Wednesday, September 27, 2007

Captive in Myanmar

By Thanong Khanthong

In October 1996, the late Dr Montri Umavijani, who was my teacher, went to Myanmar. It was a trip that he anticipated for a long time.

For when he was a child, he often imagined about Prince Naresuan being held hostage in Pegu in the seventeenth century. After his completion of a translation of the royal barge songs by Prince Thammatibes in the eighteenth century, he was contemplating that some of the works of this Ayudhya prince had been taken to Burma after the fall of Ayudhya in 1767.

Shwedagon Sunset: The gold seemed to lend itself to everything, turning night into something that would not darken.

The tour took him to Yangoon, Bago, Paga, and Mandalay in five days, during which time he searched for the past and traces of the poet prince and the warrior king.

Montri hoped to find some of the writings of Prince Thammatibes, which could be kept somewhere in the archives, in the museums or in the libraries in Burma. He also wished to trace back to the places where King Naresuan used to spend his youth in Pegu as a hostage of King Bayinnaung, the Conqueror in Ten Directions.

Montri confronted the great Shwedagon, or the Gold Pagoda. Unconsciously, most Thais believed that some of the gold of the Pagoda was taken from Ayudhya by the Burmese after the sacking of the Ayudhya Kingdom.

Then there could be some Mon gold too. Still, the gold from everywhere welded and moulded without nationalities or races to form one of the greatest pagodas in the Buddhist realm.

The turmoil in Burma has prompted my recollection about Montri's writing. This evening, I rushed home and immediately went to my study room to look for Captive in Myanmar. I found it stacking side by side with other works of my teacher.

When I pulled the book out of the shelf, I felt a dark vision lurked within. Were the works of Prince Thammathibes and the past of King Naresuan being kept captive forever in Burma alone?

Or does Captive in Myanmmar foreshadow what would transpire today as the whole Burmese people are being kept captive by their own history?

Suu Kyi has already become the ultimate symbol of this captivity, a burden of historical proportion. Her house arrest also symbolises the psychic of the nation, which can't get out of the moving exit.

As the Thais have already let go the bitter memory of the fall of Ayudhya, it is the turn of the Burmese, even with the dear cost of lost lives, to break away from this seemingly unending cycle of self-captivity once and for all. 

Montri found Burma as a country locked up by its own past, clumsy about its present and uncertain about its future. In one of his poetic snap shoots, he wrote:

MYANMAR

I still have not found anything;

I have just seen people strolling about,

adjusting their sarongs at all times.

So here goes Captive in Myanmar, poetic journey into the lost land. Written in 1996, it was a work of unsurpassed sentimental by one of Thailand's greatest poets, Montri Umavijani.

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MYNMMAR TRIP

Writing for five minutes,

before going to the gate

and beginning my journey in a group,

with fear of not finding anything,

not having even my solitude.

AT THE AIRPORT

Suddenly,

the luggage and everything

grew lighter;

was it a sign

that I might find relief

from my lifelong search?

A FEELING

I feel oppressed

by the past grandeur of Burma,

especially as I have to make

a case of my burnt Ayudhya

in its merciless sunshine.

THE TRIP

Will it relieve me

from the dark room

in which I have been laid,

sending in a flash of light

for my final exposure?

THE FIRST SIGHT OF SHWEDAGON

Like a solid gold turtle

sitting on earth

with its head perpendicularly turned

to heaven.

THE GUIDE

She said there were two channels of television:

the military in the morning,

the government in the evening,

but they did not make any difference.

THE PEN

I must try to make the pen work

with some solitude;

it has long been laid aside,

so it might have forgotten the exploits

it had with me.

ON THE STREET

A middling sensual man

took a long time

to fold his sarong. 

WRITING

So far nothing has been found,

the situation is thin air

which may just blow away,

without leaving a trace.  

DETERMINED

I must fight

to gain an inch of ground

ito the ancient kingdom

which once shut my treasures in,

and shut my hopes out. 

THE SHWEDAGON

The sun set on me

with the gold of the Pagoda

as the lingering light

in worshippers' hearts.

THE PAGODA

I walked around the Pagoda,

trying to find the meaning

of my life and past

in connection with it.

A THOUGHT

The gold of the Pagoda

is seen as one,

showing no Mon gold,

no Ayudhayan gold;

on earth, however,

nothing seems to be welded --

the rich and the poor,

so many tribes.

LOOKING

My eyes are riveted on the Pagoda

as the gold that has become one

and anomymous.

THE PEN

The pen mysteriously

woke up sufficiently

to write just one page,

then went back to sleep

in all-seeming indifference.

