Long live the chaaya kadas of the world. Then be it a European sidewalk café, a Bombay tapri, a Kerala thattu kada or the Burmese tea shop. This is the best place to take a deep breath, sit back with a cup of steaming tea and enjoy the world go by. It’s here that I put my rule number one of my very own `travel survival lessons’ into practice. Always keep your eyes, nose and ears open to the sights, smells and sounds around you.
So, while Ameena and I rounded off my Mandalay visit over a cup of tea, my eyes trained on the psychedelic coloured cream cakes, which looked more sugar paste than cream, in the glass cabinets of one of the popular `Burma Tea Shop’, I tuned my ears to the cacophony of chatter around me. Ameena informed me that, the tea shops in Myanmar were the venue for striking business deals of all kinds. Men, mostly in colourful checkered lungis and women, in bordered or floral lungis, raised banter. While it was impossible to see young women or for that matter young men, hanging out at the tea shops in Mandalay, the older women folk looked very comfortable sharing table with men and discussing business over a cup of tea.
South and South East Asian society is pretty much conservative. But perhaps even more so in Myanmar. Having kept the rest of the world out of the country since independence, Myanmar is far behind in all things fashionable and glamorous. In fact, it was difficult to see people in a costume other than the lungi, except in Yangon. Most Burmese men I saw on the streets and tea shops were `rice beer' pot bellied. Donning their lungi like a skirt, with a protruding bunched knot on the belly, with huge cheroot like local cigar in one hand, and guzzling strong tea with the other, they do make an interesting sight.
I did wonder about the checkered lungis when I visited a cottage weaving unit at Mandalay. Especially the pattern, tiny and large intertwining or simple squares, in earthy shades of all colors, is so popular all over Southern and Eastern India. What came to my mind were the Early Historic records of the weavers of Paithan in Maharastra, and their community’s subsequent spread to the regions of Deccan, Central and Western India during Medieval periods. In more recent times, the colonization of Myanmar by Indians, and particularly by people from the Deccan, could have influenced the fabric patterns at the weaving units set up by the Britishers.
Besides colonization’s, the country was also a hotspot for rebel exile. The veteran freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak was exiled at the Mandalay Prison between 1908-1914. There are also stories about large number of Mappila rebels who were deported to Burma and the Andaman after the 1921 rebellion in Malabar region of Kerala. In fact, there are a large number of people from the Malabar region in Kerala who went to Burma those days. One eminent Malayalam writer, U A Khader, was born there to a Burmese mother and a Malabari father from Koyilandy. The stories of U A Khader are strewn with memories of his early days in Myanmar, making the writer seem more Burmese, than a Malayalee. Another famous Malayalam writer, Punathil Kunhabdulla, also has similar Burmese connection. His father, from Vatakara in Kerala, lived in British Burma for a long time before returning to Malabar. While in Burma, he married a Burmese woman and raised a family. Recently, Kunhabdulla toured Burma in search of his Burmese cousins. Like some of his stories, his recent travelogue on this trip, has several references to his Burmese past. The presence of the multitudes of Indians in Burma also brings to mind the poem `Assam Panikkaar’ meaning `workers from Assam’ by the famous poet Krishna Warrier.
In that sense Myanmar was a perfect melting pot. It is now difficult to disentangle the various threads from India, Nepal, China, and Thailand from this tapestry called Myanmar. The cultural ethos is predominantly Buddhist, and perhaps that’s why it wasn’t too difficult to accommodate the various strains from the above four nations. Except for a few savory items, the modern eating habits in Burma are more akin to Chinese and Thai cuisines. The flashes of modernity in Yangon are all a reflection of the ever growing contingent of Burmese in Thailand.
This melting pot was always boiling over with social and political strife. Right from historical times, the country has been at political cross-roads. In recent history, all minor and major clashes by displaced locals and rebel ethnic groups were controlled and contained by the British forces. Myanmar’s involvement in the WWII further deteriorated the nation. It resulted in large scale migration of human population across the borders. Thousands died on `The Trek’ across the Indian border. Many rich merchants and traders moved their business to the islands of Malaysia and Singapore. A massive contingent of Indians, Chinese and Burmese labour force moved to the islands mostly as Rubber plantation workers.
Today Myanmar is the poorest nation in South East Asia. Constant political turbulence, corruption and mismanagement of nation’s resources has stagnated and isolated the nation. It has become famous for its transnational drug trade. Myanmar is the world’s 2nd largest producer of opium and a major player in the `Golden Triangle’ of drug trade across its northern border with China and Thailand. Most of the coveted Burmese red rubies and yellow sapphires, from the Mogak mines, near Mymyo, get sold in the black market. The working conditions of the miners at these quarries are just one of the many human rights violations in Myanmar.
Myanmar is awaiting a revival. Seeing the wealth of heritage and culture in the regions around its heart called Mandalay, one cannot but wish for it. The world needs to see and know more of this forgotten landmass. Experience the life around the fertile plains of the Irrawady and at the Yangon delta. And while at it, take time off to appreciate the fine silversmiths and their splendid filigree work at Saigon, the exquisitely embroidered carpets, with stuffed appliqué work and sequins at Inwa, the leather string puppets with dazzling embroidery and wooden heads at Amrapura, and to take a stroll along the line of stalls by the Irrawady, selling water-colour paintings by contemporary artists, most of them repeats of a popular scene or portrait. This fascination with water-colour art, I learned, was also a left-over British tradition, when the white sahibs and memsahibs took time off to paint the `quaint’ life along the Irrawady. Yes, its time to start afresh.
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