02 June, 2012

Life Philosophy


"Life is like a piece of Rainbow cake, it's full of colors." 
That's what I --a while ago-- posted on my Tumblr. I know this girl, Intan, that picked "Life is a box of cereal" for her blog at Wordpress. 

I just realized that there are plenty philosophy about life out there, such as "Life is a roller coaster ride" or the simple one that many people have used: "Live life to the fullest".

Couple of years ago I made up another version of life, relating to my writing habit to cure (my) pain:

Hidup adalah perkara menangani luka
merangkai derita
agar menjadi lantunan puisi

Life is about handle our pain
reverse our sadness into a poem 

...........que sera sera....................

27 May, 2012

The History of Love

The History of Love is a second novel from Nicole Krauss. It follows three stories which eventually becomes one: 

---> Leo Gursky: is an old man who survives World War II & Jewish concentration camp. When he was young and living in Poland, Leo promised his neighbor, Alma Meremenski, that he would always love her. A promise he keeps throughout his life and endures through a book he wrote, "The History of Love". 

---> Alma Singer: is a girl living in New York with her brother and recently widowed mother. Alma's name is taken from a character in her parents favorite book, "The History of Love." One day comes a letter from a man name Jacob Marcus asking her mother to translate the book (which originally in Spanish) into English. 

--->Zvi Litvinoff: in Chile, another immigrant from Poland published a book in Spanish, the book is titled "The History of Love."

Leo Gursky endures a life watching his son from a distance, a son he assumes never know his father exist (till the day he dies). But fate comes in an unexpected way, and Leo Gursky is destined to find proper ends.

Krauss has written conventional story with unconventional techniques in such tenderness it becomes  beautiful in its own time. Like the life of Leo Gursky itself. 

How hurtful it must be, to love someone who does not even think of you...

18 March, 2012

- , -




On Thursday I went with Dina to see Theater Koma's Sie Jin Kwie at TIM, Cikini 73. It was the first time  I go there after so many years. TIM was where my college at and being there again, have brought me into mix emotion. I had through difficult times there...difficult enough to understand how it feels when you have the whole world against you...sentimentality aside, I enjoyed the performance. It was worth the time, rain, money, and courage (that I must gathered). 

17 March, 2012

One Small Head


This is very Leo, some say. 
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a believer of a zodiac for as a Leo I'm a shy girl, uncomfortable being in the center of attention. Also, rather than being ambitious, I only want to have a good life doing what I like. But this not the case when it comes to my emotion. Not, it's not true what they said about Leo girls have large ego, we can be followers as well. But I guess most of us are very sensitive in sense negativity (exclude, manipulation, betrayal, lies, etc) and this is where trouble usually comes for a Leo will immediately reacts toward unfairness. Sadly, reality is not a math theory, where minus + minus = positive. Our minus, inability to keep up with emotion that is, tends to bring us into further trouble. One thing in common I find in fellow Leos with diverse characters, is that we all have quick eyes...and strong opinion.

03 March, 2012

From Papua


Went to Jayapura the capital of Papua from Dec 26th - Jan 1st'12, the city's view, with hills and Lake Sentani, was amazing. Yet the unfairness of centralization still has a strong smell in that city...what bothered me the most was when I heard how newcomers from Java and Makassar tend to think themselves above local Papuans, more civilized, etc. No wonder the Papuans no longer want to be part of Indonesia.






18 February, 2012

don't mess with the girl

Thelma and Louise is surely a satisfying movie if you're thinking of shooting a guy...

12 February, 2012

mengenai...

