Notes from Myanmar

By Raul Dias

It’s two days into my long-awaited trip to Myanmar and I’m a tad dejected. No one seems to have the slightest inkling when I speak of erstwhile Burma’s greatest “gift”’ to India—and one of my favourite on-screen dancers of all time—the Anglo-Burmese Helen Richardson, simply known to us as the mononymous ‘Helen’. Not my Bollywood-obsessed taxi driver whom I hail at the super swanky Yangon International Airport. And certainly not Sanda, my loquacious hotel receptionist who can always be found humming the latest filmi ditty. But one mention of Salman Khan, Helen’s stepson and every face lights up with unabashed adulation, coupled with starstruck wonder.

India Calling
In fact, the Nay Pyi Taw Cinema, still sitting pretty amidst all its faded grandeur on Yangon’s main arterial Sule Pagoda Road—and a stone’s throw from where I’m staying—is showing Race 3, Salman’s latest dud (well, in India at least!) to jam-packed houses. And get this…in its original, intended lingua franca of Hindi. No dubbing required for the Myanmarese hoi polloi who are said to devour every new Bollywood offering ravenously. And as much I would have loved to see this first hand, sitting through two-and-a-half odd hours of the flick seems like self-inflicted torture. And I’m no masochist! 
I choose instead to take in the city sights, starting with the most hallowed of all of Yangon’s pagodas—the sublime 2,500 years old Shwedagon Pagoda, glinting in the mid-day sun in all its golden splendour. Three hours later and a quick consult with my trusted travel app lets me know that I’m just a few meters away from the site of a rather interesting desi connection. Said to be the location of the grave of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor of India, the dargah on Zi Wa Ka Road built in his honour may be off limits for my shorts-clad self, but the caretaker is happy to take a picture of the innermost sanctum sanctorum that houses the tomb for me with my phone.

Same, Same Yet Different!
Interestingly, it is the local food that augments this apparent Myanmarese-Indian affinity the most strongly for me. The highly-authentic Bombay-style mutton biryani (with potatoes, et al) that I buy a take-way portion of at the Nilar Biryani Shop on Anawratha Road comes with a little dose of home sickness, as its septuagenarian owner fondly tells me that his grandfather emigrated to Yangon from my home city of Mumbai in the late 1800s.
The next day, for a teatime snack, I saunter down to the paan stalls-infested Northeast corner of Yangon’s Maha Bandula Park, where along Merchant Road street food hawkers peddle a dish that defies convention. Yes, the samosa salad or samusa thohk with its decidedly Indian underpinnings is an evening time snack that is the delicious sum of its chopped vegetable samosa bits, stewed chickpeas, fried shallots, cabbage, and sliced boiled potatoes parts. To this, a ladle full of fiery broth is added just before serving, making it a sort of spicy soup-salad hybrid.
For dinner, I go for a chitti kala meal that’s said to be an interpretation of Chettiar cuisine and one that is very popular in Yangon. My thali-like dish of a flaky htat taya palata (layered paratha) is the perfect mop for gravies like the piquant chicken curry and the green peas stew called pé-byohk. I wash this down with a near-to-authentic falooda-like drink called hpaluda and chase all this with a single malaing lohn i.e. Myanmar’s version of the gulab jamun.

Hamara Bajaj
A few days later, I find myself whizzing past pagoda after pagoda in the ancient, holy city of Bagan, nestled in the heart of the country. My autorickshaw driver Win Min Oo, while declaring his undying love for his India-made Bajaj tuk tuk, lets me in on one of the greatest culinary surprises I’ve yet to encounter. While speaking of his wedding a few years ago, he tells me that no feast in Myanmar can ever be considered complete without the serving of a dish he calls danbauk and insists is Indian. It’s only a few hours later, post some intense culinary research, do I realise that Win was talking about. Apparently, the Mughlai slow oven cooking method of dum pukht is what the people of Bagan call the regional variant of biryani that is served with mango pickle, fresh mint and green chili. 
Marvelling at how films, culture and most importantly food can be great equalisers—never mind the distance in both time and geography that exists between old Awadh and modern-day Bagan—I settle down for my sunset dinner at one of Bagan’s many Irrawaddy riverfront restaurants. A plate of fragrant danbauk in front of me and my ears tuned in to an 80s Bappi Lahiri song.   

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 28th October 2018 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 7 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/travel/notes-from-myanmar/article25333644.ece)