Aung San Suu Kyi’s Birthday

A few years back, I think it was June of 2001, I was in Rangoon with two other friends. Curious about life in Rangoon we were wandering in the streets away from the tourist places. We ended up in a pleasant looking neighbourhood .We were surprised at the number of houses with dish antennas on top (most Burmese then did not have access to cable TV and foreign satellite channels) and we guessed probably those houses belonged to the generals. We encountered a street that looked desolated. Just as we entered in, we heard shouting from the side. There were a couple of soldiers who motioned us to turn back. They never offered any explanation and from their tone it did not look like they would take our questioning them lightly. We turned around. Later I checked with some local friends and the street turned out to be the way leading to Ang San Suu Kyi’s house at University Avenue (where she was then and still is under house arrest). The day did not turn out too bad, the path we took after the soldiers intervention lead us to the tomb of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor of India.

Link to a post at the Global Voices Online site to mark the brave lady’s birthday.

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