Burmese Days Part 1: Bogyoke Market in downtown Yangon

I was lucky enough to visit Myanmar (Burma) last week. I say lucky because, as you may well be aware, it has been difficult for tourists to visit Myanmar for some years: the regime sought control of the borders both in and out.

However, since the emergence of a tentative but hopeful democracy sustained by Aung San Suu Kyi, it has become a little easier to travel to and within Myanmar – and that’s for the good, because it’s a beautiful, inspirational country, full of some of the friendliest people I’ve met.

Over the next few blog posts I’m going to write a little about my impressions of Myanmar in a series of photo-blogs, touching on the prosaic and the profound, the beautiful and the sacred. If you’re looking for something about India, I make no apologies: I did say on the strapline to the blog that I’ll be exploring Asia, after all!

I begin with a gentle introduction, a wander around downtown Yangon’s Bogyoke Market, formerly known as Scott’s Market during its days in the British Empire’s one-time capital city Rangoon.

Bogyoke Market
This market was a highlight because I felt I could buy anything there; and when not buying, I could just watch and be satisfied likewise. In many ways it seems to be emblematic of the city as a whole, for all its intensity, beauty and fascination. Still known as Scott’s market, the old mixes with the new. And part of that newness is the emergent but cautious sense of optimism I felt, or something like a patient defiance: outside the centre a man sold pro-democracy mugs, bags and tee-shirts, bearing photos of Aung San Suu Kyi or the NLD logo.

The crafts are of high quality and varied. Most common are jewellery; but, save for a modest jade bangle, I didn’t indulge – baubles are not my thing. But it’s almost obligatory to buy a lunghi and matching slippers here, and a shirt too, if you’re feeling extravagant (or not, as the case may be; everything is reasonably priced, with a shirt for around £3-5).

One thing to note: the Burmese are not aggressive at bartering, at least compared to those traders in Delhi and Bangkok, and you may be surprised by how much they concede quickly and with a smile. Be gentle!

An apartment block on one of Yangon’s busiest thoroughfares: hot, noisy and crowded – so everyone takes to the streets. I shall not forget the people there; they are some of the friendliest I’ve met.

This is Bogyoke Market (formerly the celebrated Scott’s Market, when Burma was part of the British Empire). Wikipedia tells me it is a haven for black market currency exchange; Myanmar has a cash-based economy, and the few ATMs that are there serve local cards only.

People in Myanmar love to read. These books, like so many others, are often dated paperbacks. Some newer books are carefully assembled photocopies and cost a fraction of the real thing. Many of the titles available – especially those critical of the former regime – would have been unthinkable to sell publicly in the recent past.

The script is beautiful, but alas I can’t read a word: this phrase is Bogyoke Market in Burmese ဗိုလ်ချုပ်အောင်ဆန်းဈေး
This man is wearing a lunghi, a traditional Myanmar dress, like a sarong, and expertly tied in the middle.

Slippers (flip-flops) are a famous part of Bogyoke Market: I bought some rather splendid ones, in black velvet.

Sir Alex Ferguson retires: Delhi, India heartbroken

Fergie

There’s a joke that does the rounds after quite probably every Manchester United defeat and it goes like this: ‘Ah, United lose again. There will be a lot of disappointment in London tonight…’

The point is, of course, is that most of Man U’s fans aren’t in Manchester, or even the north of England. Kids pick their favourite side, regardless of where they’re from: the sides that win, attract the best players, have that razzle dazzle.

And nowhere is this phenomenom more evident than in India.

I was amazed to enter a ‘multi-brand’ sports store (the preferred nomenclature, I discovered recently: most stores are single-brand) in a local mall and find an entire floor devoted to Man U. It had kits, memorabilia, footballs – all branded in that inimitable red. Football in general and British football in particular (mostly Premiership) seems ubiquitous here: I often chuckle to find an auto-rickshaw driver tell me that his son supports Southampton, or when I see games including West Bromwich Albion, Norwich and Tottenham Hotspur on my TataSky HD t.v. satellite box.

So, to extend the joke and give it a little local flavour: Now that Sir Alex Ferguson has retired, there will be a lot of disappointment in New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai…

Photo credit: Austin Osuide

Missing home: snookered

I don’t miss home as a rule, whatever ‘home’ means. My home is here, wherever me and Jennie happen to be. But there are things about the UK or France that I miss occasionally. It will no doubt be the same when I leave India.

For example, when I lived in France I used to miss Marks & Spencer. But in India, there is an M&S in most malls that differ little from their UK counterparts (although Jennie insists they offer last year’s fashions, I wouldn’t know, being perennially outmoded). Incidentally, that’s one of the paradoxes of moving further away from home; there are often more similarities between Britain and India than between Britain and France (understandably, given the shared history, one might say).