TOMORROW

I will face Bago

with my slippers fast on,

for the past would come in a rush

after long resting on my shoulders.

SHWEDAGON SUNSET

The gold seemed to lend itself to everything,

turning night into something

that would not darken.

WRITING

Nobody can keep me from writing;

even if they took the whole day,

I can still find some wee hours

in which to be wakeful

despite persistent demands of sleep.

LINES

I must write on

a few more pages

until I catch the sunray

which will make me dream

of the undying light.

WRITING

Only when one can say

nothing has been

and nothing will be

then the present will be born,

with the mind intent on

a growing meaning.

ON THE BUS

People had to vote

whether or not to go again the next day

to the Shwedagon,

and, finally, the five dollar entrance fee

decided against it all.

THE CRUEL QUEEN

I was near enough to her,

the cruel queen of Mandalay,

when I gazed on a faded picture

at the National Museum.

MEMORIAL

On the way back,

the guid pointed out her memorial,

lonely in the city

with all ill will intact.

MEDICINE

I must have a large mind

to be able to swallow a big pill

with just cold water for wash.

THERAVADA

A too strict emphasis

on the historical Buddha

may limit him to just what we know,

not what he could be.

THE SHWEDAGON

I will go up there again

at a different time of day

to see if I will be able to witness

the miracle that keeps night at bay

with the golden rain of light.

MISSION

I may not have a chance

to read in the National archieves,

so I must look for ayudhya in the gold

radiating from all the sacred.

THE PAGE

This may be the last

for the hard day;

I should go to sleep

and dream of writing

my trip to Myanmar.

THE PEN

As soon as the pen

writes more naturally,

I will try again

to catch the meaning of life.

AT THE RESTAURANT

The sea bass taught me

a great lesson in patience,

for it could arrive so late

and devoid of natural taste.

THE RESTAURANT

Its toilet was so humoured

as to punish slow users

by flushing water on them

without any warning.

THE SHWEDAGON

We were supposed to see it

early in the afternoon,

but when we arrived

it was almost sundown,

so many of us snapped their cameras

at the evanescent Pagoda.

MORNING

Nearly six o'clock,

now I have no trouble at all

getting up so early;

in fact, I have to get up early

because of the medicine I have been taking.

WRITING

It might be very hard

to do any writing;

the tour has been exorbitant,

leaving me so little tie

after each long dinner.

BAGO

Everything should be all right:

I have seen the Reclining Buddha

with a serene smile on all losses.

KING BAYINNAUNG PALACE

Many layers of earth

covered up the traces

of his heroic exploits,

the Conqueror in Ten Directions,

exept in the future.

SEARCH

I also failed to find

the traces of my captive prince;

but I was sure wherever he was,

he must have looked at the Shwemawdw

with a thought on Ayudhya.

THE TOUR

We seemed to be going,

like fleeing from one place to another,

with the heat of day at our backs,

and I had great worry

whether I could do the book

I had really come for.

RESEARCH

No research in the Archieves!

What have I come for?

Perhaps the late evening at the Shwedagon

and the hot afternoon at the Shwemawdaw

will answer for me.

CALL

The early morning call

made me realize

another hard day had come.

MYANMAR

I still have not found anything;

I have just seen people strolling about,

adjusting their sarongs at all times.

THE SHWEMAWDAW PAGODA

It sits quietly the blazing sunlight

with a procelain path around it,

like amoat to keep off

the preaching and chanting of monks

from the pavilion.

A CLOCK

It is good

to sit before time

like a pious man

before an altar.

INSIGHT

Probably, if I see

the right thing,

I will have an insight

into many things.

INSECTS

Like a torrent of white bubbling water

are the suffering insects

dancing before light.

AT THE ANANDA TEMPLE

We bargained for life

under the vault of the Temple,

with confusing information floating about

mixed with smell of bats' droppings.

SITUATION

I have not yet had a chance

to contemplate my time,

that is why I have difficulties

with everything around me.

TEMPLE MANUHA

Whether the great Mon king

artistically expressed his plight

by the caged Buddhas,

or he merely erected them in the open

and narrow temples were later built,

amount to the same thing.

CAPTIVE

It seemed every great man

must at one time or another

be capitive in Burma,

and only a few have left

marks of their transcendent freedom.

SUNSET ON THE IRRAWADDY

It seemd the sun had set already,

but I imagined that

with some movement of the clouds,

it might reveal itself to me again.

A WISH

I made a wish

not for my life,

or those dear to me,

but for an uncedrtain thing

called writing.

