Naing Win Swe

Naing Win Swe (1940-1995) a prominent Burmese writer and poet.

He wrote some famous Burmese novels as revolutionist and patriot. After the failed 8888 Uprising he left Burma. He was killed in a jungle on the Thai Border in 1995 by the Burmese Army.

The legend is that, as he lay dead on the battleground his comrades picked wild flowers and covered his remains with the flowers before they retreated as they didn’t have enough time to bury him.

Late Naing Win Swe's most famous book was "Ma Thein Shin Si Pote Pay Bar (1971)" a fictionalized semi-autobiographical novel. The story is a tragic love story of a smuggler-girl and a train-ticket-inspector on the Taung Dwin Gyee - Kyauk Pa Daung shuttle-train in middle Burma in late 1960's at the height of military-Socialist repression during Dictator Ne Win's long rein.

On 6 January 1966 General Ne Win’s Revolutionary Council's Socialist Government stupidly prohibited the civilian populace from transporting, storing, distributing, and trading of 460 basic commodities including the staples such as rice, peanut-oil, and salt. The horrifying result was the 1967 Chinese Race Riots where hundreds and hundreds of local Chinese were slaughtered by the Burmese mob as people in the urban centers starved and took it out on the relatively-wealthier Chinese. Hta-nyet was one of those restricted commodities and a large scale smuggling trade of Hta-nyet had developed overnight in Middle Burma where most of it is produced.

His fictionalized semi-autobiographical novel vividly depicts the utter sufferings of a society under the brutal Socialist System as both the rulers and the ruled become the hapless victims of that Evil Ideology called Socialism where State Controls almost everything and People Starve.

Following is the translated extracts from Chapter One of Naing Win Swe's "Ma Thein Shin."

"On this train there were many people who were going to load illegal Hta-nyet (Jaggery or palm-sugar) at the Kyauk-pa-daung Station. Most of these smugglers were so well familiar to me that I couldn’t arrest them at all.

I couldn’t refuse them the rides even though it was my job to prevent them from what they were doing as their living and to arrest them. Quite often I hopelessly searched for the reasons why I couldn’t force myself to arrest them. I knew very well that for letting them on this train I could lose my job and I could even go to jail.

This train was not just merely traveling on its tracks.

In my mind I sometimes felt like this big train was a turbulent river in which the smugglers, their empty baskets, and the cooking-oil, table-salt, onions, dried-tea-leaves, dried-chili, and turmeric-powder etc, all prohibited goods in our stupid Socialist country where every basic commodity is Government-controlled, and the train-conductor, loco-driver, disgusting smells, hunters, preys, students, monks, humans, everything alive or lifeless, were all chaotically floating and drifting in its rushing and aimless current.

And I was also thinking the vast darkness around me was a big deep ocean swallowing me and everything else.

Slowly the pretty sunrays of pre-dawn had come out of the fog covered darkness. Sa-dan-chaung would be soon and there would be Ko Shwe Yout and his three sons waiting for the train. I could even imagine them standing together there in my mind.

The train had quietly stopped at the Sa-dan-chaung Station still in darkness. I jumped down as the train was slowing down to a complete halt. The platform was partly collapsed but I still stood at a place and yelled out, “I’m here, come and buy your ticket, …….., here, ……., here!” I yelled out again and again into the darkness as I had done daily here at this almost-abandoned Station.

The travelers had to rush precariously in the dark along the collapsed-platform towards me in this station-less, stationmaster-less, and conductor-less Station. Some tripped and fell. “Boss, Boss, I have some cargo, Boss,” shouted one traveler coming from a distance.

“Yin Maung, hurry up,” rushed the train Conductor Ko Aung Kyaw who was also waving his battery lamp towards me like a cowboy shinning lights pushing me to rush.

While I was quickly doing the job of selling the tickets for both passengers and their cargo I also kept an eye on Ko Shwe Yout’s group nearby. They didn’t buy tickets from me but still loaded their cargo and after that Ko Shwe Yout sent his three sons into the train while he stood in the shadow at the end of platform and stared at me as if he was waiting for me.

He was barefoot with a torn-sarong wrapped around his thin neck. Without combing and oiling his movie-stars-like long hairs were all over his face in the wind mildly blowing.

