Bhamo Tin Aung - Collection of Short Stories (2)

The summer is hot and humid, the dust is thick and the water is scarce. In that, the mosquitoes are like chaff and straw. Even though they bite hard, they cannot find a mosquito net. In any case, the recluse Ukkalapa is sleeping soundly. He is snoring between one house and seven, even between eight houses.

It was only about nine o'clock at night. The air was still, having been hot all day.

But in Yangon, the night is still beautiful. It is still young and old. They come and go, they have fun, they eat and drink. It is still bustling with people watching the 9:30 p.m. movie, people eating snacks at the open-air night market, people enjoying the breeze in their cars at Inya, and people drinking cold drinks at Myananda on the waterfront.

However, Yangon's Arang Township, or the next suburb, Ukkalapa, was sleeping soundly, even amidst the heat and mosquito bites. It was snoring and sleeping soundly.

[2]

It was only about 9 p.m. It had been hot all day, so the air was still. In any case, the people of Ukkalapa needed to go to bed early. It was important.

The workers are usually people who work day in and day out. They are mostly poor laborers who cannot stop working. They are port workers, factory workers, street vendors, rickshaw pullers, and day laborers. These workers have to work all day in the hot sun, working with all their strength. The sun is harsh, and their strength is exhausted. Their skin is dry, and their muscles and tendons are torn.

They cannot afford the necessary nutrition and medicine to replenish the energy they have sold to their employers in the scorching sun. They are forced to live on a meager salary and only eat and drink as much as they can. They are forced to survive.

When the dogs cannot feed themselves with enough food to survive, they have no other choice but to sleep soundly. They need to sleep in order to survive the next day. They are sleeping in the scorching heat, covered in straw, and without a mosquito net, they are sleeping soundly. They are barking every seven or eight houses.

[3]

The outskirts of Ukkara, the terminal of the No. 2 motor route, seem to be immersed in the darkness of the night, where heat, cold, and mosquito bites all combine. Even the huts and small houses are quiet with their lights extinguished. However, in a small hut on the edge of the field, which seems to have been built for human habitation, a frequent cough can be heard. The cough is not like the cough of a cold, but like the cough of a fever.

Every time she coughed so hard that she couldn't breathe, she would be so exhausted that she had to breathe out all at once. "Oh my... how good it would be if I could breathe again," she complained.

For Ma Yin, just living is like a huge hardship. Not only is it difficult to go to the hospital and get treatment, but it is also difficult to eat and sleep properly.

When she felt a little tired, Mayin reached for the betel leaves and salt that were ready next to her mat and took a sip. That was Mayin's medicine.

The betel and salt water went down her throat, and she felt a little better. While she was still feeling better, she had to wait for her son-in-law, who had been away for three days after a fight with her stepfather and her husband, who were riding a rickshaw. Every time she waited for her son and husband or for her father and mother, she felt tired. This was because this stepfather and his stepdaughter were not compatible with each other.

The son-in-law and the stepfather were very close. It was not that Ma Yin remarried without knowing or thinking about it. It was that she knew and thought about it, but she couldn't do anything about it and had to take another husband.

Mayin's first husband was a carpenter. After her marriage before independence, she was able to live happily in U Wisara Keut Thit. Mayin and her first husband were together for about ten years. They had a son. When the son was about nine years old, the carpenter fell from the top of the building and died. Mayin was not even thirty when she became a widow.

The carpenter left nothing for his wife and children. Therefore, when she became a widow, she learned to smoke cigarettes. When she was quite young, she went to work in a tobacco shop.

Smoking is a very hard job, but it doesn't cost more than three or four kyats a day.

The widow, Ma Yin, could not send her son to school, so she abandoned him. At an age when adults and teachers should have nurtured and educated him, Tha Aye was abandoned without any supervision, and he became a mischievous child. He became a mischievous child. While his mother was at work, he would go wherever he wanted all day long. Sometimes he would return home after midnight.

Marin began to abandon her son when he was about nine years old. As a result, Thar Aye became more and more destructive. Sometimes he would steal five or ten kyats of money that his mother had kept in her purse and would not return home for three or four days. At that time, Marin would worry about her son and could not sleep well. Thar Aye was a child who did not pity or forgive his widowed mother and caused her a lot of trouble.

[ 4 ]

When the U Wisara Keut Thit was demolished to implement the Greater Yangon Project, it was as if the Myint had no place to live. Therefore, U Htun Khin Daw Hla, a rickshaw puller who lived in the same room as them, had to move to Okkalapa with her husband.

U Tun Khin is a rickshaw puller. He has no children and is therefore free to roam around. Therefore, he can build a hut on a piece of land he has found in Okkalapa.

About four or five months after the mother and son of Mayin came to Okkalapa with U Tun Khin and his wife, Daw Hla Tin passed away. U Tun Khin had no money left to bury Daw Hla Tin, so he had to sell his rickshaw and break it up. He went from being a rickshaw driver to a rickshaw driver for hire.

U Tun Khin and Ma Yin, who have become widowers and widows, live together in a hut and work for themselves. U Tun Khin rides a rickshaw. Ma Yin works at a tobacco stand. Thar Aye, who is left alone, remains the same as before.

They had been living together for years, and Mayin did not think much of living with U Tun Khin, who was unmarried. Besides, U Tun Khin was almost fifty years old, and Mayin, who was only 15 years older than him, treated the widower like a son. She not only cooked his meals but also washed his clothes.

Mayin had unintentionally commented on the saying that men who can handle a handful of rice tend to be kind to their children and wives. Besides, U Htun Khin is also a healthy man who can ride a rickshaw, isn't he?

One night, Tha Aye stole a five-kyat note from the money that Mayin had hidden and ran away from home. He did not return home for four or five days. Tha Aye did not do this. One night, when the two of them were sleeping alone, U Tun Khin came to sleep in Mayin's mosquito net after drinking alcohol to get drunk.

Ma Yin apologized for the inappropriate behavior. However, U Tun Khin, who was drunk, attacked her. “I can’t stand it anymore, Ma Yin,” he said drunkenly.

[5]

To keep the neighbors and the Aye from finding out, Ma Yin and U Htun Khin lived in secret for about a year. However, it was not a good idea to keep such a thing a secret for long. Gradually, strangers began to find out. So, they could no longer hide it, and they began to live openly.

Tha Aye had reached the age where she was beginning to understand, and she didn't like the idea of ​​her mother marrying an old man like U Tun Khin. She was ashamed. However, she couldn't live without her mother and stepfather.

U Htun Khin knew that Tha Aye did not agree with his mother a little. So he tried to appease Tha Aye in various ways. The more he tried to appease Tha Aye, the worse Tha Aye felt. He was ashamed.