The Manila Times
Akash SahuJune 29, 2021
( COMMENTARY )
ART has a unique ability to transport the mind to the past, making it easier to draw inferences on current realities. The 1949 song 'Mere piya gye Rangoon' features popular Indian singer Shamshad Begum as a woman bewailing her husband, who has gone to Burma for better opportunities. It paints an early 20th century picture when hundreds of Indians flocked to the Burmese capital of Rangoon laden with economic potential. Europeans, Indians, Burmese and Chinese, sometimes with mixed ethnicities and plural religious faiths, thrived in the fast-growing city of Rangoon in a prospering Burma.