Friday, December 11, 2015

ေဒၚခင္မ်ိဳးခ်စ္ – စာေရးဆရာဟူသည္

ေဒၚခင္မ်ိဳးခ်စ္ – စာေရးဆရာဟူသည္  (မိုးမချပန္လည္ဆန္းသစ္) ဒီဇင္ဘာ ၈၊ ၂၀၁၅

နတ္ေတာ္လသည္ ျမန္မာျပကၡဒိန္အရ ကုိးလေျမာက္လျဖစ္သည္။ ထုိအခ်ိန္တြင္ လူႀကီး၊ လူငယ္မ်ားတုိ႔၏ အေတြးမ်ားသည္ ျမန္မာစာေပႏွင့္ ကဗ်ာမ်ားဘက္သုိ႔ ဦးလွည့္၍ေနၾကသည္။ လူႀကီးမ်ားက ေရွးေခတ္က ေအာက္ေမ့ဖြယ္မ်ားကုိ ျပန္လည္သတိရၾကသည္။ လူငယ္မ်ားက သူတုိ႔၏စိတ္ကူးယဥ္ အိပ္မက္မ်ားဆီသုိ႔ လွည့္သြားၾကသည္။
က်မကေတာ့ က်မ၏ပတ္ဝန္းက်င္တြင္ လူႀကီးအရြယ္သုိ႔ ေရာက္ၿပီဟု အမ်ားက သတ္မွတ္ၾကပါသည္။ သုိ႔ေသာ္လည္း က်မ၏ႏွလုံးသားကေတာ့ ငယ္ေနဆဲျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ထုိ႔ေၾကာင့္က်မ၏အေတြးမ်ားသည္ လူႀကီးအေတြးႏွင့္ လူငယ္အေတြးတုိ႔ေရာစပ္၍ေနပါသည္။ လူႀကီးကဲ့သုိ႔ေရွးက ေပ်ာ္ရႊင္ခဲ့ပုံမ်ား၊ စိတ္ၾကည္ႏူစရာမ်ားႏွင့္ ေၾကကြယ္ဖြယ္ရာမ်ားကုိ ျပန္လည္၍သတိရပါသည္။ တစ္ဖက္တြင္လည္းေန အနာဂတ္သုိ႔ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ခ်က္မ်ားစြာျဖင့္ ေမွ်ာ္ၾကည့္မိပါသည္။
ပစၥဳပၸန္ကာလကုိ ေရွးဦးစြာ သုံးသပ္၍ ၾကည့္မိပါသည္။ ထုိအခါ က်မေတြးမိသည္မွာ ယေန႔ေခတ္ လူငယ္စာေရးဆရာမ်ားသည္ အလြန္ပင္ကံေကာင္းၾကပါသည္။ အေၾကာင္းမွာ သူတုိ႔၏ေရးသားခ်က္မ်ားကုိ ထုတ္ေဝေပးသည့္စာေပတုိက္မ်ားစြာႏွင့္ ဂ်ာနယ္မဂၢဇင္းမ်ားစြာရွိေနေသာေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ စာေပဆုိင္ရာ နယ္ပယ္အစုံတုိ႔တြင္ နွစ္စဥ္ေပးေသာ ဆုမ်ားလည္းရွိပါသည္။ ၄င္းအျပင္ စာေရးဆရာမ်ား၏ အခြင့္အေရးမ်ားကုိ ကာကြယ္ေပးေသာ အဖဲြ႔အစည္းလည္း ရွိရန္အတြက္ ႀကိဳးပမ္းေနပါသည္။
(ေဒၚခင္မ်ိဳးခ်စ္ ထုိေဆာင္းပါးကုိ ေရးသည့္အခ်ိန္ကား ၁၉၆၆ ခုႏွစ္ ဒီဇင္ဘာလျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ဘာသာျပန္သူ)
ယေန႔သည္ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ စာေရးဆရာမ်ားႏွင့္ သတင္းစာဆရာမ်ားအသင္းကုိ ဖဲြ႔ရန္အတြက္ ျပင္ဆင္ေနသည့္ ကာလျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ယင္းကာလတြင္ စာေပအတုိင္းအဝုိင္း၌ ေဆြးေႏြးေနၾကေသာ ကိစၥမွာ စာေရးဆရာဟူသည္ အဘယ္နည္း ? ဟူေသာ ေမးခြန္းျဖစ္သည္။ ဤ ေမးခြန္း၏အေျဖႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ ထုိအသင္းဖဲြ႔စည္းပုံ၏ မူၾကမ္းတြင္ လူတစ္ေယာက္ကုိ စာေရးဆရာအျဖစ္ အသိအမွတ္ျပဳရန္အတြက္ ဝတၳဳရွည္ သုိ႔မဟုတ္ ေဆာင္းပါးမ်ား သုိ႔မဟုတ္ ကဗ်ာမ်ားအေရအတြက္ တစ္ခုခုကုိ ပုံႏွိပ္ေဖာ္ျပထားျခင္း ရွိရမည္ဟူ၍ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
အသင္းဖဲြ႔စည္းေတာ့မည္ျဖစ္သျဖင့္ စာေရးဆရာမ်ားႏွင့္ သတင္းစာဆရာမ်ားသည္ သူတုိ႔၏ လုပ္ငန္းမ်ား အတြက္ ေကာင္းစြာ အသိအမွတ္ျပဳျခင္းခံရေစရန္၊ သူတုိ႔၏ အခြင့္အေရးမ်ားကုိ ကာကြယ္ေစာင့္ေရွာက္ႏုိင္ေစရန္ ၊ စာေရးဆရာဟူသည္ အဘယ္နည္း? ဟူေသာေမးခြန္းကုိ ေကာင္းစြာေျဖႏုိင္ဖုိ႔အခ်ိန္ေရာက္လာပါၿပီ။
ဤေနရာတြင္ သတင္းစာဆရာဟူေသာ အဓိပါၸယ္ သတ္မွတ္္ရန္ သူတုိ႔၏လုပ္ငန္း၏ သဘာဝအရ ျပႆနာ မရွိပါ။    အျခားေသာလုပ္ငန္းမ်ားျဖစ္သည့္ ဥပေဒ၊ ေဆးပညာဆုိင္ရာတုိ႔တြင္ သက္ဆုိင္ရာလက္မွတ္၊ ေထာက္ခံစာလက္မွတ္မ်ားစြာကုိ ျပႏုိင္သည္။ ဥပမာ မည္သူမည္ဝါသည္ အျခားလူတစ္ဦး၏ ဗုိက္ကုိခဲြခြင့္ရွိေၾကာင္း လက္မွတ္မ်ားကုိ ျပစရာရွိၾကပါသည္။ စာေရးဆရာမ်ားတြင္ေကာ  ဘယ္လုိလက္မွတ္ေတြ ျပစရာရွိပါသနည္း? အခ်ိဳ႕ေသာ သူမ်ားတြင္ အခ်ိဳ႕ေသာမဂၢဇင္းမ်ားမွ စာမူကုိ ပယ္လုိက္သည္ဟူေသာ အေၾကာင္းၾကားစာမ်ားႏွင့္ ပုံမႏွိပ္ရေသးေသာ စာမူမ်ားျပစရာရွိပါသည္။ ၄င္းတုိ႔သည္ စာေရးဆရာအျဖစ္ အသိအမွတ္ျပဳျခင္းအတြက္ ဘယ္ေလာက္အေထာက္အကူရွိပါမည္နည္း? သိမ္ေမြ႔ေသာေမးခြန္းတစ္ခုမွာ – စာေရးဆရာမ်ားႏွင့္ သတင္းစာဆရာမ်ား အသင္းဝင္ျဖစ္ျခင္းသည္ စာေရးဆရာျဖစ္ျခင္းကုိ အသိအမွတ္ျပဳရာ ေရာက္ပါသလား? ဒီေမးခြန္းႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍လည္း အခ်ိဳ႕လူမ်ားက စိတ္ပူေနၾကပါသည္။
သိထားရသည္မွာ မည္သည့္ေအာင္လက္မွတ္၊ ဘဲဲြ႔လက္မွတ္၊ ေထာက္ခံစာ၊ မည္သည့္အသင္းဝင္ျဖစ္ျခင္းတုိ႔သည္ စာေရးဆရာျဖစ္ျခင္းကုိ သတ္မွတ္ႏုိင္စြမ္းမရွိပါ။ စာမူအခ်ိဳ႕ကုိ ပုံႏိွပ္ေဖာ္ျပျခင္းသည္ သက္ဆုိင္ရာပုဂၢိဳလ္အား လူမ်ားကအသိမွတ္ျပဳျခင္းကုိ ျပသရာေရာက္သည္။ ထုိပုဂၢိဳလ္၏အတၱကုိလည္း အစာေကြ်းရာေရာက္ပါသည္။ သုိ႔ေသာ္လည္း စာေရးဆရာတစ္ဦးျဖစ္ျခင္း၊ စာေရးဆရာတစ္ဦးအျဖစ္ ေက်နပ္မႈရွိျခင္းသည္ စာေရးျခင္းအလုပ္အေပၚတြင္ သစၥာရွိျခင္း၊ ႏွစ္ျမွဳပ္ထားျခင္း ပမာဏႏွင့္သာဆုိင္ပါသည္။
