We were talking about food last night and a memory came back to me – for the umpteenth time.
Narrow and dark and most of all hot. If I ended up at a back table, 3 or 4 metres inside, the sweat would pour from forehead and my hair would be wet enough to comb again in just 20 seconds. And the prickly heat itchiness would invade. Better to get a table at front, and visit only at night. So narrow, maybe 2 or 3 metres, and even narrower at the front – maybe one metre or 1.5 metres. It was narrower at the front because half the width was taken up with the kitchen. Sitting at the front one was almost being on the footpath. Sabang Street, in central Jakarta, in 1969 was a fun street. It was almost all restaurants, cafes and other eateries, with a row of Chinese owned general stores – also selling smuggled gin – and another row of photocopy shops, so needed for all the documents necessary for almost every activity in Indonesia.
Read more…
Narrow rough asphalt grey
Fences and walls defend snatches of privacy
The ting ting ting of meat ball sellers
The cacophony enemy of ears from the three wheeler
Dryness, then dark downpour
Outside rapacious streets gobbling time, time, time
Insatiable
The whirr of a fan
Humm of a laptop
Work, maybe
Letter from Jakarta 2011/1: Amin’s Death
by Max Lane.
(Max Lane is 2011 ASIALINK Writer-in-Residence with Majalah Historia and will be visiting Indonesia and Timor Leste several times during 2011.)
Really, in hindsight, there was a great deal of beauty in the scene. There was a kaleidoscope of wonderful colours: dark blues and greens, the red and white of the national soccer team, as well as fading browns and greys and dirty whites. T-shirts and dresses, trousers and singlets, chequered green and brown sarongs, black pecis on black heads of hair, all coloured the scene. There was glistening silver from the sun’s steaming rays bouncing of the zinc and tin rooftops and the myriads of blacks, browns and greys among the timbers, tiles, packing cases, corrugated iron, tarpaulins and plastics that were the constructions materials for these peoples’ place of rest and life. And there was the sky, grey and brooding and dirty, with clouds of feint blue among the puffy curtains that forebode coming rain. There were the greens of scattered trees and the occasional pot plant. There were the browns of people’s eyes and skins and the whites or yellows of their smiles. Read more…
(Remembering a story from the experiences of Joesoef Isak from 1966 or 1967.)
The dried eel of Indonesia.
The humidity was from sweat and not the air. The sad singing was the whimpers as they dabbed alcohol on the wounds. The music was the brushing of bodies and clothes against each other in the tiny room. The percussion introduced pause was the clang of an opening gate. The crescendo followed the approach of booted footsteps. It ended as another human being was thrown to the floor. The notes were the scores left by the spikes of the dried eel across his back. Another was taken. Do not fear the pain, one said, you do not die, you do come back. For most, yes, it was true. But not for the other one million.
Joesoef signing the book dedicated to him for Faiza Mardzoeki.
Joesoef Isak passed away 15 August, 2009. RIP
WALL
Long. Thick. Grey. Dark. Tall.
Ugly, dirty, casting cold shadows this wall.
Stealing land, stealing rights, stealing life
Not damming, but provoking strife
It zigs and zags and curls and snakes
Land and home and farm, it takes and takes
A moat for fortresses defending wealth
Perched on hilltops denizens of stealth
A people sliced and carved and chopped
Olive trees and leaders, both severed and lopped
Tears and screams are the traffic’s herald
Funeral marches, cars and trucks, remember the felled.
Black and scratched adorned with razor wire
They are the walls of a hearth where burns a blazing fire
Blank is the countenance along the fenced space
Deep are the furrows and scars cut into the mourner’s face.
The wall is cement, brick, wire and steel
Built by hand and machines who do not feel.
The wall is oppression, death and a dead mind’s greed
Tear it down with the strength that freedom’s spirit does breed.
Kaya. Kaya sekali. Kaya betul. Kaya tak terhingga.
Sebab dan akibat berturut-turut menjelma menjadi asal-usul.
Jalan balik ikuti peristiwa tak juga ke tujuan final akan singgah
Orang dan peristiwa, perkembangan dan aksi, perubahan selalu menyusul.
Kaya. Kaya sekali. Kaya betul. Kekayaan tak terbayang.
Ummat manusia memiliki masa lalu, diketahui menjadi sejarah
Sejarah membuka asal usul masalah, pantasnya sangat disayang.
Senjata melawan penindasan pula, makanya penguasa selalu jarah.
Kaya. Kaya sekali. Kaya indah. Kaya kunci yang buka rahasia.
Penindasan, Kemelaratan. Jalan Buntu. Apa jatuh dari langit?
Rahasia sebabnya hanya kita dapat kalau masa lalu kita razia.
Ayo buka arsip; baca buku, tanya orang, dengan memori kita akan bangkit.
Sejarah adalah sesuatu yang sifatnya kita semua tahu
Sejarah adalah manusia bekerja olah materi menjadi barang baru
Berkarya begitu bisa dingerti kita semua,
Segel pengetahuan didobrak sehingga semua mengalir keluar.
Setiap karya kerja harus bisa selesai meski tidak mudah
Makanya kita tanya: tuntas yang mana, mana yang masih tunggu?
Riwayat rakyat masa lalu akan tunjukkan mana yang sudah
Kebebasan terhina selama harta karun itu masih dibelunggu.
Bungkuk, bungkuk, bungkuk tambal ban
Jari hindar jarum duduk berjam-jam bahu menegang
Biji, insektisida, pupuk kecapekan hasilkan makanan
Kapur diatas papan mendidik, map dan formulir melancarkan logistik
Las nyala, truk terisi, eletroknik dirakit, barang keluar pabrik
Tangan bergandeng, bertemu di lapangan, mata satu arah: tabik!
Jakarta, Indonesia, May Day, 2010
Sajak peringatan diri si pengamat
Pantat bersatu dengan kursi
Mata ngelem pada monitor
Jari dengan keyboard berfusi
Cyber realitas mulai menentukan T.O.R.
Melbourne, April, 2010
The Australian newspaper has carried a report on the Singapore MAX LANE. ”Johari likens the sombre tones of his music to the suffering and “dark history” of Pramoedya and his works”. It is in its January 27 issue and the article is entitled “New act plays to the Max“.
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