But I digress. I read today that Ronnie ‘The Rocket’ O’Sullivan has just won the World Snooker Championship. I miss snooker, too. But here’s the rub (of the cloth, as it were): I don’t actually want to watch snooker, or at least watch it much – I just want to know it’s there.

I want to know it switches from BBC1 to BBC 2, oblivious to all else, whilst the rest of the world goes about its business on all the other channels.

I want to imagine a snooker-frenzied nation caught in the grip of a tight frame, or bamboozled by a brilliant safety shot.

I want to know there’s been a tussle of frames in the early hours, spilling over into the late-night politics programming, making a nonsense of the scheduling and keeping the viewers glued to their seats, light flickering on their faces.

I want to think of an old man in an old chair make an older joke to his old wife that, for those of us who are watching in black and white, the pink is behind the blue.

I want to imagine men and women indifferent to the game, or worse, roll their eyes to see the entire bank holiday Monday tv listing taken with hour upon hour of the bloody snooker.

I don’t want to watch the snooker. I just want to know it’s there when I don’t want to watch it.

Do you know your honk from your beep? Guessing the sounds of India’s roads

The Wall Street Journal has a fun little five-question quiz on the sounds of India’s roads – or, more precisely, matching the ‘honk’ to the vehicle.

I did well, getting them all right – but I’m not sure how proud I should feel. How did you get on?

The end of caste in the UK? Equality Act to recognise caste as discriminatory

A cleaner at the Diwan-i-khas, Lal Qila, Delhi ©Phil Greaney 2013

I’ve read several times that India ‘will not be moved’, that its immense traditions, conventions and history combine to create a country unlike no other in its tendency to resist the pressure to change. It was like an anchor to its people and allies; an unwavering centre in a sea of transition.

I held this ability in high regard, considering it desirable to find a rooted culture unaffected by the winds of trivial change. But it also has a huge downside: in some areas India needs to transform itself, and no more is this evident in its attitude towards caste and its implications.

India still has a caste system, whether you believe those who say it doesn’t or not. As an outsider, I’m still – thankfully – immune to its nuances. I can’t identify the caste, or position, someone holds based upon how they look or speak or where they’re from. But others can: and finding one’s place within this social structure is, I’m lead to believe, a starting point for relationships in contemporary India.

So, the UK’s decision to outlaw caste as discriminatory under law is a welcome one. This is a distinction not held in India and may cause tension there, according to this report; but the diaspora of Indians in England has meant that the law must reflect in its precision a notion of tolerance embraced by the UK and its subjects – that no race or class or caste should be protected by law, and especially that of the dalit, or untouchable.

No whataboutery, please
It’s tempting, at such times, to indulge in some ‘whataboutery’: I do it all the time in defence of India and elsewhere. In this case I might start by pointing the finger at the UK’s class system which, too, I’m afraid to say, is very much in evidence whether supported by law or not. Or I might point to the fact that the Raj in India deliberately sustained and even advanced the role of caste.

But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to say that I agree with the UK’s decision and that I hope it undermines this pernicious social classification; and to quote that remarkable and oft-remembered but little heeded gem of wisdom from Gandhi - a man who himself changed his views on caste:

I would bend the knee before the poorest scavenger, the poorest untouchable in India, for having participated in crushing him for centuries, I would even take the dust off his feet.

Half English: a love song to England and Great Britain

On the day of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, I watched London in the grip of its famous pomp and circumstance, all starched uniforms, precision marches and elaborate headwear, alongside black cars, black suits, black dresses. I called in our maid to watch the spectacle, a kind of tentative ‘cultural exchange’, a change from me asking about India. This is not how London usually looks, I laughed. I went on.

And as I explained what was unravelling before us, I felt a sense of excitement swell – that this London, England that we watched was my home country – familiar for all its faults, and still enthralling. There it was just being, a fact hard to fathom sometimes here in a place so different, just as it’s hard to imagine rain and cold somewhere else to my sunshine, or that half the world sits in night to my day.

Caught in the moment, I invited myself to crunch the whole being and meaning of Britain into a few half-dozen lines readily understood. And as I spoke – about the NHS, state-provided education, Shakespeare (his birthday soon, I added), lack of corruption, its history, its tolerance, its innovation and cultural richness, its clean streets and relative lack of crime – I felt rise in me a warmness, a congeniality, an affection, a love even for England and the rest of the UK. That’s not to say it doesn’t have problems, I said out loud again. But in those moments I realised how absurd it seemed that a tiny, rather bleak island could have done so much, and worked so hard at it, and grown to me beloved for it; and how, like a brother I thought so affectionately of it, with its faults, some terrible.