စာေရးဆရာတစ္ဦးအေနျဖင့္ ပထမဦးစားေပးရမည့္ အရာသည္ကာ ကုိယ္တုိင္ စိတ္ေက်နပ္မႈရွိျခင္းျဖစ္ပါသည္။ လူမ်ား၏အသိမွတ္ျပဳခံရျခင္းကုိ ျပေသာအရာျဖစ္သည့္၊ ထင္ရွားေသာဂ်ာနယ္၊ မဂၢဇင္းမ်ားတြင္ ပုံႏွိပ္ခံရျခင္း သုိ႔မဟုတ္ ဆုရရွိျခင္း၊ အသင္းအဖဲြ႔တစ္ခုခုတြင္ ပါဝင္ျခင္းဟူသည္တုိ႔သည္ကား ဒုတိယ၊ တတိယဦးစားေပးသာျဖစ္သင့္ပါသည္။
တက္သစ္စ စာေရးဆရာတစ္ဦးအေနျဖင့္ သိထားသင့္ေသာအရာမွာ စာေရးျခင္းဟူေသာအလုပ္သည္ အျခားအလုပ္မ်ားနည္းတူ ကုိယ္စိတ္ႏွလုံးႏွင့္ ဝိရိယတုိ႔ကုိ မ်ားစြာစုိက္ထုတ္ရေသာ အလုပ္ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ဧကန္တကယ္ပင္ ေလ့လာမႈကိုလည္း လုပ္ရပါသည္။
ဒါကုိေတာ့ ေကာင္းစြာသိထားပါ။
ေဆးပညာ၊ ဥပေဒပညာ၊ ဗိသုကာပညာကဲ့သုိ႔ေသာ ပညာရပ္မ်ားတြင္ ႏွစ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာ ေလ့က်င့္ ပ်ိဳးေထာင္ေသာ နည္းလမ္းမ်ားရွိပါသည္။ သုိ႔ေသာ္လည္း လူမ်ား၏ အျမင္မွာ ေလးေၾကာင္းကဗ်ာေလးတစ္ပုဒ္ကုိ ညအနည္းငယ္ေလာက္ အိပ္ပ်က္ခံ၍ ေရးလုိက္လွ်င္ ကဗ်ာဆရာျဖစ္လာၿပီဟူ၍ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ပညာပါရမီ ထူးျခားေသာ ပုဂၢိဳလ္ႀကီးမ်ားသည္ပင္လွ်င္ ဂႏၳဝင္စာတစ္ခုထြက္လာေစရန္အတြက္ ေလ့က်င့္မႈႏွင့္ ေလ့လာမႈမ်ားစြာကုိ လုပ္ခဲ့ရပါသည္။ ေလ့က်င့္မႈႏွင့္ေလ့လာမႈတုိ႔သည္ ေက်ာင္းႏွင့္ တကၠသုိလ္မ်ားတြင္ ျပဳလုပ္ရျခင္းမဟုတ္ပါ။ အလြန္ရက္စက္ၾကမ္းၾကဳတ္ေသာ ဘဝတကၠသုိလ္တြင္ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
ထုိ႔ေၾကာင့္ တက္သစ္စ စာေရးဆရာမ်ားအေနျဖင့္ သိရမည့္အရာတစ္ခုမွာ ကိုယ့္ကုိယ္ကုိ အရွိအတုိင္း ျမင္တတ္ဖို႔ျဖစ္ပါသည္။   ဤေနရာတြင္ ကုိယ့္ကုိယ့္ကုိ အရွိအတုိင္းႏွင့္ မရွိလွ်င္ မရွိသည့္အတုိင္း ျမင္ရန္အေရးႀကီးပါသည္။ Elliot Blackiston ၏  Teach Yourself to Write (ကုိယ့္ကုိယ္ကုိ စာေရးသင္ပါ) ဟူေသာ စာအုပ္၏ ေရွ႕ဆုံးအခန္းတြင္ အဖြင့္စကားကုိ  ဤသုိ႔ဆုိထားသည္။
