime’s coffers, I had chosen a smaller place in front of the lake, a fine red-brick house with mullioned windows, which would have once been home to a British civil servant and his family. I had been looking forward to my break from the city, but my romantic visions of a colonial nostalgia trip were soon doused when I entered the hotel’s dingy formal dining room for breakfast. Any residual Raj-like charm had been extinguished by a boxed-in fireplace, brown nylon curtains and a garish lino floor. The square, teakwood tables were smothered with layers of yellow varnish. My breakfast too was disappointing, but perhaps not far from the colonial reality – a greying hardboiled egg, cold white toast with lurid yellow margarine, and sweet instant coffee.
*
I cycled on past roadside nurseries selling colourful bedding plants. On a gentle rise, I was overtaken by a painted horse cart, driven by a man in a woolly jumper. At the next junction, empty of traffic, I took a right turn into Circular Road, into the heart of the colonial suburbs. Many of the mock-Tudor mansions were deserted, with signs of life concentrated around wooden shacks in the gardens, smoke rising from chimneys, laundry strung up, and bicycles, water drums and gas canisters parked outside. Territorial dogs charged down the overgrown lawns as I cycled past each generously appointed plot, snarling and growling around my ankles.
I knew Taw Paya lived on Forest Road near the Chinese temple, a bright yellow building with upturned eaves which came into view on my next turn. Loud rock music blared from speakers turned to face the street outside a newly built, open-fronted restaurant next door. Opposite was a large, Edwardian brick house, with a well-tended front garden bounded by a high wall. I rang the bell at the gate and the gardener who had been watering the flowerbeds dropped his hose and dashed over to let me in. I wheeled my bike up the driveway and parked it under the pansy-filled hanging baskets while the gardener called through the front door.
Two women came to meet me and, giggling, led me into the dark front room with its large fireplace and heavy wooden furniture. Through a curtained doorway, I could see through to the sunlight of the back garden and another woman crouching down and washing clothes in a wide plastic basin. We all sat, and I
Thibaw was the last king of Burma, ousted by the British when they annexed Upper Burma in 1885 and abolished Mandalay’s Court of Ava. King Thibaw was a weak monarch, but thanks in part to the ruthless urges of his wife Queen Supayalat (who also happened to be his half sister), his brief reign was marked by brutal purges. Dozens of members of the extended royal family were imprisoned and later massacred – some, reputedly, were trampled under the feet of elephants. The new British rulers incorporated Burma into the Indian empire and banished Thibaw, Supayalat and their four daughters to the Indian coastal town of Ratnagiri, where they lived in comfortable yet diminished circumstances in a house on the Arabian Sea. In 1919, three years after Thibaw’s death, Supayalat and her two unmarried younger daughters were allowed to return to Burma.
*
Eighty-five-year-old Taw Paya, the sole surviving grandson of Thibaw and heir to the Konbaung throne, was living quietly in Maymyo. My guidebook had described thetown’s Home Counties feel and its colonial houses, most famously ‘Candercraig’, the 1920s turreted house which had served as the British officers’ club and was now a government-run hotel. As it was
de rigueur
to avoid such state-run places, to avoid paying into the regime’s coffers, I had chosen a smaller place in front of the lake, a fine red-brick house with mullioned windows, which would have once been home to a British civil servant and his family. I had been looking forward to my break from the city, but my romantic visions of a colonial nostalgia trip were soon doused when I entered the hotel’s dingy formal dining room for breakfast. Any residual Raj-like charm had been extinguished by a boxed-in fireplace, brown nylon curtains and a garish lino floor. The square, teakwood tables were smothered with layers of yellow varnish. My breakfast too was disappointing, but perhaps not far from the colonial reality – a greying hardboiled egg, cold white toast with lurid yellow margarine, and sweet instant coffee.
*
I cycled on past roadside nurseries selling colourful bedding plants. On a gentle rise, I was overtaken by a painted horse cart, driven by a man in a woolly jumper. At the next junction, empty of traffic, I took a right turn into Circular Road, into the heart of the colonial suburbs. Many of the mock-Tudor mansions were deserted, with signs of life concentrated around wooden shacks in the gardens, smoke rising from chimneys, laundry strung up, and bicycles, water drums and gas canisters parked outside. Territorial dogs charged down the overgrown lawns as I cycled past each generously appointed plot, snarling and growling around my ankles.
I knew Taw Paya lived on Forest Road near the Chinese temple, a bright yellow building with upturned eaves which came into view on my next turn. Loud rock music blared from speakers turned to face the street outside a newly built, open-fronted restaurant next door. Opposite was a large, Edwardian brick house, with a well-tended front garden bounded by a high wall. I rang the bell at the gate and the gardener who had been watering the flowerbeds dropped his hose and dashed over to let me in. I wheeled my bike up the driveway and parked it under the pansy-filled hanging baskets while the gardener called through the front door.
Two women came to meet me and, giggling, led me into the dark front room with its large fireplace and heavy wooden furniture. Through a curtained doorway, I could see through to the sunlight of the back garden and another woman crouching down and washing clothes in a wide plastic basin. We all sat, and I
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