# On the Road to Mandalay **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 24, 2010, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-road-to-mandalay/551279 "2010-08-24T12:39:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2014, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-road-to-mandalay/551279/41 "2014-06-08T21:48:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Kipling himself on the subject: - > > Had I opened the chorus of the song with `Oh' instead of 'On the road,' etc., it might have shown that the song was a sort of general mix-up of the singer's Far-Eastern memories against a background of the Bay of Bengal as seen at dawn from-a troop-ship taking him there. But ` On ’ in this case was more singable than `Oh.’ That simple explanation may stand as a warning. [Something of Myself.) > > So it is a nostalgic soldier’s memories of the whole of the British Far East (or at least the bits that he knows), inspired by seeing the Bay of Bengal at dawn. It’s not just the use of “Oh” vs. “On”, though. The song/poem gives the sense of being a unified whole, and describes things that are geographically impossible. It doesn’t “read” as if he’s giving as stream of consciousness about random bits he recalls – he’s strung them all together in an impossible mess. > [@](#): > > I may be giving Kipling too much credit for subtlety here, but it seems to me you can make a good argument that the geographic misinformation is deliberate. Which is pretty much what I suggest in my last post. [quoite]No, I do not agree. Not if the song were about a journey from, say Rio de Janeiro, sung by to Minneapolis and consisted largely of an ocean voyage followed by voyage up the Mississippi, and were being sung in Rio to someone resident in Rio. [/quote] Well, we’re gonna have to disagree, then, because that sounds crazy to me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-road-to-mandalay/551279.md?page=2)