AMONG MY MOST MEMORABLE MEETINGS

UTPAL Chatterjee

During my career as a journalist both in India and abroad for well over three decades and a half, I have met all kinds of people, been in difficult situations ( when I very nearly lost my life- but of those some other time), accompanied our then Prime Ministers as part of their media delegations, met and interviewed 21 Heads of State and nine Nobel Laureates. But, to cut a long story short, if you were to ask me about my most memorable meeting, I would, without batting an eyelid, mention the name of the Burmese dissident leader, Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced Chee). That was nearly 22 years ago when she was under house imprisonment. I had occasion to be there in that neighbouring country with a few other journalists and had made it my single point agenda and priority to meet this very brave and unusual leader. Soon after arriving at Rangoon, I tried asking locals for her address but starting with those at the Hotel Reception, everyone seemed reticent or scared. Finally, lured by dollars a cabbie took me to the University Avenue where she resides. I kept knocking and thumping at her gate but nobody answered. Finally, very late in the evening and early in the night, a old gentleman came out. When he found out what I wanted, I told him everything. He first said “not possible”. I tried being as persuasive as I possibly could. He then looked me in the eye, gave me his phone number and told me to call him at 10 PM. During our conversation, he revealed he was the great lady’s uncle (mother’s brother.)   I attended her public meeting the next day when she spoke from behind her large gate to thousands and thousands of people who had come from all over Burma to listen to her that Saturday. I sat somewhere up front as I was asked to. A gentleman, who was representing a Japanese News Agency translated her main points for me.After the meeting ended, I went right up front and kept shouting out her name to draw her attention. Suddenly,she looked at me and said “Wait for a few minutes” even as she smiled and waved to the mammoth crowd. After a long wait,the gate opened a bit and I was asked to step inside. The moment I did, I noticed people from Immigration and Customs summoning me from their tables near the gate. While they were questioning me as representatives of the martial regime do, they suddenly stopped and looked to their right. A vision in white was approaching us. I suddenly drew the courage to walk in her direction. The first thing she asked was what they were asking. I told her. She stared at them for a moment. She looked so youthful, so graceful and smiled so beautifully and yet embodied so much courage and a “I could not care a damn” look on her expression. She was more charismatic than anyone I had come across or would come across. I accompanied her to what must have been her living room. We spoke at length on so many things that included the plight of her country, poverty at its worst and why her Nation was her Priority Number One over her husband (who was still alive) and her two sons. For once, I looked at a World Leader in awe. Here was a person who had won the Nobel Prize in Peace, the Nehru Award for peace and so many more world recognitions the world over but could never step out of her country because the Martial Regime would not let her return. It was so difficult for her husband and her sons to come down from Oxford to visit her. She was not afraid of death or someone killing her. “We will all have to go one day so why live in fear till that day? “she asked. Here was a lady whose Democratic Party had won over 93% of the votes but the ruling Regime had kept her caged in her own house. She was, among other things, a voracious reader. But the latest books and research findings on Economics were her favourite because she dreamed of applying the positive findings on her own country and it’s people. When she found there were other journalists with me, she agreed to meet them too. Meet them she did along with me later. That night,when I was returning after an exhaustive and an unforgettable meeting, I noticed three tables, one on top of the other behind that large gate from where she had spoken to her people. She has won the elections again by a landslide. But ,in the beginning, the army has made an arrangement so that they too would have a say. But,with her grit and determination, justice and good sense would prevail.P.S.Everything is fine at her end but, with the Rohingya crisis escalating, she is now in the eye of an unforeseen storm. -Utpal Chatterjee*