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  • 24 AKBAR ROAD, HOME OF AUNG SAN SUU KYI

    Posted On January 26, 2025

    By Karan Thapar

    If you’ve heard of 24 Akbar Road in New Delhi it’s probably as the office of the Congress Party. That’s what it was for almost fifty years. But I knew that residence from earlier decades when it was called Burma House and the residence of the Burmese Ambassador.

     

    Her name was Daw Khin Kyi and she was the widow of Burma’s independence hero Aung San. After his assassination she first served as a minister. In 1960 she was appointed to India and lived in Delhi for seven years.

     

    Daw Khin Kyi was a friend of my parents and her daughter Aung San Suu Kyi a close friend of my sister Kiran. They were together in college at Lady Shri Ram. When my parents left for Kabul in 1964 Kiran, who still had to complete her last year, spent six months at 24 Akbar Road.

     

    Daw Khin Kyi wasn’t tall and she was portly. She wore lungis, her hair pulled back into a small bun adorned with flowers. There was a kind expression on her face. She spoke softly. A smile was never far from her lips.

     

    I would have been six when I first met her. Separated from her son, she mothered me. I remember quaffing vast quantities of Khow Suey in the dining room. My favourite was the black rice pudding for which the Burmese residence was famous. I’m not sure if anyone else liked it. I doubt if I left very much for them to taste! At the time I was a fat little boy, what Suu would call “roly-poly”.

     

    Like most diplomats, the Burmese Ambassador had a Mercedes. Her driver was called Wilson. On weekends she would drive beyond Qutab to the Buddhist monasteries. There she would feed the monks. I’d often accompany her, eagerly awaiting our return to Number 24 where, as had become a habit, it was my turn to be fed!

     

    Suu spent seven years in India, first at the Convent of Jesus & Mary and then Lady Shri Ram. Even in her teens she was determined to join politics and confident she would rise to the top. She must have been 18 when she did a pencil drawing of Kiran which she inscribed with the words “Kiran Thapar is free to enter Burma whenever she wants”.

     

    Decades later I met Daw Khin Kyi in London. It was the late-1980s and I was in my 30s. She had been staying with Suu in Oxford and was on her way back to Rangoon.

     

    Though elderly and unwell, she burst into peals of laughter. “He’s got thin!”, she chortled. Her eyes lit up and a broad smile covered her face. “I can’t believe how thin he’s become.”

     

    “He still loves Khow Suey”, Suu informed her mother. “He always asks for it when he comes over.” In Oxford Suu never cooked black rice. So I remember the look of the dish but can’t recall its precise taste. It was sweet, covered with coconut shavings and the rice was jet-black.

     

    In 2015, when I visited Suu in Rangoon, it was clear her fondness for 24 Akbar Road had not abated. “Welcome to my other home”, she greeted me. “You knew 24 Akbar Road. This was Mummy’s home in Burma.”

     

    The Delhi home had a large piano. Suu would often play. It was there in University Avenue as well.

     

    Last week, when the papers started to reminisce about 24 Akbar Road, I realized I knew it before it became a political office. At the time it was a warm, loving, welcoming home with cozy rooms off a long corridor. It never mattered it was a Lutyens property. What counted is that it was Daw Khin Kyi’s home where I was always welcome and pampered.

     

    Their days in India were special for both Daw Khin Kyi and Suu. At Oxford Suu would often talk about them. I’d like to believe one reason is they were very happy living at 24 Akbar Road. Now, if only walls could speak!


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