Thein Pe Myint's "Oil" (11-13/13)

This post presents page 11 to 13 (of 13) of Thein Pe Myint's 1938 short story "Oil". This copy has been downloaded from the "Burmese Classic" website, which has an excellent collection of Myanmar books in PDF format. Actually, page 13 is blank so there is only page 11 and a short bit on page 12.

Vocabulary:

အောင်မာ ။ word expressing annoyance (comparable to 'How dare you')
ဇွတ် ။ obstinately, stubbornly, persistently
ယိုး ။ to accuse (a person)
ခံရပ် ။ to withstand
အခိုက် ။ time, moment, duration
မှိုင် ။ to mope, be downcast
ဖျဉ် ။ to separate (people involved in a quarrel or fight)
တိုင် ။ to complain, report, inform
စဲ ။ stop, cease, subside
တွေ ။ to waver,, be stunned, be dazed
မဲ့ ။ to grimace
တဆွေ့ဆွေ့တမြေ့မြေ့ ။ continuously
ဆွေး ။ to grieve, be broken hearted
စိတ်နာ ။ feel hurt; suffer from a sense of injustice; harbour a grievance
အတန်ကြာ ။ some time
မှောက် ။ to overturn
ဂြိုဟ်မွှေ ။ to give or cause trouble
ရေရွတ် ။ to mutter, revile, rebuke
ရေစက် ။ drop of water

Translation:

"How dare you! Why would I take your ring?"

"You took it. Give it to me!"

"I didn't take it. Go away. Don't disturb my sleep. I'll punch you. Go! I say go!"

"I won't go away. You little dog, you stole it!"

Kyaw Yin could not bear being persistently and baselessly accused of being a thief and he kicked her with his foot.

And Mya Nyunt punched her brother's head with her fist.

"Hey, you punched me!" Kyaw Yin howled and pulled Mya Nyunt's hair.

"If you didn't take it, then [at the least] because of your lamp a person could see my ring and take it off. Eee Eee!" she said and continued to hit Kyaw Yin.

At that moment Ko Lu Dote arrived and asked "Hey, what is it?" and came running.

Without separating her son and daughter who were fighting and moping, Ma Sint informed [Ko Lu Dote], "They are fighting because the ring disappeared."

"Ha, don't be like that! I'll hit the both of you."

The fight subsided.

Ko Lu Dote wavered and then looked at his son and daughter. He looked at his daughter who was crying and grimacing after the ring had disappeared and he grieved continuously. He could not say anything and felt hurt about the oil.

After some time he took the bottle of oil, descended [from the room], opened the spout and overturned [the bottle].

"Oil which has given trouble; Oil which has cause my son and daughter to fight; Oil which has given trouble to my friend; Oil which has made me a despicable person... ," he muttered and the drops of oil were falling.


Thein Pe Myint
Light of Myanmar, Auspicious New Year [issue], April, 1938.