The Lady I knew: Aung San Suu Kyi’s tragedy

Shakespeare’s tragedies have heroes but they are not heroic. As the plays unfold you witness their crumbling. In fact, they destroy themselves because the flaw is embedded deep in their character. It’s an inevitable and irresistible process. It’s an outcome that cannot be prevented. That’s why it’s tragic.

I think that could also be true of Aung San Suu Kyi. I’ve known her since I was five. At the time, her mother was the Burmese Ambassador in India, and Suu, as I have always called her, was an undergraduate at Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College. Our parents became friends and Suu and my sister Kiran would often drive together to college.

Even as a teenager, Suu was drawn to politics. She sensed her future would ultimately lie in ruling Burma (the name she prefers for Myanmar) and didn’t hide it even if she only spoke jocularly. A pencil-drawn portrait that she made of my sister Kiran, dated 11 October 1962, has inscribed at the bottom ‘Kiran Thapar may be allowed entry into Burma at any time’.