When living in India, one becomes an expert at little more than summarising for the inquisitive – and everyone is inquisitive – how it feels to live in this extraordinary place. I’ve spent some time trying to understand India, to formulate a response to that question that captures the essence of India (a futile enterprise but an inexorable one, at least for those who find themselves in the endlessly fascinating sub-continent). But at this moment I was able to look at my home country for the first time in an age; and, in short, it has gone up in my estimation.

For some, living away from home means escape, a glorious casting off of ties that bind, a new found freedom from which they never look back. For others, so determined to make their new home a success, they exclaim their home country has gone to the dogs, never to return, and that their new home the better for it. I had not thought of England much for a while, but living in India – a place I’ve grown afraid to think of leaving, lest the world outside seem greyer, colder, less intense – and elsewhere, has made my heart grow fonder by its absence, or rather, mine.

For me at this moment, England and Great Britain seemed a little nearer now than it had done before, and a little more like that most elusive of places: a home amongst homes.

Travelling Tales Part 2: Hello Hunny Bunny, You’re my Pumpkin Pumpkin

Don’t worry. I’m quite sane. The title isn’t an invitation to you, dear reader, as sweet as you are. All will be revealed.

If the first of my taxi stories ended on a sour, if perplexing note, this I hope might restore some balance.

Getting a taxi in Delhi isn’t always about being shunned, or haggling, or the infamous gorah tax. Sometimes it can bring a smile to your face. When we prebook a taxi to take us to the airport in the early hours of the morning (if you don’t do this already BTW, you might consider it when in Delhi: try Meru Cabs, they seem to work well) it arrives on time and often the tired, rather solemn driver opens the door slooowly and we sit in the back, a dour mood drifting over us from the short night just passed and the long day ahead.

That is – until the driver presses the button to start the meter. Then the most joyously ridiculous song is thrown from the tinny speaker as if the volume were on number 11. What’s so special about it is the way in which, as a passenger, you can’t help smiling – but the poor driver, who has heard it many times before, scowls and waits for the moment – too long he must think: it goes on for an age – when it will end and normal, that is silent, service is resumed. His seriousness – he is a professional driver, after all, a representative of a company proud of its service record – is precisely that which sustains the laughter long after the song has finished. And, as an ear worm, you’ll be singing it long after, too.

For that brief overwhelmingly loud and bright and squeaky moment when Honey Bunny is playing, the world suddenly seems all right again – and you’ve started your journey.

Being hot: George Orwell’s ‘Burmese Days’

I’m reading the excellent Burmese Days by George Orwell at the moment. It’s one of the harshest critiques of British imperialism I’ve read so far, a subject to which I hope to return. But it’s also unique among Orwell’s writing in containing long swathes of colourful and descriptive writing, including this, on being hot – a subject close to the heart of myself (as I wrote here in this recent ‘prose poem’) and many Delhi-ites at this time of year:

They went out into the glaring white sunlight. The heat rolled from the earth like the breath of an oven. The flowers, oppressive to the eyes, blazed with not a petal stirring, in a debauch of sun. The glare sent a weariness through one’s bones. There was something horrible in it–horrible to think of that blue, blinding sky, stretching on and on over Burma and India, over Siam, Cambodia, China, cloudless and interminable. The plates of Mr Macgregor’s waiting car were too hot to touch. The evil time of day was beginning, the time, as the Burmese say, ‘when feet are silent’. Hardly a living creature stirred, except men, and the black columns of ants, stimulated by the heat, which marched ribbon-like across the path, and the tail-less vultures which soared on the currents of the air.

Happy St George’s Day: Bill Hicks on England

One of the things about being away from home – and my ‘home’, although made problematic by moving countries a bit, still feels like England* – is that you often learn to love it more, or at least take on a different perspective (more on that later). Fingers crossed, I’m returning to the UK for part of the summer and as much as I’m enjoying myself here in India, I’ll no doubt enjoy myself there, too.

Anyway, it’s St George’s Day, England’s patron saint, so to celebrate, here’s Bill Hicks’ take on crime in the UK, happily less heinous than that in Los Angeles where he lived.

*Not to be confused, England is not the same as the UK but it’s a big part of it

Being there: watching the Delhi Daredevils vs Mumbai Indians at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium

On Sunday afternoon I was lucky enough to fulfil another ‘dream’ I have nurtured since living in India – to watch an Indian Premier League (IPL) match. This epic was between rivals Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians at the Feroz Shah Stadium here in the sunny capital. And what an experience it was.

