Enjoyment Doesn't Lie In Prices

Enjoyment Doesn’t Lie In Prices

Though a man could savor the most delicious, expensive food in the world, yet he wouldn’t surpass a healthy, hungry coolie savoring the simplest, cheapest meal.

Though one could sleep in the softest, warmest bed in a five star hotel, yet not softer, nicer than a Pedi cab driver sleeping soundly in the loudest traffic in his Pedi cab.

Though one could afford world tours, he wouldn’t surpass Opa Johan’s pleasures, delights, adventure during his mountain trip just from Gobang to Cigudeg.

You can’t hasten life. You can’t eat more, sleep more, hear more, see more, feel more, read more, enjoy more, … more than is within your capacity, how much money you ever may have. You can’t catch, make up for what you have missed, lost before.

January 2009

The Choir Conductor's Diary

The Choir Conductor’s Diary

How nice. She has phoned me as though to apologize for her cold telephone reception before. She still is a church choir conductor. She said that recently she couldn’t exercise her choir as her legs hurt. She lectures music in a faculty. I told her how I still succeeded to improve the voices of my members though they are more than 60 and some more than 70 years old. That was owing to my asthma I said. I thought it would be good to exercise my breathing to overcome this. So on Sundays, in order not to annoy, disturb my neighbors, I went to the Jakarta toll road in Meruya, took a path beside the toll road and vocalized my exercise as loud as I can and competed with the traffic noise. My breathing improved and my voice improved too. It became more powerful, full and could reach higher tones. Then I thought, why not exercise my members in the same way. And now they have better voices never expected, unbelievable before of aged people. So an illness may be a blessing in disguise as it has improved my health, voice and also profited my members and the church congregation as well, with better singing. So your hurting legs certainly can be cured and might be a blessing in disguise too, I encouraged her.

“I thought whether I may come to your choir session, take my mini tape recorder and learn, see how you exercise them. I’ll write it in my paper,” she said.

“Sure. You’re welcome.” I said.

And I remembered her – a lovely young still unmarried woman - some 40 years ago talking, sharing our thoughts, deeper feelings about music, the choir festival, in which we participated. I’ve never seen her since then.

And as I think of her courage to phone me despite my being a married man of over 70 and she a married woman with a teen age daughter in a still prudish church society, am I a lucky man.

But she didn’t come to my concert, nor visited my choir session. Otherwise, she might be frightened, scared to see me, ha, ha. I’m grateful just to talk with her. I don’t care whether I don’t see her, or whether she lives abroad, or is married. Our age difference, walls couldn’t hinder, prevent my loving her.

I could talk endlessly, she’s like a guitar having a very sensitive, responsive sound board, as though a grand piano. You can’t play badly. You must, have to, to play well despite your poor ability to play because it sounds so delightful, so full, not out of tune. How I wish to accompany, “teach” and hear her sing. And as I sing “Der Nussbaum” of Schumann, even without lyrics, I felt as young as ever again, as never before.

2001

Overcrowded Buses

Overcrowded Buses

A top police official called on city bus drivers recently to stop overcrowding city buses so that they could close the bus doors in line with the new regulation.

This sounds right but if there is a ruling to regulate the maximum number of passengers in a bus, why do traffic policemen let overcrowded buses pass in front of their eyes in bus terminals to begin with.

As a regular commuter I am always grateful of the bus drivers’ willingness to give me a ride to an overcrowded bus and to the traffic police for not stopping the bus and asking the passengers to get off.

And why do the authorities allow trains to carry passengers exceeding their maximum capacities? There are trains with passengers overflowing onto their rooftops.

In simple economic terms this is known as supply not meeting demand. Since public transport is cheap, me and the common people happily opt this means of transportation though it often means traveling in overcrowded wagons while standing up.

It would be wonderful if the government or those conglomerates who have concerns over social issues would provide more transportation means but certainly not with raising tariffs so that those buses and trains can close their doors, keeping with the new traffic regulation and the people rejoice and be happy.

From Berita Buana, The Jakarta Post September 19, 1994.

One Knock, Thousand Dollars

One Knock, Thousand Dollars

Konijnenburg, director of the K.L.M. airways, during his inspiring lectures in 1951, once told about a machine that suddenly stopped. They tried a long time to repair it but in vain. They called for an expert. He examined awhile, then took a hammer, knocked on a certain part of the machine and it was running normal again. The bill was a thousand dollars.

“Would you specify this?” they asked.

