Whom Should I Envy?

Whom Should I Envy?

Opa Johan can enjoy a lot of what’s just in front of him.

 

Though, he just can afford to buy himself a bike, yet, he, over 80 years by now, still enjoys his biking travels some 50 km, into the country. Into paradise, he says.

 

He enjoys satai kambing (goat’s barbecue grilled on sticks), eating, sitting on the pavement along the road, a dish of petai (stinking beans), rather than a grand dinner in a restaurant. More over, being happy, healthy, hungry and free turns even the simplest food into a heavenly meal, he asserts.
 

 

He enjoys singing in a small amateur church choir.  Old agers without proper music, vocal education of over 70 years by now, while the choir conductor doesn't conduct the way professional conductors do, but his eyes and his hands were hypnotizing, N.B. courageously, proudly staging, recording their own choir concerts for a very small church congregation and upload it to You Tube. To be preserved for eternity, he said.
 

 

Imagine them singing as Mein schoner Stern, Der Nussbaum, Auf dem Wasser zu singen, Someday my prince will come, Ave Verum, Sei nun gnadig milder Himmel, ... certainly not easy for them, yet they really enjoy it, though not as well, not as beautifully performed as by professional artists. Sure, an old age marathoner never could outrun young athletes, he comforts himself.

He is so grateful as he needn’t buy DVD’s, CD’s today, since he still can find and watch it in You Tube, far more than what he already has.

Once he talked to me: “I enjoy, appreciate a wayang golek show (Indonesian puppet show) in the open air on a starry night. No tickets, invitations needed, come by microlette, sitting on a mat or a news paper somewhere on the ground, draw my feet up on to the seat were there a bench, wear a T-shirt, shorts, slippers, buy me tahu pong (fried soybean cake), a drink of sekoteng (warm gingerly drink). I can leave any time when it’s boring.”

Wayang Golek

 

“I’m so free,” he said, “rather than stiffly sitting in a five starred concert hall you know? I don’t have to come in full dress, shake, clap hands, feign to listen in awe, have clever talk, stand up in standing ovation, even were it a poor performance so weary and tiring.  I don’t have to endure such tortures. Ha. Ha.  Trick, fool your teacher, professor into believing that all the audience really enjoy the music which is not always easy to the ear."

Then Opa Johan whispered with mischievous eyes to me:

“A pedicab driver is sound asleep though in a noisy, traffic jam on the road in his pedicab rather than a king sleeping in his royal bedroom, you know?  The pedicab driver is king, not a servant, he has no master to obey, while the king is the people’s servant obeying the people’s desires, wishes.”

“Sure” I said.

“Besides, my feet are worth more than a Mercedes, my brains worth far more than a space station, my mind travels into the past, into the future, tours the heavens, the stars, the universe to outer universe. Whom should I envy? Ha. Ha.”

August 2012