Delhi and Mumbai fans sit side-by-side as the sun goes down

The journey there couldn’t have been more difficult, the evening no more perfect. I met a friend at the busy-at-the-quietest-of-times Pragati Maidan junction. On match day it was especially hectic: fans streamed from the nearby metro; traffic lights had stopped working, intensifying the stress; hassled traffic policeman looked dazed. We parked the car, took an improbable chawla (cycle rickshaw) ride and worked our way feverishly through the throng (the young man who cycled us was the size of one of my thighs and, given both me and my friend are of ample build let’s say, it was some achievement to get us all up the hill). In short, it would be a miracle to see the start of the match.

And miss it we did, given miracles don’t happen. Now, this could be potentially disastrous for the happiness of hundreds of late fans like us: if a certain permutation of events transpired one of the key reasons for seeing the match could be lost. That reason might be summarised in a single word that means everything to everyone here in India: Sachin. If the Mumbai Indians were to bat first and if legendary batsman Sachin Tendulkar opened the innings and if he was out early – in that pocket of time during our absence – then… well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. And, luckily, it doesn’t bear writing about either: although Mumbai did bat first and Sachin opened, he went on to get a fifty, meaning there was plenty of time to watch him play.

Sachin batting his way towards a fifty

A word on Sachin: there was a large banner hung from the upper stand that read something like ‘Sachin you are nearly a god to us’. Not a god idly worshipped at distance, once a week praised in a quietly reverential service; but one understood and worshipped noisily and with joy as part of the everyday fabric of Indian sporting life. My friend told me something which I had hitherto suspected but which I could now see played out before me: whatever team you support in the IPL, if you are Indian, you want Sachin to do well. Consequently, fans temporarily switch allegiance to Sachin – not his team as such, although it amounts to more or less the same thing.

Sachin by degrees
You seem to hear more noise when Sachin is present. At times it seems that a series of increasingly significant events in a game elicit progressively voluminous degrees of cheering when the Tendulkar has the bat in hand. The hierarchy of cheering for Sachin is as follows: walking on to the pitch before he’s hit a ball (delirious applause); taking guard before the bowler bowls (reckless abandon); hitting the ball anywhere, including five feet in front of him (unabated eulogising); scoring a run (wild jubilation); hitting a boundary (clamourous exultation); hitting a six (faint-inducing cacophony, comparisons to Bradman); getting out (silence). And so it went that night at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi, as the sun dropped behind the stand and the moon rose above the stadium lights and all eyes were on the ‘Little Master’ in the crucible of the batting crease.

“Cricket is our religion, Sachin is our god”

We had great views of the game and the many who watched it. Sitting on the top stand, we enjoyed a cool early evening breeze to mitigate the sun’s rays before evening came. Birds swooped and swirled overhead. An abortive Mexican wave turned into general arm waving and cheering. The batter took guard, the bowler ran in. I looked around and drank it all in, as we are often wont to do when we find ourselves somewhere amazing, a place full of life’s intensity, a space and time that we understand intuitively as unforgettable, a moment that we know there and then will stay with us for the rest of our lives. And so I watched, and smiled, smiled and watched.

Viru in action under the lights

A paltry thing like a game result seemed a grubby and trivial concern at a time like this: but it was the cherry on cake when Delhi won, thrashing Mumbai by 9 wickets, with an amazing and unbeaten innings from local player and crowd favourite Virender Sehwag, supported wonderfully by Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardena. The Delhi Daredevils had lost all their previous six matches. I considered myself the lucky charm (above even that of Sir Viv Richards, a giant of the West Indies team, who was enjoying his first game as ‘ambassador’ or ‘advisor’ for the Daredevils) and so thought that I should watch all the games at the Kotla, just in case.

It’s just not cricket
If you’ve got this far and you’re wondering what on earth I’m writing about: it’s cricket.

Or it’s just not cricket, should I say, at least for many: the IPL in particular and T20 in general is so often thought of as the game’s lesser relation, especially in England I’m sorry to say. There, where often anything but test matches are thought of as unappealing sidelines to the main event, the IPL is vilified as too commercial; a threat to the integrity of international teams and their players; unappealing, vulgar even, in its quality as a cricket match; deleterious on its effect on the beloved longer game; the lamentable list goes on. Perhaps it’s just too popular.

My first love for the game lies in international test matches but, just as having a favourite fruit doesn’t preclude me from eating any other, there is room for IPL. It does many things that test cricket doesn’t, something often forgotten when considering the vice versa. Besides, it isn’t going to go away easily. I watched the IPL on tv long before I made it to a match. It was always good but it’s better when being there. Try sitting in the Kotla, with men and women and children cheering their heroes, Delhi fans sitting next to Mumbai fans without a hint of tension, wrapped in the inimitable glory of an Indian summer evening, and telling me you don’t get it.

Like the former President Bush’s human beings and fish, I think that test cricket and IPL can co-exist peacefully.

Photo credit: ‘Cricket is our religion, Sachin is our God’