ခမည်းကြိုး

by ခင်ခင်ထူး

464 pages, Unknown Binding

About the author

၁၉၆၅ ဒီဇင်ဘာ(၁၇)ရက်နေ့တွင် မြင်းခြံမြို့၌ အဖ-ဦးညို၊ အမိ-ဒေါ်မြတင်တို့က မွေးဖွားသည်။ မွေးချင်း(၆)ယောက်တွင် တတိယမြောက် တစ်ဦးတည်းသော သမီးဖြစ်သည်။ အမည်ရင်းမှာ ဒေါ်ထူးထူး ပင်ဖြစ်သည်။ ငယ်စဉ်က မြင်းခြံမြို့တွင် ပညာသင်ကြားခဲ့သည်။

၁၉၈၅၌ မန္တလေးတက္ကသိုလ်မှ ဓာတုဗေဒဘာသာရပ်ဖြင့် ဘွဲ့ရရှိခဲ့ကာ ၁၉၈၉တွင် မူလတန်းပြဆရာမအဖြစ် တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်ခဲ့သည်။ ၁၉၉ဝပြည့်နှစ်တွင် အလယ်တန်းပြဆရာမဖြစ်လာကာ ၁၉၉၂၌ မန္တလေးသို့ ပြောင်းရွှေ့ခဲ့သည်။ ဧပြီလထုတ် ရွှေဝတ်မှုန် မဂ္ဂဇင်းတွင် ပါရှိသော ပန်းပန်ပါရစေ ဝတ္ထုတိုဖြင့် စာပေနယ်သို့ စတင်ဝင်ရောက်ခဲ့ သည်။

၁၉၉၃မှစ၍ မဂ္ဂဇင်းများတွင် ဝတ္ထုတို၊ ဝတ္ထုရှည်များရေးသားကာ အားကစားဂျာနယ်များတွင်လည်း ဘောလုံးဆောင်းပါးများ ရေးသားခဲ့၏ ။ အချို့ဝတ္ထုတိုများကို ဂျပန်ဘာသာ၊ ဂျာမန်ဘာသာသို့ ပြန်ဆိုခဲ့ကြသည်။ ၁၉၉၉တွင် မဂ္ဂဇင်းပါဝတ္ထုတိုများကို စုစည်းလျှက် သနပ်ခါး ဝတ္ထုတိုများထွက်ရှိခဲ့ကာ သူမ၏ ပထမဆုံး လုံးချင်းစာအုပ်ဖြစ်သည်။

၂၀၀၁ ရောက်သောအခါ အလယ်တန်းပြဆရာမအဖြစ်မှ နုတ်ထွက်၍ နောင်တစ်နှစ်တွင် 'ကျမချစ်သော ဘောလုံးသူရဲကောင်းများ' (စတားပလေယာကောက်ကြောင်း) စာအုပ်ထွက်ခဲ့သည်။ စာရေးဆရာ နေဝင်းမြင့် နှင့် အိမ်ထောင်ပြုခဲ့သည်။ ၂၀၀၃၌ ဖက်စိမ်းကွမ်းတောင်ရွှေဝတ္ထုတိုများ ဖြင့် အမျိုးသားစာပေ ဝတ္ထုတိုပေါင်းချုပ်ဆုရရှိခဲ့သည်။

စာနယ်ဇင်းများတွင် ဝတ္ထုတို၊ ဝတ္ထုရှည်၊ ဆောင်းပါးများ အပုဒ်(၁၀၀)ကျော်ရေးသားခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်လေသည်။

