Revolution! Revolution! Revolution!

18 September 1988, Mandalay

Ludu Daw Amar reached for her inkwell and pen. Outside her window, dawn was breaking – the first streaks of orange in the east and a waning moon in a still dark sky.

The night had ended but the day was yet to begin.

It was the mercilessly hot month of Tawthalin when fretful inhabitants of Mandalay call the sun a prawn-killer and pray for the weather to break. A monk stood at the corner of 33rd Street, his head bent, holding an alms bowl in the crook of his arm, strangely detached from reality. Daw Amar wondered if later he would be joining the monastic boycott against military donors.

Her mind was not at rest, she could not sleep. Ever since last month when with the torrential showers of August a new revolution had broken in Burma her blood had been singing. At 73 she felt alive once again, as if she was still a student at the Rangoon University, eagerly awaiting life. She felt a sense of urgency, she needed to write another editorial and hand it over for publication. Initially they had to do it stealthily, often distributing handwritten sheets. Of late Nyi Pu Lay had been bolder. Nyi Pu Lay, she thought with a sigh…the only one of her three sons…

But there was no trusting Saw Maung and his army. She had to caution the boys, Min Ko Naing and Htay Kywe and the many others leading the movement. At this point they needed to remain united and calm for the military awaited another spark. She thought of Thakin Aung San's daughter with her father's forehead and eyes.

Daw Amar picked up a paper with a vivid blue peacock printed at the top – a bird taut with bottled up rage – and wrote, “Revolution! Revolution! Revolution!”