By Maung Nyein Lu
WHEN I say, “owl”, some of you, especially the young fans of Harry Potter, might recall the thrilling movie scene in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. No sooner had that nasty, “perfectly normal” guy named Mr. Dursley burned a number of letters from Howards to Harry than hundreds of owls mysteriously fluttered around the house. Then, through the chimney, and through the mail slot, fell a sudden downpour of hundreds of sealed letters, bombarding the whole living room. But I am not going to talk about those owls.
What I am going to tell you is a story of a guy who works through the night without sleeping a wink. That’s why I call him the Owl.
It was in his small office that I met him for the first time. It was his senior, UKMA, who first introduced me to the Owl. He is a bit plump. He wears a pair of square matte black frame eyeglasses. He was then dressed in a long-sleeved, white shirt. How could a snowy owl of the Artic regions find room here? I wondered. Yes, like his colleagues, the Owl hardly sleeps at night. He keeps vigilance like a sentry soldier serving his night duty.
My first meeting with him made me recall the words of Sonny Swe, a successful newspaper man in Myanmar: “I love the smell of inks, I love the smell of the paper. I love the noise of the running printing presses.” It is here in this small office where he and his staff cope with the most timebound pressures. Every night they burn the midnight oil while the rest of the world is in a deep slumber, floating in own dreamworlds. They are the Owls who work through the night without sleeping a wink.
The office was brightly lit with fluorescent tubes. There was a long table in the centre of the floor, filled with neat piles of newspapers. I also found some parcels of food on it, which, the Owl said, were shared by all staff like having a potluck supper. It was nice and quiet. (But I later discovered that though they all are working quietly, it is under the constraints of time that he and his colleagues pour blood, sweat and tears every night.) His colleagues were then working with their own computers at their own desks, absorbed in their assignments. Here, in this world of their own, they follow their routine, dedicated to their never-ending mission. The staff work from 9:30 am. It gets busy at 1:00 pm. It is around 4 pm that all the information has been pooled and the mission starts till the clock strikes 1:00 am, or sometimes 2:00 am, the following morning.
The Owl’s life is a sort of monotonous drudgery, you might suppose, on the contrary, every day is a new day for him because, as you all know, new events are happening in the world every minute. His life is both nocturnal and diurnal. During the office hours he checks the emails and reassesses and rewrites TDL (to-do list) according to daily priority. And he has to prep everything so as to catch up with the changes. Poor Owl, his working hours do not give him a chance to see the sunset.
In the afternoon he sometimes lunches out at a nearby tea shop. He often has a late lunch. He surfs the internet or flips Facebook while eating. Every evening, together with the other department heads, he is engaged in video conferencing with the authorities, and discusses the topics of interest and priority. As the daytime shifts into evening through the night, he and his colleagues find themselves swamped with work. They have the accurate eyesight of an owl so they can pay attention to every detail and work independently. Around 6 pm, he usually seats himself before the computer, racking his brains to write an editorial on a topic of current significance. These walking Owls might also be figuratively called Nya Minthars (Princes of the Night), who hardly sleep at night. Yes, they are the Owls who work through the night.
And this also makes me recall the famous Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami, who sleeps little and works very hard. Says the artist: “If I relax for more than six hours, I feel like I’m being extremely lazy and I have to get back to work.” There goes another Japanese Owl!
Actually, though his workplace is in Yangon, the Owl’s home is forty-two miles (68 km) from the city. So, he has to shuttle back and forth between his hometown and Yangon. But there are days when he has no chance to go home but has to tuck himself in his small office and spend the night there. No choice. He’s the Owl who works through the night without sleeping a wink.
An interesting Owl. He also paints. As for a prepress technician, artistic ability is a plus, you know. This ability comes to his aid when he discusses the layout, design and illustrations with the art director. I wonder how he could find time to do painting, another kind of nerve-breaking stuff, you know. Out of curiosity, when I ask him about the subject he paints, he says, “Ogres.” My Gosh! He also suggests me that we should one day hold a joint art exhibition at the famed Lawkanat Gallery. Wow! The show could attract the attention of the audience because his paintings have the subject of ogres adorned with the backdrop of traditional arabesque, and my subject is the impressionistic paintings of the Buddha.
In fact, sometimes, I am also an Owl like him. In Year 2000, there was an ASEAN Art Awards competition, and I was seized with a desire to enter the contest, which aimed at reflecting “the dynamic developments in contemporary art practice in the region”. I was, then, serving the duties of Associate Professor in a city seventy- seven miles away from Mandalay, where my family is living. Every evening, I took a bus, got back home, worked on my three paintings (Acrylic; 3 feet x 4 feet) the whole night through, and before daybreak, took a bus, snatched my sleep on the bus, got back to my mother unit, and served my duties without fail. Seven days! Yes, I was an Owl who worked through the night, without sleeping a wink.
The other day the Owl and I were sitting in a corner of a clean, well-lighted café at a supermarket. We had a steaming cup of Lipton tea each before us. We are close friends already, and we often pour our hearts to each other.
I usually whimper about how my practical-minded wife dislikes art and artists. And the Owl might take his turn and give vent to his feelings about his family problems.
“My aunt is so crazy, you know,” said the Owl, in a tone of melancholy. “She wants me to get married.” He sighed, as if he were already determined to remain a FA (Forever Alone). I understand what kind of life he’s living. An owl works the whole night through and sleeps in the daytime while a human being sleeps at night and works the whole day, so how can the Owl marry a female human being? I wonder. I could sense, from his stories of tug-of-war between his profession and his family, that he’s been driven into a corner. Sorry I can’t help him out. This Owl must be sent right away to a heartbreak hospital! He’s the Owl who does not suffer from insomnia but does not sleep a wink at night.
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the hundreds of owls did not fail to bring letters from Hogwarts to Harry. Similarly, these nightshifts, newspaper staff, working day in and out and through the night, always bring the latest news to the rest of the world in a timely fashion. Relaxation is a part of their work, I suppose. To use the words of the executive editor of Mobile Press Register Mike Marshell, “I’m always working … Since I love what I do, I don’t even really think about it as work. There’s no division between my relaxation and my work.” For this same kind of work attitude, I raise my hat to you, dear Owl. I’m afraid though many people always look forward to the arrival of today’s paper in the morning, they have not yet given due recognition to the efforts of these staff_ the Owls who work through the night without sleeping a wink.
Owls do nesting in winter while most other birds are quiet. Similarly, while other people are asleep, the nightshifts perform their duties. Later, I’ve come across in my life many other walking Owls like him, who hardly sleep at night but serve their assignments dutifully. For example, young doctors serving the OPD night duty; some doctors (like my son) serving even thirty-six hours duty in the General Hospital_ the hardworking, young Owls who has changed the night into day.
Yes, I must write a story about the Owls. Tu-whit tu-whoo!