“သင္သည္ စာေရးဆရာေကာင္းျဖစ္ခ်င္လွ်င္ သင္၏ လက္ႏွိပ္စက္ေပၚတြင္ စာလုံးႀကီးႀကီးျဖင့္ ရုိက္ထားမည္ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ထုိစကားလုံးမွာ HONESTY (ေျဖာင့္မတ္ျခင္း) ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ အကယ္၍ အဂၤလိပ္အဘိဓာန္တြင္ ဤစကားလုံးကုိ အဓိပၸါယ္ဖြင့္ထားပုံကုိ ဖတ္ၾကည့္မည္ဆုိလွ်င္ တရားမွ်တျခင္း၊ ပြင့္လင္းျခင္း၊ ေျဖာင့္မတ္ျခင္း၊ ရုိးသားျခင္း၊ မွန္ကန္ျခင္းဟူေသာ အရည္အတုိ႕ကုိ ေတြ႔ရမည္ျဖစ္သည္။ အဘိဓာန္ထဲတြင္ အေပၚယံအားျဖင့္ အဓိပၸါယ္သက္မွတ္ခ်က္တစ္ခုဟူ၍ သာျမင္ႏုိ္င္မည္ျဖစ္ေသာ္လည္း စာေရးဆရာျဖစ္ခ်င္သူ မည္သူ႔အတြက္မဆုိ လမ္းျပအိမ္ေျမာင္ပမာျဖစ္ေသာ စကားစုေလးးတစ္ခုကုိ ေတြ႔ႏုိင္ပါသည္။ ထုိစကားစုေလးသည္ အားကုိအားထားစရာျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ယင္းစကားစုေလးမွာ သိပ္ေလးေလးနက္နက္ေတာ့မဟုတ္ပါ။ ရွင္းရွင္းလင္းလင္းျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ၄င္းမွာအတုအပမွာ ကင္းျခင္း၊ လိမ္ညာျခင္းကင္းျခင္း၊ လွည့္စားျခင္းကင္းျခင္း၊ မာယာဥာဏ္တုိ႔မွ ကင္းျခင္းဟူ၍ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
စာေရးဆရာျဖစ္ခ်င္ေသာသူသည္ ဤေမးခြန္းကုိ မလိမ္မညာဘဲ ေျဖာင့္မွန္စြာ မွန္ကန္စြာေျဖႏုိင္ရပါမည္။ ဤေမးခြန္းမွာ လြယ္လြယ္ရွင္းရွင္းေလးျဖစ္ပါသည္။
ဘာေၾကာင့္ စာေရးဆရာျဖစ္ခ်င္တာလည္း ေမးခြန္းက လြယ္သေလာက္၊ မလိမ္မညာဘဲ ေျဖာင့္မတ္စြာ ေျဖဖုိ႔ ေတာ္ေတာ္ခက္ပါသည္။ အေျဖမ်ားစြာရွိပါသည္။ ဥပမာ- ေအာင္ျမင္ေက်ာ္ၾကားေသာ စာေရးဆရာမ်ားကုိ ၾကည့္၍အားက်ၿပီး သူတုိ႔ကဲ့သုိ႔ျဖစ္ခ်င္ေသာေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္သည္။ သာမန္စားၿပီး အိပ္ေနေသာ သတၱဝါတစ္ဦး၏ ဘဝထက္ပုိေသာ ဘဝကုိ ပုိလုိခ်င္၍ျဖစ္သည္။ ဘဝသစ္တစ္ခုကုိ လက္ျဖင့္ ဖန္တီးလုိေသာေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္သည္။
စာေရးဆရာျဖစ္ခ်င္ေသာအေၾကာင္းမ်ားစြာရွိႏုိင္ပါသည္။ စာေရးဆရာျဖစ္ခ်င္ေသာ သူအတြက္ အေရးႀကီးေသာအရာမွာ ခံႏုိင္ရည္ရိွဖုိ႔ျဖစ္သည္။ ဆုိလုိသည္မွာ ႏွစ္ေပါင္းခ်ီ၍ လ်စ္လ်ဴရႈခံရျခင္း၊ အထီးက်န္အေဖာ္မဲ့ျခင္း၊ အလုပ္လုပ္ရျခင္းတုိ႔ကုိ ခံႏုိင္ရန္လုိပါသည္။ အဖဲြ႔အစည္းမ်ားသည္ အျမတ္ထုတ္လုိေသာ ထုတ္ေဝသူမ်ား၏ အႏၱရယ္မွ ကာကြယ္ေပးေကာင္းေပးႏုိင္ပါလိမ့္မည္။ သုိ႔ေသာ္ႀကိဳးပမ္းမႈ၊ ေလ့လာမႈတုိ႔ကုိ အစားထုိးႏုိင္ေသာအရာမရွိပါ။ စာေရးဆရာကုိယ္တုိင္ ေဇာက္ခ်၍လုပ္ရေသာအလုပ္ကုိ အစားထုိးႏုိင္ေသာအရာလည္း မရွိပါ။ ဘယ္သူ႔အကူအညီမွမပါဘဲ စာေရးဆရာကုိယ္တုိင္လုပ္ရမည့္ အလုပ္မ်ားစြာရွိပါသည္။ စာေရးေသာအလုပ္သည္ စာေရးဆရာအေပၚ ေလ့လာမႈ၊ ဝိရိယ၊ ေစာက္ခ်ႏုိင္မႈ၊ အားထုတ္မႈမ်ားစြာကုိ ေတာင္းဆုိေသာ အလုပ္ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
