Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

Most of Huay Zedi’s population took Doh Say’s advice, Dinu among them. The village was abandoned and its inhabitants settled in Loikaw, a small frontier town, deep in the Karenni hills, not far from the border of Thailand. For Dinu, there was one great advantage to being in Loikaw: he was once again able to find photographic materials — many of them smuggled across the Thai border. He set up a studio and became the only professional photographer within hundreds of miles. Even in difficult times, people married, had children— they needed records and were willing to pay, sometimes in cash but more often in kind.

In 1947, in preparation for the British departure, Burma’s first national elections were held. They were won by General Aung San. It was widely believed that he alone would be able to ensure the country’s unity and stability. But on July 19, shortly before he was to assume office, Aung San was assassinated, along with several of his would-be colleagues. Within months of the assassination, a Communist-led insurgency broke out in central Burma. Some of the army’s Karen units mutinied. The Karen were the country’s largest ethnic group after the Burmans; a major Karen organisation took up arms against the Rangoon Government.

Other groups followed suit. In a short time, there were sixteen insurgencies raging in Burma.

One day, in Loikaw, a boy came running to Dinu’s door. ‘Ko Tun Pe — someone come looking for you.’ Another child followed and then another. They stood in his doorway panting, watching in bright-eyed expectation. They all said the same thing. ‘Ko Tun Pe — you have a visitor; she’s walking up from the bus station.’

He ignored them; he stayed inside his studio, doing nothing, trying not to look out of the window. Then he heard more voices approaching — a procession appeared to be making its way towards his shack. He could hear people calling out: ‘Ko Tun Pe — look who’s here!’ He saw a shadow on his threshold and looked up. It was Dolly.

It had taken Dolly several months to track Dinu to Loikaw. She had arrived in Burma late in 1948, just as the insurgencies were getting under way. On coming to Rangoon, she’d discovered that the authority of the elected Government did not extend far beyond the capital’s municipal limits. Even the areas that bordered Mingaladon airport were in rebel hands. Much of Rangoon was in ruins, bombed to ashes by successive air campaigns. With the Kemendine house burnt to the ground, she had nowhere to stay; a friend gave her refuge.

One day Dolly heard that Dinu’s old friend, Thiha Saw, was back in Rangoon, working for a newspaper. She went to see him to ask if he had any news of Dinu. It so happened that U Thiha Saw had recently attended a political conference where Raymond had also been present. U Thiha Saw told Dolly that Dinu was safe, living in Loikaw. Dolly had left Rangoon by boat the next day. After a journey of several weeks she had boarded a rattling old bus that was on its way to Loikaw.

Dolly and Dinu spent days talking. She told him about Neel’s death and Manju’s death; about the march across the mountains and how she and Rajkumar had made the journey from the Indian border, through Assam, to Calcutta; she explained why she had come back to Burma alone.

He took pictures of her. Dolly was very thin and the bones of her face could be seen as clearly as the ridges of a fluted cup. Her hair was tied tightly back at the nape of her neck: it was still dark and glossy, with only a few white streaks at the temple.

She urged him to write to his father: ‘You should go and find him; you would not have the trouble with him that you had before. He is changed, a different man, almost a child. You should go to him; he needs you — he is alone.’

Dinu would make no promises. ‘Maybe. Some day.’

He knew, without her telling him, that she had not come, to stay. He was not surprised when she said: ‘Next week I shall leave for Sagaing.’

He went with her. This was the first time he’d ventured into the plains since the end of the war. He was stupefied by the devastation. They travelled through territories that had been scorched not once but twice by retreating armies. River channels were blocked and railway lines lay mangled on their sleepers. From village to village a different group or party was in charge. Farmers ploughed round bomb-craters; children pointed out the places where mines lay unexploded. They took roundabout routes, skirting round those districts which were said to be particularly dangerous. They walked and hired ox-carts, and took an occasional bus or a river boat. At Mandalay they stopped a night. Much of the fort was in ruins; the palace had been destroyed by artillery fire; the pavilions that Dolly had known had burnt to the ground.

They walked the last few miles to Sagaing and took a ferry across the Irrawaddy. To their intense relief Sagaing was unchanged. The hills were tranquil and beautiful, dotted with thousands of white pagodas. Dolly began to walk faster as they approached the nunnery. At the entrance she held Dinu fast and then Evelyn led her in. The next day, when Dinu went to see her, her head was shaved and she was wearing a saffron robe. She looked radiant.

It was arranged that he would come back to see her again the next year. The time came and he went back, from Loikaw to Sagaing, making the long journey again. At the gates of the nunnery there was a long wait. At length Evelyn came down. She gave him a gentle smile.

‘Your mother passed away a month ago,’ she said. ‘We could not inform you because of the troubles. You’ll be happy to know that it was very quick and she suffered no pain.’

In 1955 Doh Say died, in Loikaw. By this time, he had become a great patriarch and an influential leader. He was mourned by thousands. To Dinu, Doh Say had been almost as much a parent as a mentor: his death was a great blow. Shortly afterwards, Dinu decided to move to Rangoon.

The mid-1950s were a relatively quiet time in Burma. There was a stand-off in the insurgencies and the Government was a functioning democracy. U Thiha Saw had become the editor of one of the country’s leading Burmese-language newspapers and wielded considerable influence in Rangoon.

On arriving in Rangoon, Dinu went to see his old friend: he had grown from a thin, tall boy into a portly, authoritative-looking man. He wore colourful longyis and floppy bush shirts, and almost invariably had a pipe in his hands. He gave Dinu a job as a photographer at his newspaper. Later, when Dinu found a suitable place for a studio, it was U Thiha Saw who loaned him the money to buy it.

Some of the best-known photographers of pre-war Rangoon had been Japanese. After the war many had closed down their studios and disposed cheaply of their equipment. In his years in Loikaw, Dinu had made himself an expert in repairing and restoring old and discarded photographic equipment: he was able to set up his studio at very little cost.

U Thiha Saw was one of the first visitors to Dinu’s studio. He looked round it with approval. ‘Very nice, very nice.’ He stopped to puff on his pipe. ‘But haven’t you forgotten something?’

‘What?’

‘A signboard. Your studio has to have a name, after all.’

‘I haven’t thought of a name. .’ Dinu glanced around.

Everywhere he looked, his eyes met glass: framed photographs, counter-tops, camera lenses.

‘The Glass Palace,’ he said suddenly. ‘That’s what I’ll call it. .’

‘Why?’

‘It was a favourite phrase of my mother’s,’ he said. ‘Just something she used to say. .’

The name stuck and Dinu’s work quickly gained a reputation. The Fourth Princess was now living in Rangoon. Her husband was an artist. They were both regular visitors to the Glass Palace. Soon Dinu had more work than he could handle. He asked around for an assistant and U Thiha Saw recommended a relative, a young woman who was in need of a part-time job. This proved to be none other than Ma Thin Thin Aye— the young girl who’d helped to shelter Dinu when he’d passed through Rangoon in 1942. She was now in her mid-twenties, a student at Rangoon University. She was doing research in Burmese literature, writing a dissertation on The Glass Palace Chronicles— a famous nineteenth-century history, written in the reign of King Bodawpaya, an ancestor of King Thebaw’s. The name of Dinu’s studio struck Ma Thin Thin Aye as a happy coincidence. She took the job.