Bagan at Sunrise

             Early light over Bagan, over the Irrawady river. The insects of the night are hovering in the still, transparent air. The first boasts dig the ancestral ridges. It is quite cold. The sizzling heat shall come; for now it is simply the blue hours. That very same bird as yesternight's glides along the valley, its dull whiteness etching a trail with the long stretch of sand in the background. We are now in the dry season. On the other side of the river, the gilded stûpa of the revered paya is almost lost in the mist, atop the hill. The sun will be rising on its hti and on thousands of other pagodas, temples, monasteries, while patiently – perhaps with a despondency or with a sadness they accept as part of their condition – the first people of the world open its shops, its huts, unfold its sarongs and display the lacquerware, the wood-carved idols, the western garments, the longyis, the bells, trinkets, knick-knacks they will sell half the price, after a good bargain or not, desperate as they are to sell, sell, sell.

 

           For now the chit-chat of the birds is only to be heard. No dust, no cart, no bus, for now. But the overcrowded, petering bus will undoubtedly come, the unsteady, clip-clopping horse cart will invariably criss-cross the innumerable paths and the unfailing thousands of clouds of sand, dust, dirt will be raised by the thousands of feet, wheels, hooves, paws, patiently or impatiently ploughing the ground. Dust is the necessary corollary to life. Not the peacocks, not the thousands of thousands of Buddhas, either standing, sitting or reclining, not even the millions of babbling, babel-ing children, haggling parents and defeatist and melancholic grandparents. No. It is without the shade of a doubt dust.

 

             As ultimately, only dust remains. Tucked in the elastic band of your socks, nested in the furrows of your brows or in the fold of your ears, nestled in the hem of your clothes. Settled at the bottom of your luggage. And found days, weeks, months later when the next pretext to leave sounds like an urge. At that time you will think of them that stayed, covered in the dust of the everyday, of those left by the edge of the road. You will remember the tracks, the dry riverbeds, the scorched land, the temples the colour of the sand. Everything was dust then. You will suppose that it still is, and will be, dust. You will remember the sun, the girl who prepared the cool thanaka for you on the kyauk pyin and who reminded you of your dead mother when she delicately put the yellow paste on your face. You will remember the long, silent nights. The tangy taste of the tamarind flakes. The mangy dogs. The noise, the bustling activity. The sharp taste of the dust.

          But, for now, the sun has risen over Bagan.