ရုန္းကန္ေနဆဲ စာေရးဆရာမ်ားသည္လည္းေကာင္း၊ အေျခခုိင္ၿပီးေသာ စာေရးဆရာမ်ားသည္လည္းေကာင္း၊ မေက်နပ္ခ်က္တစ္ခုႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍  ညည္းညဴၾကသည္ကုိ ၾကားရပါသည္။ သူတုိ႔သည္ တရားမွ်တမႈ မရွိေသာ ထုတ္ေဝသူမ်ားႏွင့္ စာဖတ္ပရိသတ္တုိ႔၏ဒဏ္ကုိ အၿမဲတမ္းခံေနရသည္ ဟူ၍ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ဤကိစၥႏွင့္ပတ္သက္၍ သက္သာေအာင္ လုပ္ေပးႏုိင္ေသာ နည္းလမ္းမ်ားရွိပါသည္။  သုိ႔ေသာ္ စာေရးသားျခင္း၏ အႏုပညာဖန္တီးမႈကုိ မူကား မည္သည့္အရာ မည္သည့္ပုဂၢိဳလ္မွ အေထာက္အကူမေပးႏုိင္ပါ။ ဥပမာေျပာရလွ်င္ မိခင္၏ဝမ္းဗုိက္ထဲမွ ကေလးကုိ ေမြးဖြားလာေစရန္အတြက္ အခ်ိန္ေရာက္ရန္ မည္သည့္ သိပၸံနည္းပညာမ်ားက မတတ္ႏုိ္င္သကဲ့သုိ႔ ျဖစ္သည္။ စာေရးဆရာ၏ အခန္းက႑ာန္သည္ ရယူျခင္းမဟုတ္၊ ေပးဆပ္ရျခင္းျဖစ္သည္ကုိ သတိျပပါ။
ထုိ႔ေၾကာင့္ စာေရးဆရာမ်ားအတြက္ အလုပ္ကုိ ေဇာက္ခ်ျခင္း၊ ရုန္းကန္ျခင္းတုိ႔သာလွ်င္ လုပ္ရန္ႏွင့္ လြဲ၍ အျခားနည္းမရွိပါ။ ကြ်န္မကုိယ္တုိင္သည္ ႏွစ္ေပါင္းေလးဆယ္ စာေရးသည့္အလုပ္ကို လုပ္ခဲ့ပါသည္။ ရုန္းကန္မႈႏွင့္ အလုပ္ႀကိဳးစားမႈကသာ ေအာင္ျမင္မႈကုိ ျဖစ္ေစပါသည္။
ခင္မ်ိဳးခ်စ္ (၁၇၊ ဒီဇင္ဘာ ၁၉၆၆)
( ဘာသာျပန္သူ၏ မွတ္ခ်က္ –  ေမေမက စာေရးဆရာ ဘာေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္ခ်င္သနည္းဟူေသာ ေမးခြန္းလုိ မလိမ္မညာဘဲ မွန္မွန္ကန္ကန္ ေျဖဖုိ႔ေျပာပါသည္။ ကြ်န္ေတာ္ ကုိယ္တုိင္ မလိမ္မညာဘဲ မွန္မွန္ကန္ကန္ေျဖရလွ်င္ ေအာင္ျမင္ေက်ာ္ၾကားေသာ စာေရးဆရမ်ားကုိ ျမင္၍ သူတုိ႔လုိျဖစ္ခ်င္ေသာေၾကာင့္ ဟု ေျဖရပါမည္။ ဒီအေျဖကုိေမေမသိၾကားလွ်င္ ဘာေျပာမည္နည္း။ ဒါဆုိရင္ မင္းဟာ စာေရးဆရာမျဖစ္ထုိက္ဘူး ဟုေျပာမလား။ မင္းက မလိမ္မညာဘဲ မွန္မွန္ေျဖတတ္တာေတာ့ မဆုိးဘူးလုိ႔ ေျပာမလား။ ေမေမက စာေရးဆရာဟူသည္ ရယူျခင္းမဟုတ္ ေပးဆပ္ရျခင္းလုိ႔ ဆုိေသာ္လည္း ကြ်န္ေတာ္ကေတာ့ ဘာေတြရမည္လဲ ဆုိတာကုိပဲ တြက္ၾကည့္ေနမိပါတယ္။ (ေဒါက္တာခင္ေမာင္၀င္း))

