"Riding the Bus in Rangoon" by Khin Aung Aye

"Riding the Bus in Rangoon" by Khin Aung Aye, illustrated by Kenneth Wong

Khin Aung Aye wrote "Riding the Bus in Rangoon" on October 16, in the same week Rangoon was rocked by a series of bomb blasts. It was also the peak of Thidingyut (the festival of light associated with Buddha's fabled return to earth). Just blocks away from Traders Hotel where the blast had wounded a tourist, Rangoon residents were still lighting candles in the pavilions of Botataung Pagoda, still munching on fritters sold by squatting street vendors. That juxtaposition of celebration and violence may characterize Burma's Democratization for some time.

While translating this poem with Khin Aung Aye's input in midnight Skype sessions, I came up against a peculiar feature of the Burmese language that's difficult to capture in English. Burmese permits sentences without an explicit subject, and talented poets like Khin Aung Aye employs this ambiguity to their advantage. In his original, he blurs the distinction between the narrator desperately trying to forget his miserable existence and the omnipotent voice urging him to forget his circumstances. In my translation, I have to commit these inner thoughts to one or the other. After experimenting with first person and second person constructions, we settled on "I."

At my request, Khin Aung Aye recorded the Burmese recital of the poem in his own voice in his Rangoon residence. He was concerned that some background noises -- passing cars and neighborhood kids -- seeped into the homemade recording. I assured him it added flavor to his reading.

Khin Aung Aye's poems also appeared in the English anthology Bones Will Crow (translated and edited by Ko Ko Thett and James Byrne, Arc Publications, 2012). He lives in Bangkok, but currently he is visiting his poetry comrades in Burma.

Riding the Bus in Rangoon

Life makes me forget
What I’d like to remember,
And makes me remember
What I’d rather forget;
Every day I hurl myself like a sack
Into a bus jammed tight with bodies,
And oppressive thoughts.
Let’s forget,
Let’s forget,
Forget myself,
Forget my life,
Forget the family I left behind,
Forget the tantalizing promise
Of what I could be,
Forget that the bus is
Precariously tilted,
Forget that my net worth
Is hardly worth mentioning,
Forget the President’s name,
Forget Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,
Forget the stop where I get off,
Forget living,
Forget the fare collector’s face
That looks like a loaf of bread
That’s been soaked in water for a day
And stomped on,
Forget politics.
Yes, yes, I’ve already forgotten,
Forgotten everything!
Have I got Democracy now?

10:58 PM, October 26, 2013.
Thamein Bayan Road, Tamwe Township, Rangoon