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Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Friday, January 05, 2007

Kipling's Mandalay

Something to tide you by while I get my 400+ photographs organised, darlings.

Kipling's Road to Mandalay - a poem I read ages ago but understood only now, particularly with regards to a certain context. Do forgive his surprisingly racist and missionary-head in one of the verses, though.

MANDALAY by Rudyard Kipling

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say;
"Come you back, you British Soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay, Where the old Flotilla lay;
Can't you 'ear their paddles clunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-Yaw-Lat jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:
Bloomin' idol made o' mud-- Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd-- Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!
On the road to Mandalay ...

When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow,
She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "Kulla-la-lo!"
With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek again my cheek
We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak.
Elephants a-piling teak In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay ...

But that's all shove be'ind me -- long ago and fur away,
An' there ain't no 'buses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else."
No! you won't 'eed nothin' else But them spicy garlic smells,
An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;
On the road to Mandalay ...

I am sick 'o wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,
An' the blasted English drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;
Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand?
Beefy face an' grubby 'and-- Law! wot do they understand?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there ain't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', and it's there that I would be--
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
On the road to Mandalay, Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
O the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Given that until he was 5, his first language was Urdu, and contrasting the whole "missionary" verse with the last one, do you think it's possible he was (a)giving his audience what they wanted, (b) trying out a little ironesque humour or (c) the racist imperialist buffoon he's normally painted? Maybe I'm just biased in his favour, since "Kim" sounds exactly like the bedside stories my Dad used to tell his sprogs, lakhs of miles from his boyhood in Quetta and Rawalpindi. Whatever the case with Rudyard, all the best for your interview.

7:06 pm  
Blogger Sreedhevi Iyer said...

I'm more tempted to think his narrator was far removed from his own personality. Many people assume poetry in the first person is intensely personal, it doesn't have to be. Added to this fact that Kipling actually has never ever been to Mandalay...

Thanks for your wishes, interview in a couple of hours, and I'm at the point of surrendering everything to the Almighty.

And just randomly, a good friend of mine is currently in Quetta...

9:23 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Added to this fact that Kipling actually has never ever been to Mandalay...


Curiously, a friend of mine who has been to Burma suggested that I might need an editor when writing. ;^D

9:50 am  
Blogger Sreedhevi Iyer said...

being pedantic never became you, Stuart.

I'm still in transition. I'm allowed. I have to wait for my demons to rest, for apathy to set in, before I can function in this environment again.

9:26 am  

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