Maung Htin - Five short stories

Brother, I think.

Rice flour

The student, Lu Kaley, wants to object in principle. He doesn't support the order for the Buddha's feast in the slightest.

However, this matter is very difficult for U Lu Kaley. It is very difficult to think about.

U Lu Kaley served as a police officer under the British government. He was a policeman. In this village, he was a friend. He was the only person in the village who had any close relations with him. The village headman was the elder brother of the elder brother. The monks had been together under the Kankaw Monastery monk since they were young. One monk was his brother-in-law. Another was the son of his mother's brother. The other was his uncle, who was related to him on his father's side.

If even the youngest student doesn't support the Nyaungpin Shara Buddha Festival, which is organized by those who are not close to each other, even if most of the relatives gather around and curse, they will lose their jobs.

However, U Lu Kaley was not so worried about losing his job. Whenever the Buddha festival was held, when all the villagers offered alms at dawn in the square of Lokamarazein Pagoda in Nyaungpintha village, he was afraid that he would not hear the melody from his friend U Phoe Pan’s Kynaung circle, “Phoe Khaung, kwaak aak, ho taung nyo paak, Nay Pyi Taw yaw lai sana pa, sana pa lang pa. O le lae... Maung Maung ra yaw yawn mi thai …”. More than that, U Lu Kaley was even more worried that he would not be able to recite the Saddan Sin Min Preit Mun, the song of the King of Kings, while preparing for the alms-giving ceremony the night before.

U Lu Kaley is old. “If I can continue to serve for four or five years, I will have to retire,” U Lu Kaley often lamented. As he was about to retire, he had to pay the fine. If he had to pay the fine for four or five years, he would have only spent twenty years and the sins he had committed in his heart would have been wiped away.

The villagers are mostly illiterate. Nyaungpintha is about ninety miles from the township headquarters. If you travel by boat, you can only reach the town in a day. The boat only sails three times a week. If there is a murder in the village, when the body of the deceased has to be brought to the town, you have to spend three or four nights in a boat to reach the town. In such a remote village, there is not even a government-sponsored Burmese school. In this village, the landowner, the farmer, the headman, the head of the ten households, the land surveyor, the teacher, the servant, etc. are all disciples of the Kankaw monastery monk. Therefore, they have no knowledge of the worldly affairs of the King. If there is a case in the village, they have to follow the instructions of the village headman and the teachers.

So working in this village is a very profitable business for U Lu Kaley. There is no theft. He only hears about robbery once a year. He only investigates robberies and murders once every two years. All that happens in the village is beatings, stabbings, gambling and drinking.

When such cases arise, the teacher, U Lu, will charge one kyat per section of the Indian Penal Code, increasing or decreasing it. Sometimes, even a minor case will cost 500 kyats. Then, if you can persuade U Lu by talking to him with money, the 500 kyats will gradually decrease and will stop at 294. Sometimes, if U Lu changed his mind, it will go up to 510 and then stop because of the money.

However, when festivals such as the Buddha festival, the Monk Pyan festival, and the Mae Taw Pyan festival are held, it is not uncommon to receive bribes and beg for bribes. This is because during these festivals, fights, stabbings, gambling, and drinking alcohol become more frequent. I don't think U Lu Kaley is responsible for about 323 of the fights.

In a case that is not a police matter, there is no matter what happens, the judge can write whatever sentence and punishment he wants in his book of punishments, but U Lu Kaley does not have a penny of his money. However, in the fights that occur during Buddhist festivals, two tamarind sticks, two palm sticks, a stick of pith and a bamboo stick are used, which are deadly weapons if used accidentally, so when the sections exceed 324 and 325 and reach 326, U Lu Kaley has a lot of work and often has to ask for a letter of explanation.

Considering the above reasons, the Buddha festival was likely to create trouble for the student, so the student objected in principle. However, when the elder brother-in-law, the elder's sister, and the elder's brother-in-law, the elder, complained, the student did not have the courage to accept the displeasure of the three monks, so he had to give the order for the Buddha festival.