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Three Years Under The Japs (1945)




The book, "Three Years Under the Japs", written by my grandmother, Khinv Myo Chit, was first published in 1945 in English. It was published after the Japanese left Burma. She wrote down her actual experiences during the 3 years of Japanese rule.


(The old cover of "Three Years Under the Japs;" it had "Published by KHIN MYO Chit, 24 Zabuzi Street, SANCHAUNG" and "printing at THE ROYAL STATIONARY, 408-410 Dalhousie Street, RANGOON" written on the back. The addresses are now hard to find. They contain the old memories of our grandparents, despite the fact that they lived in the place for only a year or two.)



She wrote in the first page that she intended to give her impressions and recollections of the last three years, in the following pages. Page by page, we saw her story of going through with Japanese regime. In the chapter in which a horrible journey from Monywa(Upper Burma) to Rangoon takes place, she said it reminded her of the scene in the film "Good Earth," which showed Chinese refugees boarding a train similar to the one she had to board in order to arrive in Rangoon. What she read in books and saw in films of war were actually happening to her! After the terrible journey, she wrote about how the war prisoners in Rangoon were treated badly by the Japanese soldiers.
Her experiences in the Dobama Sinyetha Asiayone(D.S.A) as Chief of Women's section and in writing articles in Jpanese newspapers, how civil liberties were outrageously encroached upon, how hard and outrageous the Kimpetai Camp was, her work at Office of the Burmese Army, the hard and bloody training at Japanese Officer Cadet Training School, days of torture and nights of horror inflicted upon those who were arrested by the Japanese, how they tortured the mother and wife of the B.D.A officers, how B.D.A (Burma Defence Army) was inspired and admired by Burmese Youths……all of this were vividly described in the following chapters in the book. She remarked that the only reason for the Japanese' cruelty to our people must be for the love of cruelty for its own sake.
 
Finally she insisted to the world to be no longer fooled by their unscrupulous display of man's noblest sentiments which hide their horrid acts of aggression and tyranny. Let their crimes stand out as monuments of shame and evil that they may be permanent warning to all future generations. She said in the last page she had made a near approach to the real conditions of a Fascist-occupied territory, the purpose of this booklet would have been achieved.


(The new cover of the book in 2011.)


This booklet ,as she called, now translated into Burmese by me, Junior Win, was published in August of 2011 in Burma. The book is now in the hands of Burmese people. The Burmese readers can see how our grandparents survived during 3 years of without freedom of thoughts and feelings under the Japanese regime. The readers can feel for those who had to go through this nightmare and harrowing experience during the three years of Japanese rule. As I quoted from my grandmother's lines, in the pages I have translated, a near approach to the real conditions of Facist occupied territory and a total exposure of their Fascist wickedness in all its cruel reality, the purpose of this translated book will have been achieved.


'Her Infinite Variety' (Short Story

Picture- The cover of the book ‘Colourful Burma’ in 1976 by Khin Myo Chit, writer, Burma. The cover design was San Toe, artist.)


The title ‘Her Infinite Variety’ is the well-known Shakespeare’s quotation which represents the beauty of Cleopatra as ‘ Age cannot wither her,
                                           Nor custom stale
                                           Her infinite variety.’
Her Infinite Variety is a short story written by Khin Myo Chit won in the ‘Horizon’ magazine short story competition in 1970. It was first published in book ‘Colourful Burma – A Collection of Stories and Sketches’ in 1978.  
The narrator of the story; my grandmother who describes her experience when her visit on holiday at the town meeting with an old man, U Sein Khine, a solo performer of marionettes. Their conversation drew the readers to the end with the sad love story told by this old man, U Sein Khine. 

(Picture – by U Ba Kyi – famous artist in Burma. He sketched an illustration of U Sein Khine and his loving marionette that my grandmother wished to portray.)

