Thein Pe Myint (20)

The following text and translation covers page 20 of Thein Pe Myint's short story "ငွေစိန် လှေလှော်ရင်း တက်ကျိုးခြင်း", which I have scanned from page 348 of "ဝတ္ထုတိုပေါင်းချုပ်သစ်" [A new collection of short stories].

Vocabulary:

သောက ။ anxiety; grief
အရင်း ။ capital
နေ့ပြန်တိုး ။ interest calculated on daily basis
နှုတ် ။ negative
ယစ်မျိုး ။ excise; intoxicating drugs, liquor, opium, etc
အောက်ဆိုက် ။ "outside"
နိပ် ။ decline
တယ် ။ very
သေပြေးရှင်ပြေး ။ to run for one's life
နောက်ဖေးနောက်ဖီ ။ latrine
ကန်တော့ ။ pay obeisance with one's hands clasped palm to palm and raised to touch one's forehead

Translation:

"Yes, I can't open it. As for Ngwe Sein in order to free me she couldn't open the shop. Ngwe Sein had more grief for me than I felt for being in custody. Just before being released, it was not like taking a rest. I was making a plan."

"If the shop was closed, what would be the loss of one day's income?"

"Five kyat, six kyat would of course be lost, sir. If it was near to being a great time, a great day, about 10 kyat would be lost."

"If we speak of your small shops, how much capital is needed for one person?"

"We need about 150 kyat or 100 kyat."

"Do you still need to borrow money?"

"Of course we need to borrow all of it, sir. We have to borrow it with interest calculated daily. We have to borrow 100 with an interest of about 15 or 20 kyat. Some people repay two kyat per day. Some people repay five kyat per day. The money lenders deduct the interest."

"Is the interest quite a lot, mate? Is it much different from the interest rate set by the government, mate?"

"What the government wants to set, they set as their custom. As for us, we have to pay according to this. It's of course this way, sir. What can be done?"

Htun Khin expounded out the Abidhamma and laid out the Dhamma.

"Who do you take it from?"

"We borrow with an interest of 15 kyat from 'P.C.' who comes from the side of the drug [sellers? users?] who knows us and we must repay two kyat per day. As for this department [drug selling], since money is gotten from "outside" there's of course a person who can lend money, sir."

"Your work isn't very good mate."

"How would it be good, sir? The whole day starting from seven in the morning until six in the evening I have to sell. Accidentally, while eating and drinking, if a customer comes I must eat as though running for my life. Even going to the latrine I have to excuse [?] myself, in order for it to be all gone, in order to get energy, I don't dare go."