My personal note induced by the terrorist bombing

I miss the old Indonesian way

I remember I used to secretely admire my mother when she was fixing herself in front of the mirror getting ready for a wedding reception. She would be wearing a set of kebaya[1], with the old fashion traditional hair do of gelungan[2]. That was like 20 years ago, nobody I know is doing that now.

I was born in Kediri, a middle size town in East Java, with cool breeze and delicious food specialties. In our nearby mosque I had my afternoon religion school after morning public school. Houses from where one could clearly hear adzan[3] would all be gravitated towards this mosque for a lot more activities than just for prayers. Especially, Ramadhan was really fun. People would organize themselves to bring foods in turn for ta’jilan[4]. I don’t know why the ta’jilan foods always tasted better than foods at home. My mother joined pengajian[5], which seemed to be fun with art-related activities, such as qasidah and barzanzi.

Then we moved to Solo, bigger city where my father was born. A unique city later I know is full of contradictions. I still continued the old habit of going to ordinary public school in the morning and religion school in the afternoon for some times. But the teacher and the teaching are different. My citing for prayers would then become different than that of my parents’. Other things changed too. We are not allowed to celebrate weton[6], nyewu[7], and so on, because that would be bid’ah[8] some said.

When I was in my high school, religious student group in school was getting more influencing. So I refrained from participating in sport class when they scheduled swimming. I stopped greeting Christmas to my Christian friends, because the Islamic student group launched boycott against those things. Following these I felt like I was doing something "right" according to the religion. Religion equals God I thought, so I felt the "ghirah", spirit/enthusiasm.

My aunt on the other hand, was another kind of Solonese. I lived with her for one year or so, so I noticed she was not doing 5 times a day prayers. She was a Batik painter, and she wore kebaya and jarit[9] on daily basis. She referred God as the one who’s painting red to chilies (and I thought it was amazingly true). She was fasting in different way, not necessarily during Ramadhan like us, and she hung a calendar from Pangestu[10]. She was a really kind, gentle and loving person. But still, since we thought she was not like us, we used to feel sad about her.

Last year my big family went to Taman Mini[11], and we watched a 3-dimensional movie in Keong Mas made in 80’s. There I could not help but thinking how different we had become. We have changed so much from the 80's Indonesia. Not only the development in the infrastructure, thank God we do have it some, but we also changed the way we dress, and the way we see people around us. Nobody wears traditional clothes anymore, we even criticize about school keeping in the backward culture when they insist children to wear kebaya during Kartini day[12].

Year by year this nation is changing. I was hoping that the change somehow would lead to something more substantial, the behavior. Yet I am seeing only changing in physicality, in clothes. We still rank top in corruption, we are still consumer and not producer, not even a smart follower, of world’s culture. If we used to complain against blind "westernization", I wonder why we should feel differently for the same thing of "middle-easternization" we are having now. We used to learn in elementary school how beautiful and rich Indonesia is. A country of friendly society and a unity in diversity. I want to be able to live in that beautiful notion again.

[1] Traditional Javanese style costume
[2] Traditional Javanese style of hair do
[3] Calling for 5 times-a-day prayer
[4] Food served in mosque for breaking Fast
[5] Religious study group/Quran reading group
[6] Birthday in Javanese calendar system
[7] 1000th day commemoration after one’s passed away
[8] Syncretism (?)
[9] A traditional batik cloth usually worn as bottom pair of kebaya.
[10] A Javanese spiritualism group, who practice monotheism but is not referred to any modern/mainstream religion
[11] Miniature Park of Indonesia
[12] A commemoration of Kartini birthday, who pioneered women emancipation in Java. A Muslim, dresses in traditional Javanese costume. On Kartini day, students used to hold festival and dress in various Indonesian ethnic clothes.

My Grandmother

"Always keep dignity and be true to yourself" Marjane Satrapi's grandma told her on the night before she left Tehran. It was a kind of my moment of truth out of the whole book. The sentence was indeed for me too, but it is the scene: sleeping with her grand mother that really stroke me.

I used to specially request to sleep with my grandma too every time I visited Kediri, a little town in East Java where I was born (hometown of my mother). Nobody would argue anyway, except perhaps my youngest cousin the only one who obviously sleeps with her every now and then (my grandma lived with my aunt's family until she died) since she said grandma's room was cooler and that she would always fan her to keep mosquitoes away. That's how nice our grandma was. Grandma lost her sight due to something I wasn't sure, but nothing really changed about her. I used to pray hard everyday for her to gain back her sight, but it was never recovered until she died. Before she lost the sight, she used to run a shop in a traditional market where we sold apparel products (it's in a traditional market, so nothing really fancy) . Before that, our big family had a small home industry where we made sarongs, and we sold the products in the shop. I used to go with her in becak (tricycle) when I was still so small (kindergarten), I couldn't remember it clearly but the splendid feeling was never gone.

When she lost the sight I couldn't really tell how she felt, because I was still small (and probably my empathy and sensitivity senses were not completely developed yet) and I was already moved to Solo, and only saw her every holiday. But I really prayed for her five times a day or more. I didn't know why it affected me so badly, her losing sight. To me then, it was like the most horrible thing to happen. Then gradually I realized she wasn't that much affected herself, she still laughed and sang (those slow-calming Javanese songs), and was all the way talkative. She would always commented or responded to any conversation she heard, sometimes it made my aunt (her youngest child who took care of her) irritated, well I notice that's the way old people do, always want to get involve in everything. But it really amused me though, I loved her so much naturally. When I was in a relationship with a guy for the first time in my life, it's her whom I told first. She was more attentive than my mother. I had difficulty to discuss my most personal business, i.e. love life to any member of my family (I couldn't figured out why it's never easy to talk about love and romance in my family). Therefore, I couldn't really tell why I got to tell it to my grand mother. I couldn't quite remember now how the discussion was, but I knew I would really remember that it is her, my favorite secret keeper.

When she died, I was already a big girl and working. I literally stumbled and fell down on something I couldn't really remember now (not fainting and all, just sort of losing balance for a second or two), and cried all the way to get home early. That was the first sad moment I experienced of losing someone whom I really love. I didn't attend the funeral though since at that time plane was not a simple luxury. By train surely I wouldn't catch the moment anyway.
She died suddenly, fell down while she just finished her morning shower. It was not an accident I believe, since as a blind person she knew by heart her ways around the house, she must have lost her balance or consciousness or something. She died without pain I believe, and she died on a friday, a day that is believed to be the holiest day in my religion.