Once my job had been done the Conductor blew his whistle aloud like a drill-sergeant and waved the green-light-lamp at the loco-driver. Only when the train started moving I climbed into a passenger car. Behind me Ko Shwe Yout also jumped into the car to catch up with me.

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We stood together at the doorway. As the train was slowly accelerating he placed into my hand all the crumpled one-kyat notes and a few coins from his tight grip. Either because of the cold or the fear of me his hands were shaking visibly.

“All together 8 of us, Boss.” “The whole group?” “Ko Phoe Kyaw stays at home. His wife just died.”

Before putting the money into my trousers’ pocket I tried to look at his face in the dark. His money was mere 13 or 14 kyats. If they had to buy the tickets for all of them and their illegal cargo all the way to Kyaun-pa-daung they wouldn’t make any profit out of their illegal Hta-nyets. Out of their meager profit they also had to pay me the train clerk, the conductor, and the railway-police. Then I remembered his wife was not well too.

“Is your wife okay?” I asked him. “Same same, Boss.” “Didn’t you take her to a doctor?” “Er.” “What is that Er?” “We don’t have money to go see a doctor at town. The village doctor also runs out of medicine.” “The village nurse?” “Nope, a horse-cart driver, very dependable and don’t ask much money. Cheaper than doctors.”

I stayed silent as my mind wandered about Ko Shwe Yout. He was a decent man taking care of his over a dozen kids as his wife had been sick in bed most of the time, struggling with three under-aged sons in his smuggling business, and earning money for me the train clerk, the conductor, and the railway police.

“We should be okay,” said him after losing himself quietly in some deep thoughts.

I put half of the money into my pocket and returned the rest to him for his wife’s medication. At first he refused to take the money back. I also knew that he was fearful of me not taking all I was given and later giving him a trouble. But I even felt so tired of telling him again and again to take the money back.

Finally when he reached out for the money I noticed his hands were shaking. Without seeing it I knew his eyes were full of tears then.

“Other men in your position won’t be satisfied with whatever much we’re paying. For some girls and young women they have to pay not just money but their body too. Look at that young Mya Khin. Not even 13 yet and now she has a baby belly,” I could hear them in my mind what he was silently saying from his mind even though he didn’t let a word out of his mouth.

“Okay, you guys just take care in doing whatever you’re doing!” I had to warn him though. “Don’t worry Boss. We wouldn’t hurt you. They will never catch our Hta-nyets,” “I don’t worry about you all. I know you guys will never give me trouble. But if the police catch your stuff I’ll also be responsible for them, okay.” “Yes we know.” “I could lose my job. I could go to jail.”

I couldn’t hear his reply very well as the train was getting noisier as it was now going faster. But I knew no one would catch his Hta-nyets on this train. I didn’t know his secrets at first. Only later I discovered that out of only two regular trains shuttling between Taung-dwin-gyi and Kyauk-pa-daung one train had a hole in the ceiling of one of the toilets and Ko Shwe Yout and his sons had their goods always hidden inside the ceiling through that hole.

But my mind was quite heavy with a thought now that I had on my train more than 20 smugglers travelling without tickets for them and their cargo. Pin-chaung’s Aung Naing Myint, Thar-mhyar’s Ko Than, Myo-thit’s Ko Than, and Kyaunk-pa-daung’s Soe Myint, so many of them on the train. Whoever caught anyone of them I wouldn’t be able to deny my responsibility as my duty basically was to catch them.

I was the Train-Clerk and my duties on this whole train were checking the tickets, inspecting the cargo, and arresting the smugglers. But I was also the very one earning good money from all the smugglers and ticketless-riders by taking bribe money from them and closing my eyes on their supposedly illegal activities.

I looked down at the double-ended Red/Blue pencil in my hand and realized that I was like a small king with all the arresting powers on this slow train. I was also thinking I should be happy and satisfied with myself for having this all-powerful position.

But at the same time I was thinking the whole thing was wrong, for the whole world around me seemed to be disorderly chaotic and brutally unjust after I had been witnessing the utter sufferings of the poor and the destitute from this driest and harshest part of drought-ravaged middle Burma."

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External links

• Mahuyar.pdf, Mahuyar.
• Poem, Naing Win Swe's Poem.
• Novel Review, Ma Thein Shin.