Did this marionette doll on his shoulder, the figure of a female dancer which was the likeness of the woman he loved mean everything to this man, U Sein Khine? More than the live woman who loved him? It was the point most important in the story that always remembered not only a small town girl but also the reader. 
Memory of a Country Life

The palm leaf mat, bamboo dais, hot green tea, earthern cup, jiggery sweets or fresh breezing cold air were the beautiful memories of the country life. My grandmother portrayed our Rangoon city as the big city; feeling bored! Hot and dusty! Bla, bla, bla. I confessed that we young people of today do not realize what marionette shows meant to the people of old days. No young people of today saw such an old man of marionettes performer who was carrying beautiful marionette dolls in the market place or marionette troupes travelled in big barges along the river. Yes, they were artists who brought entertainment, fun and magic wherever they stopped.
My grandmother also described in the story about the marionette shows. She said there were dances of the animals such as tigers, elephants, horses and monkey at the beginning of the show. She still remembered the dance of the belu (ogre) and the zawgyi (demigod).  The children were thrilled by the zawgyi magnificent in the flaming red dress, jumping and flying. My grandmother also told the dance of the belu, dressed green with fin-like crests on its head, shoulders and elbows fascinated the audience. Moreover, the nhe (Burmese musical instrument which sound was like howling) ominously howling to the boom of the big drum beating at the background of the stage gave her the creeps. 
Epilogue
However the story goes, my grandmother describes her childhood memory of the country life. Her writing especially was effective at inspiring wonderful view of the country life to the reader because of its focus on the senses such as ‘dragged her feet towards the bamboo dais under the huge tamarind tree’ or ‘heard many stories on her grandfather’s knee’ or ‘took a small chunk of jiggery sweet and chewed it, chasing it down with a cup of green tea’, etc are now rarely see in our boring, hot, dusty Rangoon city!

La Grande Dame de la Myanmar Writing

1915 - 1999
Here is the biography of my grandma – khin myo chit. It was written by

Dr.Khin Maung Win (only son of my grandma)

KHIN MYO CHIT

writer and journalist

(1915-1999)