TOMORROW

Nothing much to pack tonight,

the dinner should be over rather early,

and I can pretend to myself

that I have rested enough

the previous night or during the day

to look into the things I have experienced.

AT THE ANANDA TEMPLE

Even the sad ephemeral atmosphere

still spoke of life

as a necessary thing

for merit-making

as well as for writing.

LIGHT

Light gathered around me,

as I was writing:

there grew a writing desk

and a man in the act

amidst a becoming world.

FAITH

People's faith is remarkable:

they seem to live for the next world,

in view of the lack of everything

in this life.

AT THE ANANDA TEMPLE

While people were getting information

about the period of history,

I was shrinking into

a nameless fear

of what I might have been or done.

CHILDREN

They kept asking for bonbons,

after a few given;

I envied their energy

to feed on something

which made them hungry for more.

SLEEPY

Sleep calls on me,

a book drops from my hand;

there remains more writing to do,

but I must do justice to sleep.

TOUR GROUP

Being with the group

threatens to obstruct my vision,

but I often have a feeling

of the depth of things,

only no strength to descend to it.

SLEEP

I had a good sleep in Myanmar

in which a light dream

of the joints coming together

like the gold of the Shwedagon.

CHILDREN AT THE ANANDA TEMPLE

They seemed to hafe no future,

like tinsels blown off from murals;

I felt very sad that I could not do anything,

even teach them to remember

the high wall they had come from.

BIRTH

I have felt the throes

of a new nation

which will be whole,

in spite of social classes,

in spite of different races,

like the gold clinging to

the great Shwedagon.

IN MYANMAR

Everywhere I went,

be it a temple or a museum,

or even a restaurant,

I felt the change coming up

to uplight people to their needs

hitherto unnoticed and even unknown.

TRACES

If I fail to find traces

of the poet-prince and the warrior-prince,

it is because the sands of time

have covered up everything,

giving me a chance still

to form a vision

of the spiritual and universal.

TIME

I have ten more minutes

to be by myself at early morning

before I will have to join the group

for breakfast, flight, sightseeing

to the end of the day.

TIME

It's a miracle

that I have found time,

the old time like Lear

with his righteous indignation,

so my life here

shall not be lost.

MORNING

It calls me to go outside,

but I am indoors,

busy with a vision.

WRITING

No matter where I am,

if I can finish

at least one side of this bloc,

I will become human again,

with a hope for prosperity.

MORNING

It's good to have time at my service;

I lean on time

soft with feline touch.

BEFORE DEPARTURE

Another ten to fifteen minutes,

not enough time to realise

the greatness of King Anawrahta.

How much human drama happened,

now to be symbolised by

temples and stupas in ruins!

THE HOTEL

They tried to do a good job

without enough experience;

I thought we had done well

to spend no more time there.

TIME

In five more minutes,

I should have a final checking,

and get into my shoes

for the trip to Mandalay.

CYCLE

Will the cycle be complete

and make me come out free again?

I do not know at this momjent,

for I am toiling, toiling.

TRAVEL

There's nothing better

than a running clock

modestly but strictly

before passing time

A PRAYER AT ALOTAWPYE TEMPLE

I have asked for

the energy of life,

or should it be

the energy of art

to keep me living

with a real purpose.

THE PEN

Will the pen come to my rescue,

make me reach Myanmar

with my writing?

WRITING

Not to be able to write on the spot

has cowed my spirit;

but I must come to terms

with the situation

and put everything before my eyes,

when I am writing.

THE PEN

Perhaps with the pen working,

I will try to find a point of attack

to my experience.

SUNSET AT A TEMPLE

The sun suddenly disappeared

into the Irrawaddy River,

like a diver

who took a long time to come up.

AT THE MANDALAY PALACE

I slowly retreated

to the inner court,

stood in front of the Chief Queen'sPalace

until I heard some altercation

and imagined if I stayed much longer,

I would be witness to a scene of carnage

amidst loud curses and lamentations.

AT THE PALACE

I was at once

depressed and detached

to the point of disdaining

to climb the observatory tower.

MANDALAY

When I stay there

only one day,

I do not care

if I am in hell

or paradise.

MYANMAR

travelling in Myanmar,

I have no name,

only a number

on my suitcase.

AT THE SILK FACTORY

I found some excuse

not to buy an expensive silk piece,

blaming it for some defect

which could have just been

a human flaw.

THE CLOCK

I covered up my alrm clock,

heard it ticking away,

and was quite curious

if I opened it,

I might find midnight

or after.

LEAVING PAGAN

As we were heading for the airport,

the guide pointed to

the last pagoda of the period

and gave us to know that

the king who built it realized

he could have left it unfinished

because of imminent Mongol invasion.

