Animal Talk (1) (Written By Aung San Suu Kyi)

Source: Mainichi Japan (March 7, 2011 )

Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi holds her dog at the entrance 
of her home in Yangon on (Mainichi)

 Friends and colleagues who have been in prison have sometimes reminisced about the small beasts and birds, and even insects, that had been their only familiars during long years of incarceration in stark, unfriendly cells. Cats seemed to have been particularly adept at negotiating walls and bars and insinuating themselves into the affections of lonely prisoners all too willing to offer a portion of what little food they had in exchange for the companionship of living creatures.
I did not come across any cats during the two short periods I spent within the precincts of Insein Jail but I had constant dealings with felines throughout my years of house arrest.

I am a dog lover rather than a cat lover although the first pet I can remember was a cat, a big (at least it seemed big to my child's eyes), dark coloured tom that answered to my grandfather's deep-voiced call of "Puss, Puss, Puss." The rest of the family addressed it, respectfully, as "Grandfather's Cat." I only knew dogs as mangy mongrels wandering the streets or as unwanted intruders that the adults were always trying to dissuade from taking up residence in our garden. One stubborn pye-bitch managed to resist all efforts to dislodge her from the kitchen area and produced a litter. I was so fascinated by the mass of wriggling puppies my first ever dream was about them. I did not realize then that it was a dream, I thought the puppies had actually come to huddle around my feet and when I woke up and found they were not there I could not understand what had happened and felt totally confused.

The streets of Rangoon were full of interesting forms of transport in the early 1950s. There were sharp-angled buses, beat-up World War II jeeps, pre-war saloons, 'side-cars' (bicycles with two passenger seats, back to back, attached to one side) and rickshaws. There were also canopied carts drawn by horses that were usually tired looking and gaunt, often with terrible sores. They were a heart-rending sight and it was in connection with these poor animals that I first learnt about the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). From time to time, I saw another kind of horse: the ones in films about the American Wild West. It was difficult to believe that those strong, prancing, galloping, bucking, spirited creatures were of the same species as their Rangoon brethren. However, the sight of the spurs on their riders' boots made me wonder if the SPCA might not have been just as useful out west as in the streets of my home city. 

It was in Delhi where my mother served as Burmese Ambassador to India that I came into close contact with horses. My first riding lessons were on a skewbald pony of wide girth and uncertain temper named Prairie Oyster. Later, I joined a riding club where the mounts bore such valiant names as Black Prince, Prithviraj and Shivaji. Black Prince was my favourite because he had a smooth canter and a comfortable saddle. I was not particularly keen on equine heroics.

It was as a university student in England that I entered the world of dog lovers. I spent many holidays at the homes of English friends and, not too surprisingly, I would often find a canine charmer at the heart of the family. There was Sailor, an overweight Staffordshire terrier with a rolling gait, a black patch around one eye and a distinct taste for gin; he was also gentle and sweet-tempered and a perfect host. Then there was Handsome, a golden Labrador, large and affectionate, with an air of old world courtesy he had obviously acquired from his master, a retired colonel who combined the best attributes of an officer and a gentleman with the traits of everybody's favourite uncle.

Sailor and Handsome I looked upon as friends but Impy, my Emergency Aunt's Alsatian, was family. When I was working at the United Nations the three of us lived together in Manhattan. True to the maxim that dogs emulate their owners, Impy's attitude towards me was maternal and protective. If I were out late she would wait up patiently with just the slightest hint of reproach and when people she did not know came to visit she would make sure that they did not sit next to me on the sofa.

When Michael and I went to live in Bhutan immediately after our marriage in 1972 we acquired a dog of our own. He came to us as a tiny white and brown bundle and we thought hard to find a really suitable name for him but after many months of cogitation we decided that after all 'Puppy,' as we had been calling him since he arrived, suited him best. When he was very small Puppy slept around my throat and tussled regularly with the fur lining of Michael's bedroom slippers; he grew up to become a seasoned traveller, accompanying us staunchly on journeys across half the globe; when our sons came into the world he kept a benevolent, wrinkled-browed eye on them; as a dignified old dog he became the trademark of our household at Oxford, well known to (and, I think, respected by) friends and family. Puppy died at the ripe old age of nineteen. By that time I was under house arrest in Burma. 

(By Aung San Suu Kyi)

(Mainichi Japan) March 7, 2011