“One dollar for the knock. Nine hundred and ninety nine dollars for knowing where to knock,” he answered.

January 2009

Garbage At Monas

Garbage At Monas

Visitors to the National Monument usually throw their rubbish wherever they like, perhaps under the pretext that the government hires city cleaners to clean the area. “I have paid my taxes anyway,” visitors may tell themselves. Then they throw plastic bottles, peanut shells, banana skins, plastic bags and whatnot around.

I recall a foreign friend staying with us for a few days in the fifties. Then bicycles are a popular means of traveling about. Our guest liked to use our old and dirty bicycle. After use the bicycle was returned and was much cleaner than before. When she left us, my wife went to clean and make the guest bedroom tidy. But she was very surprised to find the room as tidy and clean as ever. A package, certainly not garbage, was left on the bed – a souvenir for our family.

From Sinar Pagi, The Jakarta Post April 24, 1995

May God ...

May God …

“May God reward, repay you for your good-, kind-ness to me. May God bless you. make you have success, protect you. I’ll pray God to reserve a place for you in heaven.”

Well, that’s easy, we’ll order God to do our work, be our guardian, pay off our moral debts.

January 2009

Better Know Or Not Know

Better Know Or Not Know

And I thought of Internet. Every one could have access to knowledge, information: about science, art, philosophy, health, … I imagine a time when children don’t have to go to school, every one without prerequisites could study any subject without going to academies, faculties, universities. One could work without going to his office, could have a conference or meeting without going out or abroad. Visit, see Alaska, the Grand Canyon, the Galapagos, the Alps, … without having to travel. That’s knowing owing to internet.

Besides, standing on one’s own, one is so free to express his thoughts without being suppressed, censored by editors, publishers, or privileged, backed up by a huge circulation, great names, certification, diploma’s, without frustrating, degrading, humiliating comments of publishers who reject one’s writing.

And I also thought of patients who knew they had cancer or aids or a deadly disease, or those sentenced to death or ill fortune. Knowing their fate, it comes as a curse. They live in constant fear and life would seem like hell, only freed when they were asleep. While not knowing, is like a blessing. They could still go on living a happy life.

But not knowing what we ail, could suddenly, unexpectedly attack us as a heart attack or stroke. Knowing this is also a cause of fear.

However, knowing opens a new world and could free us from fear, of erroneous concepts, beliefs, superstitions, diagnosis, ... but also could frighten us. We thought the world was flat before and the sun, the moon the stars circled around our earth.

Yet there were the brave who knew what was in store for them. Ronald Reagan did know before that he had de Alzheimer disease. Lance Armstrong did know he had cancer, but he fought, succeeded to suppress it and besides, was several times in succession champion of Tour de France. Of the crew on the shuttle flights in space. Of the warriors who almost competed with each other, rushed, jumped out from the ships without fear while it was fated that whoever is the first, would be the first to meet his death, as I remember the Iliad.

Better know or not know.

January 2009

A Marriage, Just A Beginning

A Marriage, Just A Beginning

And I mused and imagined the most beautiful women which I could choose, perhaps if I were good-looking as an Apollo or Solomon who had more than a hundred beautiful wives. But what does it mean to him if some day he’s old, sick, not rich, not a king any more, they gladly would leave him.

I certainly would be very happy if there were just one woman who picked me up, chose me above other clever, handsome men and still loves me despite my ungainly appearance. And I remember Benji the dirty, stinking little sick puppy who was left alone on a garbage heap that was taken in and so loved.

I could love almost any woman. Could you forbid me not to love so many delightful music of Bach, Mozart, Handel, Debussy, forbid me not to like eating prawn, crab, fish, barbeque, sayur asam, pete, pecel, mango, durian, … or forbid me to like orchids, roses, even weeds as well? Which should I choose? Which is the number one? All are number one. There’s no second.

To be lucky to fall in the arms of a woman and be permitted to kiss her or being kissed.

I did not know that a marriage is just the beginning of a new, still, richer, adventurous life before. What’s a happy, safe marriage without quarrels, disputes, jealousy, “infidelity”, hard times, daily chores… the storms of life, when the marriage boat almost capsized, as what I encounter I never knew, imagined before. Lovers dream of marriage as a haven, a stupid, dull heaven on earth. Ignorant of married life brings disappointment, disillusion,

Yet those unmarried certainly are not less lucky, less happy than those that are. Why? Sure, you, anyone always could be a couple, man and woman as Nature’s Children, male and female, without oaths, papers and wedding ceremonies. I did not tell my wife though. She would say I’m a scoundrel. Ha, ha, ha. So said opa Johan.

