Burma/Myanmar

Joo, Mayee and I once shared exhilarating moments dissecting a certain "Burmese courtship ritual." Then our joke became real and I alone faced the Burmese one night in a dark bar. Without alms, I asked him why he always only referred to his country by its pre-military-junta name.

"Burma" is of course the name used before Ne Win's coming into power and Aung Sun Suu Kyi's house arrest. "Myanmar" on the other hand brings back memories of British colonial rule, captured famously in Rudyard Kipling's "Mandalay." I never quite got to see that place and those fishermen whom he would spend weeks with, neither did I manage to smuggle out for him books that only foreigners could exit the country with. Similarly, he never quite got round to explaining why he preferred the old name. I'm reminded of his silence that night when I came across this remark:

"Even colonialists never shot a monk."

And of course, it just so happened that between us, it all started with monks (some violence, some Foucault, etc etc). As to the truth or falsity of the above remark, it suffices to leave it to the thin line, in between wherever his gentle palms now rest.

Beefy face an' grubby 'and--
Law! wot do they understand?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
On the road to Mandalay . . .