Topsy-Turvy

I found Flory and Veraswami’s friendship reminiscent of Aziz and Fielding in Passage. Both Flory and Veraswami respect and enjoy engaging each other in civil conversation. Flory especially seems to appreciate this aspect of their friendship, preferring it to the uncouth group of white men boozing and idling back at the Club. Yet I am not sure if Veraswami returns these sentiments, herein lies the first instance of topsy-turvy-ness in this text: Veraswami, unlike Aziz, does not harbour disdain for the white man. Instead, he adores them; he envies the “prestige” of being one, and wonders “if only I were a member of your European Club…How different would my position be!” Perhaps what he seeks in Flory’s friendship is only the accompanying prestige of being in the presence of a white man?

Similarly, Ma Hla May quite obviously doesn’t need/want Flory for love (she already has Bo Pe), yet clings on to him all for prestige: “It was the idle concubine’s life that she loved, and the visits to her village dressed in all her finery, when she could boast of her position…” Consider also U Po Kyin, (who for some strange reason reminds me of Kim Jong Il!) backstabbing his fellow countryman Veraswami just so he could enter the Club, again, to raise his prestige.

The tables seem to have turned on white-ness as it has now been reduced to a commodity; a “white accessory” to borrow Melissa’s term, as something for the natives to exploit. Funny how Veraswami corrects Flory’s griping that the Europeans have come to rob by saying “…at least you have brought to us law and order”, which raises two new questions: first, did not the ‘natives’ exploit the colonisers in their own way and second, can we say that Empire was not such a bad thing after all?

(304 words, and whee~23:51, just made it!)