Pak Arif’s Birthday Celebration
Pak Arif’s children are grown-ups. They all have a car, but pak Arif walks, bicycles, takes the bus or train. “Sure, old-fashioned, unwise me” he said. They want to gladden him by taking him to a first rate restaurant, or provide the means for him to travel abroad as his birthday present.
“Well, just in the neighborhood of Jakarta are many beautiful spots.” He mused. “Jurangmangu, Kampung Melayu in Tangerang, Tanjung Pasir, Cinangka, Kapuk, Serpong, Rumpin-Leuwiliang, Ciater, Cibubur, Wanaherang, … still so clear, so live, so beautiful in his mind’s eye but a lot is now gone, lost. Wow how delightful it was to be welcomed by a girl with a branch of red colored rambutan just taken from the tree after being tired, running through Cilenggang village, which he did not eat but took home to decorate the dining table. He remembered an unexpected kiss of Upi, as his birthday present some 50 years ago. That was a present!!!!”
It was his dream that some day he would tour whole Jawa from village to village on a bike or walk, take an angkot (public car), have a lodging in a county inn, or sleep on a tapang (low wooden sitting table) in a warong (village shop), it would be fine if he could visit the other islands as well, or with his grandchildren walk in the river Cisadane, - not along - with his grandchildren from Rumpin to Leuwiliang. No, not touring abroad. It’s a pity he couldn’t take Upi, his wife to accompany him as it would be too tiring for her.
“What does dad like?” they asked their mother.
“Just give him a pair of sandals as his old are almost worn out,” said she. “When he got a fine Swiss watch, he didn’t wear it. At last he returned the watch as he preferred his old cheap digital watch. ‘No one would like to steal or rob it, besides, it can be used as a ringing bell to wake me up, a stopwatch and calendar,’ he reasoned.”
“Or present him some bags of earth to heighten his garden, eh, I mean his forest or his little plot of ‘land conservation’, since it’s free for every plant or creature who would like to visit, settle there while his forest is just 3 x 7 m. There is the waringin, flamboyant, belimbing, which he rescued, rambutan, nangka, mahoni, saga, and many others, I don’t know their names. He took weeds from his far trips home on a bus and planted it there. He doesn’t buy any plant, flowers, except a yang liu, a kind of willow. Not to say about the ferns.”
“There are two ponds he made himself. ‘I’m not accomplished in the art of landscaping. Let Nature be the artist he said.’ He has fresh water shrimps, fishes from the river, lakes, sawahs (rice fields), marshes, saved from being poisoned or drought. The water plants he took from the rice fields. There’s the beunteur, sepat, cupang, cenang-cenang, julung-julung, ikan macan (tiger fish) which he saved when it was still small and harmless, but forced to free it again in the Ciliwung river in front of the Istiqlal Mosque, as it preyed on the other fishes as it grows bigger, together with snails from the Bogor Botanic Garden which he had hatched, that razed his water plants. ‘you should watch them cautiously, live, - not see them in pictures or in aquariums - as they live vigilant in their natural surroundings,’ he advised.”
“He never cleaned his ponds, yet the water was very clear, he didn’t feed his fishes, during a draught he filled his ponds and he made a device to prevent his ponds from overflowing during rain, yet happy in the rain some fishes, especially the cenang-cenang jump out of his ponds.
“Besides he had a sawah frog caught when still very small who became an excellent jumper. He hides, sits on a wild water lily leaf till one day he croaks and reminds him of the sawah, the village. There also were fresh water crabs, but they disappeared. Father loves to see his residents that like to live or visit his garden, happy. There was a giant dragonfly visiting his pond. Its pupae was very fearsome to look at. It was as a miniature dragon and very ferocious. There was once a beautiful colored spider spreading its net above the pond. Little bats also visited and birds warble and had their nests in the waringin. The ‘kruidje roer me niet’ (touch-me-not weed) which he planted at the side of his pond was growing like a beautiful mini tree descending its branches into the pond. He loves, enjoyed his forest and ponds and learns what nature taught him: ‘the strong is slowly killing the weak’.”
“There too his dogs were buried” said mother.
Happy, warm, close together with his children and grandchildren, pak Arif celebrated his birthday with roasting, eating sate in the garden. Mmmmm. Breathing the barbequed smell awakens the appetite. There after, roast corn, drink sekoteng (gingerly drink). The moon and the stars were shining quietly, there was a cool breeze, the sound of a Sunda gamelan on a cassette. Happy with his new pair of sandals, with the earth and compost for his plants, “who still wants to be persuaded to go abroad or go to a restaurant as his birth day present? Ha, ha, ha.” So said pak Arif to his wife before going to bed.
From Suara Karya, March 15, 1996
