Essay
Say when, Burma
If you want to see Calcutta as it was in the 1950s, visit Rangoon. With its crumbling Victorian buildings and leafy boulevards, Rangoon feels like a backwater, and in many ways it is. Burma's post-colonial history has not evolved as has happened elsewhere in the South Asian subcontinent; the architecture and politics are frozen in time.
Burmese democrats seem confident that their day is coming, but the Rangoon junta is busy establishing military and economic alliances. Meanwhile, returned Indian exiles are back in business.