Glitter N Gold by Arun K. Tiwari, U Kyi Thein, P Krishnam Raju

On the eve of my cardiothoracic surgery, on 4 February 2004, at the Care Hospital, Hyderabad, my friend Madhu Reddy presented me with Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace. Next morning when I woke up at 3 a.m, the surgery was many hours away. I decided not to pretend to sleep. I asked my wife Anjana to switch on the lights. She was but naturally anxious though outwardly calm. To avoid an emotional overflow from any conversation at that point of time, I picked up the book and started reading. The book opened with the scenes of the arrest of the last King of Myanmar, Thebaw, and Queen Supayalat, by the British Forces at Mandalay. I had read the first twenty pages. It was still not dawn, when my cardiologist and chief of the Care Hospital, Dr B Soma Raju, arrived. I read to him the following line from the Author’s Note: “Every life leaves behind an echo that is audible to those who take the trouble to listen.” Once out of this physical mess, I must undertake something of value that will endure beyond my life time, I thought. That was the beginning of my tryst with Myanmar.