January 2009

A Brother Settling Matters

A Brother Settling Matters

“What’s that dripping from above, is it raining?” thought the boy and looked up and saw his younger brother in the tree. He climbed up the tree and without a word gave him a jitak (a knock on the head) and climbed down. His younger brother smiled shyly, kept his laughter as he just peed, up in the tree. “There’s no boy ever wanted to pee in a toilet” he thought.

1966

Read "Noongging"

Read Noongging

“Can you read noongging?” opa Johan teased his fifth year’s granddaughter and without more ado the child set her little feet apart, bended, raised her behind, to be able to read the billboards on the road side behind her from under her legs in the riding car.

“I can.” she triumphed.

“It’s nothing if you just could read if the book is turned, the upper part below. Tell your teacher you can read noongging. I think she would smile and be very proud to have such a very smart pupil.”

“How delightful if she was with us on trips to the Puncak. How we, she and me, pretended to be enemies, how she tried to steal a kiss and when she failed she forced herself to get one. We played with her, we all felt young again. And now she’s grown into a lovely girl, she isn’t a child anymore, I can’t tease her now,” said opa Johan.

2008

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Another Thought On Heaven And Hell

Another Thought On Heaven And Hell

When I saw a Chinese painting of a couple like heavenly beings in a beautiful park with butterflies and flowers and warbling birds I thought that that was paradise or a heaven on earth as the painter saw it. Yet, I have another picture of heaven in my mind as I think of The Vagrant’s Song.*

I can imagine a far greater heaven, even in hell when a mother were with her children, and I thought of heaven as an oasis in a desert rather than a worse hell, suffering in heaven, seeing her children separated from her in hell.

I also saw photo’s of toddlers, cherubs in their happy children’s heaven, their fun, joy, ignorance, … so appealing to the eye and I thought, perhaps it would be even better, were it photo’s not of toddlers but of orangutan (literally: forest man), even of very old people in their paradise, though not so pleasing to the eye but appealing to the mind.

January 2009

* The Vagrant’s Song

A vagrant singing, carrying his precious cartload, a sleeping girl:

With you beside me,
Living, sleeping in my cart;
Right there’s my palace, my paradise.
With you beside me,
The richest man seems poor to me.

The girl is mumbling in her sleep:

With you beside me,
Am I honored as a queen of queens.
With you beside me,
Hell doesn’t terrify me,
Nor do I wish to go to heaven
Save with you.

Man's Most Favorite Choice, Liking, Preference

Man’s Most Favorite Choice, Liking, Preference

“Banana?”
“No.”
“Durian?”
“No, but cigarettes. Cigarettes is man’s most favorite choice according to an ad Pria Punya Selera that was anywhere on billboards.”

Though nice, warm, exclusive they say, but to me as a man, it’s even more nice, more warm, more exclusive, inspiring to be with Eve, rather than with a cigarette. A man is never so manly if he is not guarding, watching over, with a woman, not with smoking a cigarette or being a heavy drinker of beer, strong drinks, dressed in an expensive, luxurious coat or sitting in a Mercy.

There’s no greater humiliation for a man except he is not being treated as a man by a woman, since it’s woman only who could lift, raise a man into a real man, not a cigarette, nothing else.

How lucky a man when he falls into her arms, or to win the first prize in life’s lottery, to be permitted to kiss her. What’s the warmth of a cigarette or just sipping strong coffee as they say. And a man will choose woman, endure hell, instead of becoming a president.

Man’s most favorite choice, preference, liking? Surely Woman, Eve, la Femme.

From Bisnis Indonesia, April 12, 1991

D e a l

D e a l

“Deal?” Angela asked, she forced.
“What Deal?” said her father.
“OK?” and she held, shook her father’s hand.
“Deal” she said and embraced and kissed her father sweetly. She meant, a promise to grant her, her wish.

Never deal, promise, swear first or you might be sorry afterwards. I remember the cruel, nasty wish of queen Kaikeyi who demanded of the King, the banishment of Rama, crown prince and her son, Bharata, to succeed to the throne or the daughter of Herodias who asked the head of John the Baptist on a tray of King Herod.

But this was about a new jacket in Grand Indonesia of more than one jut. (million) Rp. But she’s such an angel, he couldn’t resist her wish, though he hadn’t made a deal.

December 2008