THE GUIDE

He said Pagan died

and Sukhothai was born,

as if to instil some life

into my writing.

INK

I squeezed some ink,

enough for a few more poems

before needful sleep.

SLEEP

I slept rather well

in spite of the cold,

got up about five thirty,

 was nearly ready

when the alarm sounded.

YANGON

It showed a stiff face to me,

with some unpleasant

South Indian town air;

I hope it will take on another aspect,

when I return today.

BEDLIGHTS

Just as I was desperate

to turn off my bedlights,

I twisted two radio-like knobs,

and the light went out.

PAGAN

The last pagoda was built,

when the news of Mongol invasion

reached the king,

but he decided to finish it,

even though it would simply be destroyed.

PAGODAS

Was it faith or pride

to build pagodas to reach heavens?

They had the Buddha in mind,

not the suffering of common people,

but it gave everybody

a sense of sacrifice

needful for hard times.

THE DRAWER

The little garbage left in the drawer

will remain for the months, perhaps years,

because nobody cares

to open the drawer. 

THE LONG BRIDGE

It was rather shaky like a bamboo bridge;

to be told that it was made from the teakwood

of an old palace.

I thought what a pity,

what a pity!

UNITY HOTEL

Its name must ring satirical

to the national unity,

so we all got unpleasant impressions

before leaving the hotel.

YANGON

At least I could come back

to regain my old spirit,

so I start to give

and feel once more elated.

MANDALAY

We left it without much grace,

after we saw novices beg abjectly,

after some waiters came on the bus

to demand payment for drinking water.

TRAVEL

Days passed:

many events,

but the thing I have to do

still hangs suspended

like a convict.

THE SHWEDAGON REVISITED

Not so much the gold

as the solem look

the Pagoda gave --

a once solid refuge

from which hands were unloosened

in the act of suffering.

WAYS

Other people could find

interesting nooks and corners;

I prefer to walk in the open,

with my eyes ranging

from earth to heaven.

BODY

For long years,

my body had been covered

with a tumulus of flesh;

by this medicine

the body was chiselled out

till it might stand up again

a statue of man.

EMBLEMS

The desire for gold and whilte elephants

drove those kings

from one end of the world to another,

crossing many pools of blood.

MYANMAR

shall my sojourn in Myanmar

be just mixed up?

I have had moments,

great moments,

but since I was unable

to write them on the spot,

meanings evporated,

visions slowly vanished.

VISIONS

Maybe, I can seize them yet

with the power of the mind

concentrating on lived experienced

to the utmost of my power.

TONIGHT

If I could capture a few things

from my Myanmar sojourn,

I should not remain captive

to a dark dream.

MYANMAR

I only have to live through it

and then my fear of darkness

will be cured forever.

THE PAGE

The page jumped over

in a desire to go to the end,

now I have discovered it

with my fading pen.

PAGES

So i have counted them wrong;

luckily, I found the untouched bead

before it was too late,

rejoicing in the false finish.

AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY

I talked to somebody

about coming back to do my research,

as if my search alone

had not been painstaking.

AT THE LIBRARY

I was carried away

by reading about Ayudhya

to the point of having the library

close on me like a net.

A PLIGHT

Being in Myanmar,

I am closer to Ayudhya

than I have ever been;

my appeal has been made

to the great pagodas and temples

for an end to the dark vision

of a city burning.

BANK NOTES

These bank notes

must have passed through

so many hands,

that's why a dark memory comes out

from my washed hands.

LUCRE

White elephants and gold

goaded ancient kings

to make wars without end;

maybe, memories of those

drive the present ruling class

to keep the people at bay.

THE SULE PAGODA

Something reminiscent of the Shewedagon

made me feel

I could go back there again.

MIXED UP

All pagodas and Buddhas

seen in a rush

are mixed up in my mind,

intensely infused with the sacred.

MEDICINE

The experience in swallowing big pills

had enabled me to take

so many pagodas and temples

in a short rush.

WRITING

As I get down to the last ten pages,

I should pray again

to all sacred things encountered

in a hard brief time.

THE TRIP

I came for two princes,

the prince who was a captive here,

and the prince whose works

were locked up beyond human reach;

may I set free the past

as well as my own life.

THE SHWEDAGON

I walked around the Pagoda several times

before settling down

to pay homage to a Reclining Buddha.

THE RECLINING BUDDHA

The Buddha is depicted

as passing away with a smile,

while a more human disciple sitting at his feet

looks on him with great wonder.

