They seemed to have been aware even as teenagers of which path they were going to choose in life: that they would contribute to the struggle for independence. For Aung San Suu Kyi, there was not the same obvious mission in life nor the same external need to make a decision early on. “He was a better person than I am, and I’m not just saying this because I want to appear modest. My father was one of these people who were born with a sense of responsibility, far greater and more developed than mine. From the very moment he started going to school, he was a hard worker, very conscientious. I wasn’t like that. I would study hard only when I liked the teacher or the subject. I had to develop my sense of responsibility and work with it.” This self-portrait is not, however, in total agreement with the person whom her friends and acquaintances describe from the 1950s and 1960s. Malavika Karlekar, who attended the same school and shared a class with Suu Kyi during the years in India, says that Suu Kyi was a person with very strong self-discipline right from the beginning.
