Ngaba (13)

This translation of Maung Htin's Ngaba covers the text on page 15 (as shown in the scanned image below), which begins chapter 3. The translation, starting from the top of the left hand column continues to the end of the last paragraph, which finishes on page 16 with the text "ကာလ ပျက် လျှင် လူဆိုးအတွက်ပူ၊ အထူးသဖြင့် ဖြိုးတုပ်ကို ကြောက်ကြောက်ပြီးပူ၊ ဟိုသင်းအတွက်လဲပူး၊ သည်သင်းအတွက်လဲပူ၊ သြော်... ပူ... ပူ... ပူ...".

 Vocabulary:

ငါးခုံးမ ။ name applied to most fishes of the Barbus species.
ဖုံးလွှမ်း ။ to be covered with; overcast; be clouded with; dominated by. 
အသက်ငင် ။ to be dying
တပေါင်း ။ Dabaung : twelfth and last month of the year, containing thirty days
ဝိညာဉ် ။  consciousness; spirit
စိတ်ကူးယဉ် ။ to indulge in fantasyး fictional; fanciful
တပို့တွဲ ။ Dabodwe : eleventh month of the year, containing 29 days
ငုံ ။ (of flower) to bud
ပဏ္ဍိတ် ။ wise man; scholar; learned-man; pundit
သရော် ။ mock, ridicule
ထွတ် ။ topmost; crowning; supreme; great
ခအောင်း ။ a kind of ficus tree (Ficus hispida)
ဝါ ။ (of voice) stentorian; loud
တလင်း ။ plain bare ground; paddy threshing ground
ကျံ ။ smear; plaster (with pasty substance)
ပေြာင် ။ bare, bald
တင်း ။ make taut; be tight
ရွတ်တွ ။ wizened, withered
အဆင်း ။ appearance; formး colourး beauty
လွင့် ။ to fade
မွဲ ။ (of colour, eyesight, intellect) dull
ဖြတ် ။ to cut, sever
တန်း ။ stretch sth out or lay out in a straight line
ငုံ့ ။ to hold one's head down; incline one's head
ရိပ်ရိပ်ရိပ်ရိပ် ။ (to move) fleetingly
သွေဖည် ။ to oppose, go against
လေပွေ ။ whirlwind
ငါးခူ ။ catfish
ငါးရန့် ။ a type of fish
ငါးပြေ ။ a type of fish
ပေါလော ။ aflaot
မျော ။ to float
တမံ ။ dyke, small dam
တုတ် ။ build (a dyke)
ခိုးချ ။ copy, cheat, crib (in examination); plagiarize
သောက ။ anxiety, grief
ခြစ် ။ to strike (a match)
တောက် ။ blaze, glow

Translation:

Chapter 3

Barbus Fish

The whole of the earth is being covered with heat.

As for the weather, it was the hot season.  As for the month's desire, it was to die and its spirit be near to the time to cross over to the month of Dabaung.

Teachers who indulged in fantasy composed and said in pleasant melodious voice, "Each time the month of Dabodwe buds, there are sprouting plants."  At that time in a day of intense heat which lasted from the time of morning daybreak until the day entered to the evening the ideas of sages were crazy and ridiculous.

However, the month of Dabaung, which was noble and great was not far away.  At that time of ridicule while yelling in a booming and energetic voice, he would compose [the verse] "The month of Dabaung is the time the ficus tree blooms."

However great those two months were, Ngaba knew that there were no months as extremely hot as those two months.  Between the encirclement the paddy fields were all cracked.  At the start, the cow dung that had been started to be spread on small threshing ground prepared at the side of the hut had been tight and smooth like thick tanaka applied to Mi Paw's face.  As for now, he thought that the small threshing ground was cracked like the face of an old withered woman.  Like the beauty of gold, the paddy stocks at the start of Lent had fadded in colour and were a dull dry colour.  The paddy field had been cut and a person who put their head against the earth and looked towards the stretch of countryside could see that because of the heat wave objects were moving fleetingly.  The concept of geologists was that it was the refraction of light.  Science for Ngaba was like a person who did not know how to write the letter "က" or tell the difference between a bull and cow.  Refraction, refraction, refraction, he could not say.  In his mind, the current occassion had deviated and gone against the normal heat of the hot season.  He happened to note that it was really hot.

Little whirlwinds being frequently born in the paddy fields.  The amount of water at the heads of the streams connected with the mountain range reduced.  Catfish, something fish and something else fish, floated up in the hot water and rotted.  If Ngaba knew early he would build a small dyke and get at least about ten cups of dried 'yant' fish that he would catch.  Now in the year 1304 [1942], the type of month of Dabaung, while thinking to himself, from the perspective of a poet Ngaba also happened to compose a good composition in his mind.  In the present era, the poem that he would compose would have one difference from the poems and writing of literate people who have completed university.  The plagiarism in the writing of the latest poetry PhD graduates, was better than Ngaba's.  As for Ngaba, because he was still not a sophisticated person, he was not skilled at plagiarising.  He was pitifully only able to use his own knowledge.

"Oh my, hot, exeedingly hot.  Outside it is hot.  Inside it is hot.  In the heat of the day, in one's chest, the fire of grief due to the sparking blaze is hot.  And for sons and daughters, because he could not protect them from the causes [of trouble], it was hot.  Because the price of rice would drop as it was near to the destruction of the era, it was hot.  If the era was destroyed, it was hot for the bad people Especially due to fear of Phyo Dote, it was hot.  For that person, it was hot.  For this person, it was hot.  Oh... hot, hot, hot."