Ngaba (17)

This translation of Maung Htin's Ngaba covers the text on page 19, as shown in the scanned image below.

Vocabulary:

စွန်တောင်ဆွဲ ။ to pull up the hem of one's skirt
လေရူး ။ a wayward or capricious wind
တကဲကဲ ။ in a manner showing eagerness or impatience to do something
ငိုင် ။ to mope
လျှံ ။ to glow
ဝပ် ။ to glow
အလျှိုအလျှို ။ one after another
စုံစမ်း ။ to make enquiries, investigate
ဝီရိယ ။ effort, striving
ညှိုးငယ် ။ to be dejected, sad
အကဲ ။ mood, disposition
ခတ် ။ to monitor [?]
တိုက်တွန်း ။ to urge, extort
ကသိုဏ်း ။ object of intense mental concentration
ကြောင်တက်တက် ။ in a daze
ဆော် ။ to urge, remind
ခါးပန်း ။ floor cross-beam
ဝီခေါ် ။ to be excessive; be extreme
တကား ။ particle placed at the end of a sentence as emphasis
အသံဝါ ။ a resounding voice, bass
တန်တော့ ။ probably
ခြေရင်း ။ part of the house facing the family shrine
တွေဝေ ။ to be in a daze, stupor
လက်ပြန်ကြိုးတုပ် ။ to tie the hands of a person behind his back
ခေါင်ရမ်းပန်း ။ hibiscus flower
ဝေဆာ ။ luxurient
ဟက်တက် ။ (spilt) apart
ပြဲ ။ to be torn, ripped
ပိုင်စိုးပိုင်နင်း ။ in an overbearing and presumptuous manner
ဓားနှောင့် ။ the back of a sword, knife, chopper, etc.
ဆောင့်ကြောင့်ထိုင် ။ to squat; sit on one's haunches
သဘက် ။ a type of demon
ဆုတ် ။ withdraw, retreat, recede
ဆိုင်း ။ to wait; pause; keep pending; suspend
အ ။ to be inert
ထစ် ။ to stammer, stutter, have a hitch

Translation:

Tha Ee's wife pulled up the hem of her sarong and while running in fright her foot slipped in the mud and she fell down. When little gusts of wind intermittently blew in that direction, because it became like a great ball of fire, men, women and children eagerly fled so as not to be left behind. Ngaba berated them and they were calm.

In Ngaba's mind he asked whether the world would be destroyed. Other people were moping. The fires were glowing and increasing to sound like the cooking of two rice pots. When it finished the bright light was stilled. At that time women and children entered his hut one after another.

"It is quite far from us. Yes, yes, go back to your huts. Tomorrow I will of course investigate so as to know all about the matter. Your sleep with be ruined, you shoud strive to sleep with attentiveness," Ngaba instructed his companions. For that reason, the men each returned to their respective huts. However, for that night the seniors did not sleep deeply.

With a cheroot from inside Mi Paw's medice basket, she stayed the whole night together with with Ngaba. As for Mi Paw, while sitting at Ngaba's side with a sad face she monitored Ngaba's disposition. As soon as the roster crowed, Ngaba urged Mi Paw to go to bed. As for Ngaba, while inhaling the light of the cheroot in deep concentration in the darkness he was in a daze. As soon as the rooster alerted him, when he had raised his head onto bamboo floor-beam in the entrance to the bedroom he dropped into drowzy sleep with a snoring sound.

However, in Ngaba's ear the sounds of "Thakin Myo Hay's Burma" were still being excesively cried out. Since while lying down he could hear the sounds that he had heard at the start of the night he could not even think about falling asleep. In his dreams, those sounds came and he still thought about them. However, now the sounds that he heard were very close. As though forgetting the pain in his chest, in fun the voice which energentically proclaimed "Thakin Myo Hay's our Burma revolution has been sucessful" with a great booming sound was probably Phyo Dote's voice.

Ngaba stood up with a cry. It was not a rooster crowing. It was already brightly light. From the side of house facing the shrine he could hear Tha Ee's voice. He heard the sound of "Oh mother!" being shouted out. While in a daze he saw Hoary with his hands tied behind his back and Phyo Dote who pulled [the rope] along with about 20 or 25 people arrive in front of the hut. Ngaba considered that the hibiscus flower on Haory's head was luxurient. He looked again at [Haory's] forhead he could see clearly an open gash red with blood.

Phyo Dote presumtuously entered Ngaba's hut. "Where is the firewood box" he said. Ngaba was moping. Hoary said "Elder brother". Phyo Dote said "What are the words of this Indian?" and with the back of his machete hit [Haory] on the back. When Haory had squated down on the dirt, he wept with a 'hee hee' sound.

"Hey man, where is it mate?" Phyo Dote asked Ngaba with a great sound of greed of one possesed by an ogre demon. Because Ngaba withdrew, paused and remained silent Phyo Dote was unable to be patient and he hit Ngaba's back with the blade of the knife.

Although Phyo Dote had previously acted as a thug, originally he had not been a person who held a knife. Without courage as soon as the region was destroyed, while being a person who could act like a general, when striking the blade of the knife his hands were shaking in hesitation.

Therefore...