MYANMAR has been in and out of the news since 1962 when its army dismissed the civilian government. Among the changes that it brought over the years was to replace the easy-to-pronounce Burma with a tongue-twisting name. There have been conflicts and bloodsheds galore. Of late, the world has seen with concern the persecution of Rohingyas, Muslims who had migrated from Bengal to Burma more than two centuries ago.

In Children of the Revolution, Feroze Dada, a Karachi-born, London-based chartered accountant married to a Burmese Muslim woman, MuMu Farida, shows us another side of Myanmar, through its orphaned and abandoned children.

When visiting his wife’s family in Myanmar, Dada fell in love with the beautiful and remote Lake Inle. There he learnt that the lovely country, ravaged by civil war, is left with a million and a half orphans. Add to this the many children (no guesstimates possible) who were abandoned due to poverty. Not a lot of them were lucky enough to recover from malaria and tuberculosis, to name just two diseases.

In writing Children of the Revolution, Dada is joined by Farida who, to use her husband’s words, is a “talented artist, photographer, translator, guide and long-suffering wife.” Her photographs for the book are jaw-dropping. Another person who has been of great help with the book is the Burmese freedom fighter referred to in the text only as Major in order to hide his identity. His life history, as penned by Dada, reads like a novel, abounding in suspense and action.

The people Dada writes about are called Pa’O, “a handsome and dignified people who possess a sense of serenity, which is etched on their genial faces”. Recalling his experience of interacting with young women selling different wares in a market, he writes, “The girls were happy and laughing, and if we chose to buy their stuff they were over the moon — if not, they still smiled. In many ways their presence felt more like a reception committee than a sales pitch.”

However, it was an excursion in Lake Inle which altered the course of Dada’s life, as indeed of many children. Dada had gone canoeing there with his wife and Major when the weather changed all of a sudden. The sun hid behind a dark cloud. A thunderstorm, accompanied with a heavy downpour, forced them to moor the light boat to the shore.

Major took his guests to a monastery run by U Tha Wona, affectionately called Phongyi. The dedicated monk had given refuge to as many as 500 orphans and destitute children, with the number increasing. The children were fed, clothed and educated at the monastery that also functioned as a school and orphanage. Their classrooms doubled as their bedrooms at night. The mood pervading in the monastery was one of patience, love and understanding. Dada, won over by the children, decided to get computers in a place where there was no electricity.

How he does it is a story of resilience and single-mindedness and he and his colleagues are rewarded by the speed and excitement with which the young students take to the computers and the software.

The orphanage and school was run solely by donations, which was not always a very reliable source of finances. Dada, Major and Phongyi put their heads together and decided to bottle the mineral water, available aplenty not too far from the monastery.

Lake Inle

The odds were great. Apart from the ever important challenge of raising money, there was the task of finding the right equipment for producing uncontaminated water and, at the same time, looking for an unfailing source of sterile bottles. Then there was the problem of transporting the machinery to this remote part. The Pakistan connection, apart from the author, is the Rangoonwala Foundation, which is one of the donors of the project.

The book, comprising two parts, ends with Dada describing his struggles. Its sequel can be downloaded free (www.inletrust.org.uk). The ebook is similarly embellished with brilliant photographs. It also carries a congratulatory message by no less a person than the Dalai Lama.

Dada is a wonderful storyteller. His prose is elegant and lively, and he excels in both the art of narration and the craft of description. And what excited me the most is that the sales proceeds of the book will be donated to the orphanage.

Children of the Revolution

(MEMOIR)

By Feroze Dada

Filament Publishing Limited, UK

ISBN 978-1-919125-14-4

254pp.