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riors came and spoke to U Yit, he didn't say anything at all, he just gave them permission to dig the line. While the pipeline was being dug, my mother and my father fell in love. Grandfather didn't agree to this match. Father was dark-skinned, just like my nephew here, U Htay Myine. My mother, on the other hand, was plump and very fair. Apparently, my grandfather thought that this dark-skinned man, my father, wasn't equal to his fair-skinned daughter. Grandfather even said of Father, "He's like that fellow who follows behind the drummer, carrying the flute." But despite the fact that Grandfather didn't agree to the courtship of his daughter and his future son-in-law, his daughter liked him and eloped with him. They went to Kocheh Village. The monk who had sheltered Father came and told Grandfather about the elopement.
My older sister Ma Ma Hsait told me this story. People of Grandfather's day didn't think much of the Myanmar opera. In the Myanmar opera, the last act was the drummer. After him, there was a fellow carrying a flute. To say that someone was like that fellow was a great insult. But when Father worked as a foreman, he rode around in a pushcart. He rode in that wherever he needed to go. Workers had to push the cart for him. Grandfather looked down on Father, but in fact he was a leader.
Next, Daw Tin Nyunt spoke about her brothers and sisters.
"We were ten. Ma Hsait, Ma Thein, Ko Hla Maung, Ko Hla Aung, Ko Ohn Maung, Ko Aung Kyi, Ko Chit Min, Ma Thee, Ko Mya Han and me. Of these, Ko Chit Min drowned. It happened right in Kocheh Village. At that time, Kocheh Village was flooded with water. Ko Chit Min's eyes weren't good and for that reason Father strictly told him not to go out with the farmhands. Ko Chit Min was still in school then, but he didn't listen to his father. He went along with the farmhands. His life ended that day. He went together with one of the farmhands to Chinese Cemetery. Ko Chit Min couldn't swim, but his companions could. They tied a longyi in such a way that the two of them could swim in tandem. The longyi broke, and poor Ko Chit Min was pulled into the strong current and drowned. That was when Father began to lose his health."
"As for our eldest brother Ko Ohn Maung, he was bitten by a snake while in his field in Tadahgalay Village and died. It was about 8:00 a.m. or 9:00 a.m. in the morning while he was cutting grass. The viper bit him once. Ko Ohn Maung just felt a little pain, a little heat, so he wasn't sure it was a snake. He stepped again with his foot and the snake bit him a second time. So that the poison wouldn't go up into his body, he bound the leg with sedge by himself. He tore his longyi to bind the leg further. They took Ko Ohn Maung to the home of his brother-in-law in Tadahgalay Village. When he was near death, his younger brother, Sayadaw, arrived from the Mahasi Sasana Yeiktha. Ko Ohn Maung took Sayadaw's hand and asked him to look after his children after he was gone. He named them one by one. Ko Ohn Maung was forty-five years old when he died. For that reason Sayadaw invited forty-five monks to attend Ko Ohn Maung's funeral. Sayadaw made offerings of robes and other such things."
"Ko Ohn Maung was like a father to Sayadaw and me, Bhante. Ko Chit Min, Ko Hla Aung and Ma Thee all died young. Ma Thein married and died in childbirth. Ma Ma
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