Reviews

[Yamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is said to be the unusual theme for the writer who usually writes about stories based in central Myanmar with rich regional expressions.
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There are many occult/ mysterious/ witchcraft components as well as many other sub-stories.
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Khin Saw Mu, the protagonist is a 30-40ish auditor assigned for a week-long audit in a remote town. On the train ride, she met a mysterious woman who asked her to give some charm to a resident named Ma Saw Nyunt in the town she is going. When she arrived, her colleagues were not there to pick her up, the train station was deserted and she finally ended up in staying in a big, dark and mysterious house. The owner of the house is a classy, mixed-raced, educated yet hard-to-read lady name Daw Khin May Thi. She seemed to be some kind of witch-doctor. At the same time of her stay, there is another "patient" who was there for (burmese folk equivalent of) exorcism. Non-believer as she is, Khin Saw Mu got curious about the house, the houseowner, the background stories of the town and got herself tangled in the "patient"'s life and tried to investigate the logical explanations.
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Here are the mysteries that bugged the protagonist..
1. Where is the lady she is supposed to give the charm to?
2. Why is the town so mysterious with many hidden stories?
3. Who is the house-owner really? And, is she a fraud?
4. What are the back stories of the patient?
5. The ghost stories of the out-of-town bungalow and the forest..
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The whole time, I was on the edge of my seat and enjoyed the book entirely although I'm not very familiar with the occult or folk element of burmese buddhism. It is nice to learn about them and they are very realistic than all those mystery components in English books. In the storytelling, sometimes, it became repetitive that the revelations got always interrupted and you got confused about all of those above stories. Khin Khin Htoo's writing was very interesting and the story, gripping. Some might not be very happy with having some plot-twists at the end but, I'm ok with that. Only after finishing the whole book, I feel like some stories are not really necessary to the main one nor even related. Maybe the writer put stories in the stories just to mix up the clues.
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I would recommend this book to anyone who would love a good book with a good story. You don't necessarily have to be the occult-genre loving person. This is not just another ghost story (I think? But, I haven't read many ghost stories). And, you can't go too wrong with Khin Khin Htoo.

[Pann Hnin Nay Chi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been trying revisit books from my childhood that I once considered to be "literary masterpieces" to see if I still feel the same way about them. Also as an attempt to de-rot my brain. This book was one of them.

The author builds the whole storyline around Ma Saw Nyunt, but the big reveal feels rushed and the plot twist seems super forced. The story could have been stronger if the subplot about Dan Pwint connected more meaningfully to the central mystery. But ultimately, it does nothing but gets the protagonist running around, snooping in other people's business, during the whole story.

Even though I no longer find this book as incredible as I did (probably partly bc I already know all the "plot twists"), it was still a fun read. The plot may not be as strong as I remembered, but I still really enjoy Khin Khin Htoo’s writing. I can see why younger me ate this up in one sitting.

[Veronica Hninn · Rating 4 out of 5]

***Spoiler***

I really enjoyed it up until the last 5 pages. The plot twist was kinda forced. Especially because it wasn’t foreshadowed or hinted at throughout the book. So, it was a little disappointing. Apart from that, I enjoyed it a lot. It was really refreshing to read about the burmese culture in the rural areas where people tend to be more superstitious and conservative.

[Wai Zin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book has a Gothisque atmosphere - narrator arrived at a small sleepy town, staying at an eerie & derelict house, a ghost may or may not be lurking its corridors, meeting a mysterious but somewhat classy antagonist, playing detective, trying to uncover lost secrets, helping star crossed lovers etc.

This book is quite different style from usual works of Khin Khin Htoo.
She usually writes about rural people and life of Burma. This book proves that KKH is a really talented storyteller. Even though this is not her usual style of story it's still a page turner.

This is my second time reading of this book but still very enjoyable even though I recall most of the plots from my first read which is about 10 years ago.

What I do not like about this book is author attempts to force unnecessary romance into the plot. KKH was never good with romantic plots. Whenever she tries it's cringeworthy. I may be a little harsh, but this is how I always feel.

[Alma Say · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is absolutely captivating. The author masterfully keeps readers on the edge of their seats, making it an unforgettable experience. The character development is impressive, with layered, engaging personalities that evolve throughout the story. Intriguingly, there are several subplots woven in, adding depth and making the story even more compelling. The bungalow scene, in particular, sent shivers up my spine—not because of any ghostly presence, but simply due to the eerie recollection of its past late at night. This book is a brilliant blend of suspense, crime, thriller, and mystery—a truly remarkable read.

[Ral_ 451 · Rating 3 out of 5]

အချစ်ဆိုတာတကယ်တော့မနောကြိုးနဲ့စည်းနှောင်တဲ့ခမည်းကြိုးတစ်ကြိုးပါပဲ