La Grande Dame de la Myanmar Writing

Very few people know thqt her real name is Ma Khin Mya. Her close
relative andfriends call her by her real name.Young people call her Ma
Ma Mya or Aunty Mya.Older people call he Ma Khin Mya.But to most
people she was known under her pen name, Khin Myo Chit.
She was born at the time when people generally had low expectations of
women, when no parent would hear of a young respectable lady entering
a profesion anda humanitarian education may be permitted , but only to
be able to write B,A under one's name and make impressions on people.
'What a pity she 's a girl' that's what she always heard people saying
all the time.
Her grandmother had been a maid of honour at the court of King
Mindon.Many timesshe recounted to her the events leading to the mass
excution of King Thibaw's royalrelative by the Queen Suphayalatt.'It's
a blot on our hitory'.She used to say.She then related to her how the
great warrier prince like Prince Kanaung,the Thonsaire Minhagyi
(literally translated the great Prince Thirty, so named because he
could climb up a wall ofthirtyyards in height using his bea hands and
feet) and many others were executed duringan internal intrigue.'We lot
all the great warrier princes, so that when the Britishmarched to the
capital city of Uupper Myanmar , there was not even one personto throw
a stone at the invaders.'
She asked,'Do you mean to say, grandma, that if these warriior princes
were there, Upper Myanmar would not have fallen unde the british Rule
?' 'No' , said her grandmother.'We would still loe the war, for, at
that time, no one could stop the riing of the British Empire.But at
least the batle of Upper Burma could have earned a place in the annals
of war like Hnnibal's fight against Rome, or King Arthur's fight
against the Saxons, or KingHarold's fight against the invading
Normans' .
Her literary career began in 1932 when she translated a poem of Sir
Walter Scott and sent to theYangon University magazine.But she didn't
put her name, being kind of shy to do that. The poem was about
Patriotism and when it was published , the editor put the pen name –
Khin Myo Chit (meaning lady who loves her country or Miss Patriot).
That was how she made her debut in the literary field,and arned her
pen name.But all was not well at home. With her father's
obstructiveness and her mother's disapproval of 'clever girls' ,
thingsgot from bad to worse.She was not allowed to do any writing in
peace . Her mother scolded her more and more.Her father threatened to
burn her pjapers.She had to hide them and do her writing when everyone
was in bed.
I shall not dwell too ,uch on the story of her unhappy childhood and
her ecape from the tyranny of her father.It could have made something
torn from the pages of a Dickens novel and could hzve eaned her a
nick-name like 'female David Copperfield'.
Regarding her meeting with my father, U Khin Maung
Latt(1915-1996),whom she refered to as 'Ko Latt', she wrote in her
autobiography as follows :
''He was theboy next door.He had left college, an undergraduate, not
being able to continue his studies because of the decline in family
fortunes.He was having a short lull at home while looking for a job.
He was a voracious reader and we sharedthe same interestsin books.I
read the books he recommended and he returned the compliment . We read
'Little Women' , one of my favourite books and he called me teasingly
'Jo'.We had a fine time talking of books.It seemed that we had
launched on a long and timeless talk which could lead to one thing a
life-long alliance.''
Regarding her political invilvements of 1937 and afterwards, she wrote:
"Had this even tenor of our way gone on for a few months or so, Ko
Latt and I might have sipped quietly into mqrried life. My rosy dreams
of the future during the interval of a few months before our marriage
tuned out to be a nightmare of tormy incidents.It was the fate of the
country that swept most of our dreams away.By a cruel trick of fate,
we became part of that mighty tidal wave which we were but a tiny
ripple. "
She recountd the part she played in the demonstration of 1938 as follows;
"Three girls and I happened to be in front of line right after the
standard bearers.It was a rude shock when we found ourselves confonted
by baton weilding policemen, some mounted on horseback.All of a sudden
like a sequence on a cinema screen everything became a confusion of
horses'legs and batons.To my horror, I saw girls falling in pools of
blood.As I tried to pick them up, blows fell on me."
She lived through the stormy times of the British Regime; the Japanese
Regime;the Struggle for independebce;sharing the joys and sorrows of
the political figures .
Also in her autobiography , she recounted a difficult phrase of her
life in the following way.
"Now,I have come to oneof the most difficult chapters of my life,for
it was then that my misadventures strayed into the realms of faith and
religion.
I was prejudiced against meditatio of wny religious practice which I
took to be only for people who had nothing better to do or those who
wanted to put on ais of holiness or those who had no change to face
life….I thought."
The story of how her meeting with two monks changed her outlook and
made her regain her faith in Buddhism cannot be told here, for that
alone would have made treatise on Buddhism.
She became a mother-in-law in 1967, a grandmother of twins,a boy and a
girl,in 1968.In an interview with a writer,Alex wood,in 1970,she
said,"I am proud of being a good grandmother and housekeeper,but I
have never let this interfere with any of my cultural interests.I am
glad that I rediscovered the art of Myanmar Zatpwe(a kind of a mixture
of play,concert and opera)in time to stop me from becming an
intefering mum-in-law and an over doddering granny.Friends rubbed
their hands when the twins were born and said it would be the end of
my freedom.But of course,it wasn't.I'm organising myself better and
witing more than before."
The landmarks of her literary career may be summed up in the following way:
Khin Myo Chit was born on may 1, 1915 in Sit Kaing(Upper Burma).
1932…………….Patriotism(a poem that earned her pen name)
1963…………….Collge Girl(a novelette for serialization in 'The Sun' a daily paper)
1963 to 1968..: Heroes of Old Burma ,
…………………. : Quest for Peace (an autobiography)
(Both serialized in 'The Working Peoples'Daily.')
1970…………....:Her Infinfite Variety
(a prize-winning short story in the 'Horizon' magazine short story competition.)
…………………….:The Four Puppets
(included in 'Folk Tales of Asis',UNESCO)
……………………:Anawrahta of Burma
(publication of 'Heroes of Old Burma', which was later re-printed
under the titles,
'Anawhta' and 'King Among Men')
1976…………..:Colourful Burma
(a pratical and poetic guide for the visitors who wants something better than
a tourist view of Burma.Later reprinted under the 'Colourful Myanmar'.)
1977…………..:Flowers and festivals round the Burmese Year
………………….:Kyaikhtiyo
(a short history of Kyaikhtiyo Pagoda,published in the Asia magazine)
1981…………..:A Pagoda Where Fairy Tale Characters Come to Life
(A tale-loke description of Mai La Mu Pagoda in the outskirts of Yangon,
published in the Asia Magazine)
1984………….:A Wonderland of Burmese Legends
(published by the Tamarind Press in Bangkok , later reprinted in Burma under
the title 'A Wonderland of Pagoda Legends')
1995…………:Gift of Laughter
(on the picturesque speech of the people of Hla Daw,
A village in Central Burmam , selection of which have been published
In the 'Pyinsa Rupa ' magazine)
Conclusion
During the last years of her life, deblitating and disfiguring
arthrithic pains made her spend most of her time in bed.Regarding her
fight against the spasms of pain , she remarled,"Sometimes I lose,
sometimes they win".Quite surprisingly, compared to what she suffered,
she died in peace.