Nyaungpintha village Lokamarazein Pagoda is a full-height pagoda. It is located on the top of the land of the landowner U Tha Oo, beyond the village’s northernmost village. Originally, there was a pile of earthenware at that place. One day, one of U Tha Oo’s tenants, while plowing the field, stepped on the pile of earthenware. When the pile of earthenware fell, he found an earthenware pot. The pot was a modern-day earthenware pot. It did not fall into the field. The pot seemed to be made of dark clay like a clay pot. Inside the pot, there was ash and compost. Mixed with the ash were small seeds ranging in size from lizard eggs to broken rice.

U Tha Oo's servant looked at the seeds and saw that they were not good. So he took the pot to the monk of Kankaw Monastery and showed it to him. The monk of Kankaw Monastery decided that they were relics.

On the night after the day known as the "Shita", the rays of the Buddha's light shone from the lamp above the Gandhakutiya of the Kankaw Monastery. That night, all the devotees donated with great faith, and according to the monk's account, they received a total of 365 kyats, 5 mu, and 2 pennies.

From that day on, the monk personally led the work of building the Kotaungpye Pagoda. The two masons embezzled money and ran away, so the construction of the Pagoda was not completed in two years. However, he hired a third mason and had the apprentice U Lukale personally supervise and supervise the construction of the Pagoda, and the work was completed successfully.

The young scholar who sought such great devotion to the Nine-Mountain Buddha did not trust his own villagers either.

About a mile north of Nyaungpintha village, there is a small village called Mraukchawkone. There are many beautiful young women there. Young men from Nyaungpintha marry young women from Mraukchawkone according to the laws of the world. However, the love stories of these young men often end in fights.

Therefore, if the Buddha's feast is called, the teacher's head is big. But now that the feast has been ordered, he can't help it. He should have gone to the feast site a little earlier and supervised it. With this thought, the teacher arrived at the feast market. The market was crowded at night.

As soon as you enter the market, you will see a bread shop. The owner, a woman named Soo, is busy selling a piece of bread. However, a few steps away, at the rice cake shop, the customers are bustling around, their hands and feet are falling. The girl selling the rice cake is a pretty girl with curly hair and a cute figure.

U Lu Kaley knew the girl well. The girl was simple. Her parents were poor. When she was just entering puberty, she was surrounded by young men, like a jasmine flower surrounded by bees, waiting for the sun to turn it brown.

So, the young man thanked the old woman for her kindness and went to the rice cake shop. The boys were thinner than the young man. When they saw the young man, they quickly pulled out one by one the rice cakes, gave the money to the vendor, and then left.

" Hey girl, are you a handsome guy?"

The young man asked the girl selling sticky rice bluntly, without saying a word. The girl looked embarrassed.

“ The prices are good, brother. But we often have to sell on credit.”

The girl said the last sentence with an uncomfortable moan.

" Hey, those guys are taking credit for the oil? What kind of things did they say to you?"

"U Lukulay asked again, suspiciously."

The girl became even more embarrassed.

"Oh.. they don't say anything. They're just bargaining to buy all the rice and glutinous rice together. They'll give you instant money. The debt is owed to others."

" Well... hey... these guys are so greedy, huh? Why didn't you buy all the milk?"

" I can't speak, Uncle, when they see me coming, they just turn around and leave."

The young man thought about the above conversation. Did they come to the girl just to get more money? Did he come and make a profit for the girl? How many of those four or five dogs would have eaten forty or fifty sticks of rice and glutinous rice?

The student, thinking, passed by the coconut rice and chicken stalls, the fried rice stalls, the rice salad stalls, the papaya salad stalls, the tea stalls, the salaam stalls, the bread stalls, the tea salad stalls, the bread stalls, the acacia stalls, the tobacco and match stalls, the betel nut stalls, one after another. He couldn't think of anything.

" Hey... the semester is here."

The elders greeted him and the young man stopped to think.

Even though it was a small forest festival, Nyaungpintha village