Thitpok Pin Forever – II

The centenary of the founding of Rangoon University (now Yangon University) falls on December 1, 2020. I couldn’t remember if I had collected any of the annual magazines of the Rangoon/Yangon University or the “အိုးဝေ”(The Peacock’s Call) magazine of the Rangoon University Student’s Union. I must have at least a few. But leaving the shelter of my parent’s home in east Yangon to work in the districts for more than fifteen years took its toll on the few belongings I carried with me, especially my books. My kid brother help cleaned our parent’s home by selling most of my books left at home to the scrap paper buyers. Then termites cleaned up some of my prized collections that I carried. Back to Yangon in 1978, I still have the Yangon University Golden Jubilee commemorative publication of 1970 issued with the blessings of the Revolutionary Council Government. And I still got it.

I leafed through 500-plus pages of the book. Now I felt a little indignant, not finding my icon the grand Thitpok Pin, neither on the cover nor anywhere in the text. I have lost its back-cover so I don’t know if it is there. Looking hard, I found our Thitpok Pin here in a reproduced page from the University annual magazine of 1939:

If you look harder you’ll find the Thitpok Pin with the freshly built buildings of Rangoon University (1920?), with view from the north:

and view from south:

The shape of the canopy and buttress roots of the landmark tree in the old photographs clearly identify our Ole Thitpok of today:

Too bad I couldn’t find as yet the (1920?) original photos of the "freshly built Rangoon University" on the Web!  In the above old photographs, the Ole Thitpok looked at least as tall as the buildings flanking it. Those photographs were not dated, but the the description "freshly built Rangoon University" in the text accompanying the photos could mean 1920, though I am not sure. That means it is more than 100 years old and may be you could add a decade or two. I guess you could ascertain it best through historical and scienctific research. 

Now, a challenge, if you like, to get it done before the centennial.