Ngaba (14)

This translation of Maung Htin's Ngaba covers the text on page 16 (as shown in the scanned image below), which begins with the first full paragraph in the left hand column starting with the text "ဤကားငဘ၏". The translation continues to the end of the last paragraph at the bottom of the right hand column.

Vocabulary:

ခြိမ့်ခြိမ့် ။ thunderously, tumultuously
ချည့် ။ feeble, infirm, paralyzed
ရမ်း ။ to be unruly, act thoughtlessly
ရန် ။ enmity, danger, quarrel, hostility
ပြဒါးချိန် ။ temperature
လတ္တံ ။ will, is going to
ဟုန်း ။ to roar
ဆန်း ။ to be new, novel, unusual
ကွပ်ပစ် ။ (ကွပ်ျစ်) a kind of low wooden or bamboo bedstead
ပက်လက် ။ on one's back; supine
လန် ။ to be turned up
ယက်ကန်ယက်ကန် ။ in a waddling gait; protestingly
တွား ။ to crawl, creep
ခမျာ ။ part. word conveying the sense that the person or being referred to is worthy of one's sympathy
ပေကလတ်ပေကလတ် ။ (to move one's eyelashes) in a fluttering manner
ခြံရံ ။ to surround
အာကာသ ။ sky
ယောင်လည်လည် ။ indecisively; hesitantly, not knowing what to do
နံ ။ flank
သိပ် ။ to put to sleep
ကပိုကရို ။ without much care for one's appearance
ဖုံး ။ to cover; put a cover on sth; conceal or hide sth.
ချက် ။ navel
ပုတီး ။ string of beads; necklace of pearls, shells, amber or any beads; rosary
ဒွါဒယာ ။
မေဘရဏီ ။ name of a goddess
ချဲ့ထွင် ။ expand (land, territory, business); exaggerate; extend (business)
အတိုး ။ interest (on borrowed money)
ဆပ် ။ to repay
ဒုံရင်း ။ (revert to) starting point; (back to) square one; former position
ရှဉ်း ။ numerical classifier used in counting pairs of draught cattle
ထွန် ။ to harrow; til; a harrow
ကြော ။ ways, habits, traits of a person
အသာ ။ tenderly; gently; softly
ရှေ့ရေးနောက်ရေး ။ the future

Translation:

That was Ngaba's poem.

His poem cried out with heat. And crying out, it cried out enough.

In our country of Burma, as soon as the month of Dabaung arrived a little paddy was sold and money could be seen. Only at that time was the money of rural folk was plentiful. As soon as money was plentiful, monastic funerals would be tumultuously experienced.

And when there was a monastic funeral, because there were cock fights and card playing, there was happiness. And in the cock circle, it was good. After that, was there much loss? And having lost, there would be troubled minds. And upon having troubled minds, [people] would drink well a little rural alcohol that was blazing fire. And upon having drunk well, [they] would be drunk. And being well drunk, [they] would be unruly. And being well unruly, [they] would get mad. And having gotten mad, [they] would quarrel and that would be good.

And as a result of that, scholars of administration noted that that kind of month was a month in which the temperature of criminal cases rose.

And now in that month, that day the English did not want to run away, this day the English did not want to run away, it had to be between a kind of day and a kind of night.

Oh mother, who would have believed it would have been in that manner? Th fire of desire and of hate would would stand up with a roar and burn in accordance with the desire of the month of Dabaung that was called "It is going to be blazing with a fiery glory."

And the month of Dabaung was unusual and came.

Ngaba was exeedingly hot and while lying in front of the hut on a bamboo bed was concentrating on the moon.

The poor three-day moon that lying on its back like a little upturned "ပ" protestingly and slowly crawling in the middle of a group of stars that were fluttering their eyelashes. And being surrounded by a group of stars little lord grandfather golden moon was dwelling in the sky not knowing what to do. And also being surrounded by a collection of people the farmer Ngaba was confused in the great big world.

However, yeah, beside him he still had Mi Paw.

Mi Paw set down and put to sleep between herself and her husband the little son who had gone to the plump breat and had gone to sleep with a "kwi kwi" sound. Without much care for her appearance [Mi Paw's] sarong was covering below her navel. Ngaba could see Mi Paw's face in the starlight. In that type of night, if Mi Paw was made to wear a tight sleeved shirt​​, and could decorate herself with a string of pearls, bangles and such like little urban women [she would be] "Like the sky goddess Maybarani in the palace in heaven." I would be able to see. Oh, in what life will we farmers be able to have such luxory? In the year that I carried off Mi Paw to marry there were 25 acres of paddy field. And now just 25. Oh... when grandfather got married he worked to expand his land up to 40 acres. However, due to interest on borrowed rice, about one year before his grandfather died, because he had to repay money for the Shin Pyu ceremoney, did he return back to where he started? Yeah, that's the life of a man. Now, if he could sell well at the market the 200 [baskets of] rice that he submitted to U Tha Gaung, in order to be able to increase by about one more cattle harrow, he would have to speak [to U Tha Gaung].

These were just the thoughts that Ngaba was in the habit of thinking in the paddy field. So that the child would not wake, Mi Paw moved gently up against Ngaba. Ngaba breathed a sigh of relief.

"Right here, what toughts are tiring your mind?"

"Of course, there's the future. Our little daughter has already grown up. If we see a good hard working boy, I want to just one time give away [our daugther to him] in marriage."