Not Out of Hate. Ma Ma Lay

spoke, the way she walked. She remembered how her mother would go to the Sagaing hills during the Buddhist Lenten season each year.¹⁵ She remembered how her mother had hated to travel alone, so her father had to take her there and leave her for a month or so. Before her meditation period was over she would write her husband to come and escort her back home to the Irrawaddy delta.

      Way Way remembered that some years when the trip did not work out, her mother was unhappy and restless, lamenting the fact with murmurings and complaints. She changed so much that, two years before she donned the habit, it was apparent to everyone in the household that she would eventually do so. She talked less. She spent time each day on a multiplicity of religious observances. She constantly worked the beads of her rosary, which never left her hands. When she sat at prayer, she sat so long that she was unconscious of time and seemed to be in a trance. She read the scriptures until midnight. She always spoke in terms of religious parallels, so that Way Way was exposed to the Buddhist view of existence when she was but a child. Her mother did not seem to enjoy her food or take any pleasure in her apparel. She removed all her jewelry. She even took off her earrings, which every Buddhist Burmese woman wears from young girlhood, and gave them to Daw Thet saying, “Sister, you wear these from now on.” She lost interest in the family business and was not aware that she had stopped participating in it. Indeed, she was not aware at all that she had cut herself off from her family.

      When U Po Thein had said teasingly, “You may as well leave the society of man and become a nun in Sagaing,” she replied gently, “Just give me leave to do so. I am ready.”

      When U Po Thein had mumbled and grumbled about this withdrawal from the world, Daw Thet’s refractory answer was, “Then it might just as well be withdrawal to the hills of Sagaing.” She too had meant it as a joke.

      Then one year, when Way Way was in the seventh standard, her mother went to Sagaing to meditate and never returned. She wrote telling U Po Thein that she had become a nun, asked for his acceptance of the fact, and gave her permission for him to be free to marry again if he so desired. Way Way cried her heart out when she was told that her mother had become a nun. U Po Thein had loved his wife so much that he had always acquiesced to her wishes and therefore Daw Thet censured him, saying, “It’s really you who is responsible for this, you know. You have always given in to her, and you have only yourself to blame.”

      U Po Thein was heartsick and could not understand or accept what happened. It took him a long time to get over it, but he tried to explain his wife to Way Way and the others saying, “For the kind of person she was, the religious life is really best.” When he was alone, however, he would grieve and sink into depression.

      Daw Thet’s heart went out in pity for her brother and her small niece, and she felt bitter towards her sister-in-law and thought, How could she be so cruel!

      When Way Way finished her seventh standard exams and school closed for the hot weather, she cried and fretted about, wanting to see her mother. U Po Thein sent her off with Daw Thet as he himself could not bear to see his wife. After this, Way Way went once a year to see her mother. It had now been five years. Way Way’s brother, Ko Nay U, and her sister Hta Hta, who lived far away, were at first quite upset about their mother; then they rationalized what she had done by saying, “Well, it really is a meritorious action ….”

      U Po Thein chose not to see his wife after she left, and never wrote to her. He still sent her support regularly, however, and tried to get on with his life as best he could. Way Way was aware that her mother had severed all feelings for her father but that her father still cared deeply. It made her unhappy every time she thought of it. Although her father did not read the letters that came from her mother, he would ask Way Way to read them aloud while he listened. All through those five years, Way Way’s mother never mentioned her father, and Way Way could not understand how her mother could do that. In the beginning, just after her mother had left home, Way Way, aware that her father was filled with longing and sadness, would write and tell her mother, but her mother never mentioned him in her letters. Remembering now in flashbacks her mother’s going from the world into the nunnery brought it all back afresh.

      “She brought her karma into this life from her previous existence. That is the reason she could break off her ties so completely. I think she wanted to leave after Maung Ne U and Hta Hta married and left home, but she waited because Way Way was too small at the time,” Daw Thet said slowly, not looking at either Way Way or her father, as though her thoughts were way off somewhere in the past. Having started on this theme, she wanted to continue but was prevented from doing so by a spasm of coughing from U Po Thein. When he stopped, Way Way looked up and saw her father’s peaked and wan face. She was aghast.

      “Have you taken your medicine yet?” asked Daw Thet. “Personally I don’t go along with those injections and things. I think Burmese medicine is better, myself.” She was truly upset about her brother’s condition.

      Early that morning, on returning from the godown where the paddy was stored, U Po Thein had started coughing and there had been blood. The whole household was startled out of their wits. U Po Thein had never experienced such a thing before and was himself even more terrified. His face turned as white as a sheet and his feet and hands went cold. They ran at once for the doctor.

      The doctor told them it was not tuberculosis, only an excess of blood, but they all thought he said that to reduce their fears and believed it was indeed tuberculosis. Way Way was extremely worried about her father and longed for her mother to be with them at this time.

      “Is it time for my medicine?” asked U Po Thein.

      Way Way looked down at her watch. “It’s one o’clock. You’d better take it,” she said as she went to fetch it for him. After taking the medicine, U Po Thein climbed slowly up the stairs to lie down for a nap.

      “I worry about your father so,” groaned Daw Thet as she got up to leave.

      Way Way walked across the room and sat at the desk in order to reply to her mother. She read her mother’s letter once more. She was tired of reading her religious exhortations. Sometimes she discerned their meaning, but most times she did not. She really never sat down to study their meaning deeply and had never really caught that feeling which led to religious ardor and understanding. She remembered some of the religious tenets like the Three Truths, the Eight-Fold Path, the Seven Rules of Living for an upright person, and so on, and she could recite them, but that was about it.

      Dear Mother,

      I am writing this in reply to your letter, which we were happy to receive. Since Ko Nay U’s eyes were troubling him, he went to have them checked at the Billimoria Clinic in Rangoon; he will be away for about ten days. Father sent along the bag of rice and tin of oil for you. We were very happy to hear from Hta Hta that they were being transferred to Maubin. It is so much closer to us. Daw Thet is in good health. She received that herbal medicine from Uncle Thaike, and she has made up the mixture and is using it.

      The Abbot of Ywagalay sent us two religious relics for veneration as an aid to our meditation. I stitched up your velvet blanket and sent it to the abbot as an offering.

      As for Daddy, just this morning ….

      Way Way did not write any further and stopped to consider whether she should go on, especially after her father had requested her not to. But she wanted very much to write and tell her mother, and wanted her mother to be concerned for her father. She thought, No matter how apart much of their lives have been, it’s just not right to be indifferent in these circumstances. When she writes and Daddy hears me reading of her concern for him, she imagined, it’ll surely help him to get better. So she continued:

      As for Daddy, just this morning he coughed blood, so all of us are extremely worried. We called the doctor and he gave him some injections. He seemed a bit better this evening. Daddy says not to tell you and to allow you to meditate with a peaceful mind, but I want you to know what has happened.

      I will respectfully try to persevere in following out the precepts and instructions you sent me, Mother.

      Way Way sat reading over what she had written when she heard a noise in front of the house and looked up. She saw U Saw Han striding