TIME

Time kindly stops for me:

I am writing

at a still point of midnight

where dark and light

are waged equal.

With the equilibrium of the mind

I am trying to penetrate into

the sacred hovering over

human suffering.

DEVIL

A person at the sight of whom

writing ceases to be;

I recognize him in part

in so many people and things.

MYANMAR

About every great man

has been captive here

in one way or another.

what an apprenticeship!

SLAVERY

If I got enmeshed

in an easy gratification of my desire

I would not be able to leave

the prison of the self.

TIME

It's not too late,

only half ahn hour past midnight;

I turn my back to the suitcase lying open

as if in supplication

for someone who has to leave.

SAFEGUARD

I must not let any one

divine about my writing,

especially, as I am struggling with it

to the human limits.

LOST THINGS

The things that threatened to get lost

finally came back to me,

filed slowly before my amazed eyes,

and let me learn how to part with them.

AN EXCHANGE AT THE BOOKSTORE

What a just exchange

between my barge songs and a Burmese phrase book,

nothing for nothing!

SELF-LOVE

One has to love oneself

to think that under these circumstances

anything may be done,

or, maybe, on the contrary,

one can do something only

when self-extinction has been reached.

WRITING

Don't say that I will do it,

when I do not know what I am doing;

if I should listen to others or myself,

I would be swayed by complacency

from my standpoint.

BODY

I must get away with my work

before the body decomposes,

this is the only race I am running

as the purpose of my life.

THE STATUE OF KING BAYINNAUNG

If I do not learn

in these short hours,

how can I face the warlike king

who mocks myh meagre power

with the dust of his kingdom?

FIGHT

I will have to fight him,

or fight against my fate,

with the only thing I can do,

that is, writing without hope.

WRITING

I just have to go to the end,

and all will be well,

for I have tried my my best,

fought my last battle

on a losing ground.

THE TRIP

All through it has been

a spiritual battle

against the powers of the dark

which went to claim me for their own

in view of total failures

coming out of human history.

MYANMAR

Perhaps i come back again,

if only I could set free something,

a heart or a work

lying under the weight

of undying memories.

LOVE

Love is a gift

out of the kind heart,

incited by the gold

of the great pagodas.

BREAKFAST

Maybe, I will have to go down

with the coupon,

since the group has left,

and we look like castaways

on stranded boat.

THINGS

So many things risked getting lost

during my sojourn,

I have just been

at the mercy of them.

MYANMAR

It made me miss

a book of Burmese verse

I read once as a child,

containing crystal clear images

of souls that still were bound to

Buddhism and the love of nature.

THE TRIP

Even something momentous can pass by

beyond my ability to do anything,

like a pageantry of royal barges

sailing down the river of oblivion.

DEPARTURE

I will have a ceremony

of leaving Myanmar;

it has been a war fought

by unseen spirits

for the possession of my soul.

SUSPENDED

Whether or not I get the book done

depends on my energy in decline

by the thought of the setting sun.

RETURN TRIP

I dozed off most of the time,

seeing that there was nothing to do,

no more chance to write.

MIXED UP

I got really mixed up there,

could not tell the currency,

took Pegu for Pagan,

head full of temples and pagodas,

unable to move about as I wished.

GIVE

I give to anybody

who seems to need

but does not ask;

therefore, I was greatly distressed

to see monks and novices

turned common beggars.

MYANMAR

A fiendish king

reduced the status of monks

to that of the beggar;

such an arbitrary interpretation

has had disastrous results

down to the present time.

AT THE TEMPLE

We made wishes at the temple,

mine was to write on

my time n yanmar

and be able to come out again.

MYANMAR

Going to Myanmar

was somehow an attempt

to set free many spirits

which were in captivity there.

My gesture was made

at the Shwedagon,

at the Shwmawdaw,

at the Ananda Temple,

and in everything I did

down to the last moment

of my sojourn.

WRITING

n a desire to complete this volume,

I have left white pages here and there

to which I have to go back

and fill with my thought

in retrospection.

FINISH

The book is nearly done,

a Myanmar, you will live in me

because I have tried my utmost

to look for an empty tryst.

THE COUNTRY

Will I ever go there again?

May not even the prince's manuscripts

lure me back

because I have set them free too,

pronouncing detachment

on all things past and present.

TEA

It is somehow symbolic

that I should finish the book

over a second cup of tea,

for my travel was dotted

with tea-drinking

against the bitter blackness

of the days.

WRITING

No matter how devoid of solitude,

I have found a chance

to write and live;

between loaded moments

of busy annoyance

I dwell in the calm

of the lotus heart.

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