Indonesia adalah salah satu negara pengguna jaringan sosial media dan teknologi digital yang paling antusias di dunia. Mulai dari profesional yang menetap di Jakarta sampai anak sekolahan di ujung Sumatera dan Papua, bisa dipastikan punya akun Facebook, bahkan Twitter. Tak peduli jaringan internet lokal lambat bukan main, yang penting eksis. Sikap tak mau kalah dalam menunjukkan eksistensi juga terlihat dari rajinnya pengguna aktif Facebook dan Twitter meng-update status.
Mulai dari yang sekadar menulis status jenaka menggelitik tawa, berkeluh kesah tak beraturan sampai yang mengomentari masalah negara serta kekisruhan dunia sosial politik Indonesia. Komentar-komentar tersebut ada yang cerdas dan membangun, ada yang sinis membuat miris atau sekadar share saja. Meski terbilang jarang membuka akun-akun pribadi saya, saya suka mengamati yang tertulis di wall atau timeline saya. Sebab kepribadian seseorang sangat tercermin dari bagaimana ia menggunakan akun sosial medianya: seberapa sering ia meng-update status, bagaimana ia menulis komentar dan berbagi pemikiran di sana. Dengan kata lain, kalau mau mengetahui seseorang lebih dekat, lihat saja bagaimana ia mengisi akun sosial media-nya.
Ketika seorang tante mengalami 'musibah', 'musibah' yang betul-betul mencederai nama baik dirinya dan berimbas pada nama keluarga besar kami, saya semakin tekun menyelidiki komentar-komentar seputar dirinya. Baik yang beredar di Twitter atau pun Facebook. Bahwa di tempat kerja saya sehari-hari saya kemudian mendapat perlakuan tak enak dan sindiran setajam silet, sudah sangat biasa buat saya. Begitu biasa sampai saya sudah mati rasa.
Namun yang membuat saya sangat keberatan adalah bukan saja bagaimana sejumlah media berusaha memotret tante saya sebagai pihak antagonis dalam kasus itu, berbagai hal yang tak relevan (dengan masalah integritas) yang melekat dengan dirinya pun turut dibawa-bawa menjadi bahan cemooh: rambut berwarna ungu, gaya yang glamour, bahkan sampai pengakuannya bahwa dia tidak berteman akrab dengan Nunun Dorodjatun ramai dijadikan bahan olokan. Padahal apa hubungannya rambut berwarna ungu dengan kemampuannya sebagai ekonom?
Kalau seseorang sangat peduli dengan penampilan apakah berarti dia pasti seseorang yang artifisial, yang tidak punya kepandaian dan integritas cukup untuk memegang suatu jabatan. Ia dilukiskan sebagai seseorang yang sangat ambisius bahkan rela membayar untuk suatu posisi.
Padahal saya tahu persis tante saya lebih dari itu. Setiap rumah dinas yang dipinjamkan kepadanya selama masa menjabat selalu ia kembalikan kepada negara seusai masa jabatannya berakhir. Ketika saya tinggal di Belanda, tante saya mendapat undangan konferensi di Brussels. Brussels hanya memakan waktu satu setengah jam dari Maastricht, kota tempat tinggal saya. Jadi saya pergi mengunjunginya, sebab tak tahu diri bila saya menolak undangan tante yang telah membiayai studi dan hidup saya di Belanda. Di Brussels tante bukan lagi dalam kapasitas pejabat negara. Jadi ia sengaja tidak menghubungi pihak kedutaan. Maka di hari pertama kami berjalan-jalan keliling Brussels dengan menggunakan Metro bawah tanah. Bahkan saya sempat menyaksikan pemandangan 'langka' ketika tante berlari-lari mengejar bis tour kota Brussels. Hampir di setiap kota besar Eropa yang kerap mengundang wisatawan ada bis tour yang memutari pusat-pusat atraksi menarik di kota itu. Hari pertama tante belum disibukkan jadwal konferensi jadi dia mengajak saya jalan-jalan keliling Brussels. And guess what...she could running faster than me...
Maksud saya adalah bertolak belakang dengan sudut penceritaan yang dipilih oleh media, terutama Tempo (such a sophisticated journalism Tempo. Puh!), di luar penampilannya yang modis, tante yang saya kenal bukan tipe orang tidak bisa menyesuaikan diri dengan keadaan. Yang bisa dengan mudah hanyut pada godaan uang dan jabatan lalu menghalalkan cara-cara ilegal demi mencapai ambisi. She's just too smart for that.
Melalui media, kita dapat dengan mudah melihat karakteristik suatu bangsa. Adalah Garin Nugroho yang pertama menyatakan ini. Itu komentarnya untuk situasi program televisi nasional yang demikian memprihatinkan. Namun pada era di mana orang tidak lagi menonton acara televisi di layar TV, melalui simpang siur komen yang bertebaran di akun Twitter dan Facebook pun karakter bangsa bisa disimpulkan dengan mudah.
Kasus Afriyani Susanti beberapa waktu lalu merupakan salah satu contoh menarik. Pihak yang mengutuk dan mengeluarkan komentar bernada menghakimi bertebaran di berbagai situs berita. Berbagai komen yang menyudutkan mudah ditemukan pada akun Facebook dan Twitter mana pun. Tidak sedikit yang menganggap Afriyani tak punya hati sebab raut wajahnya tak menampakkan penyesalan sama sekali. Padahal hati orang siapa yang tahu? Orang bisa saja menampakkan raut tenang tapi hati sedih bukan main. Dan ingat, Apri saat itu masih dalam keadaan high. Mabuk.
Di satu pihak komen di timeline Twitter anak-anak Cikini 73 yang teman-teman Afriyani dikabarkan (saya tak sempat membaca hanya mendengar) berapi-api membela Afriyani. Bahkan menggunakan kata-kata kasar yang tak pantas dan memalukan. "Jangan sok deh kayak gak pernah pake drugs saja!" itu komentar salah seorang di antara mereka.
Saya jadi agak malu. Jangankan menulis secara scientific, mengemukakan pendapat dengan reasonable saja banyak yang tidak bisa alumni kampus itu. Tidak usah bicara soal terukur apalagi sistematis, bahasa yang digunakan saja rata-rata kasar sekali. Argumennya pun lemah. Saya pribadi tidak terlalu pusing apakah orang suka mabuk-mabukan bahkan pakai drugs, kalau mau destruktif ya silahkan-silahkan saja asal tidak merugikan orang lain.
Tapi letak masalah bukan soal apakah Afriyani punya SIM atau tidak seperti yg diributkan salah seorang teman di wall Facebook saya, yang jadi masalah adalah kalau tahu sudah mabuk kenapa juga harus bersikeras menyetir mobil? Ini Jakarta. Taksi 24 jam. Kalau mampu beli shabu dan inex masa tidak bisa menyisihkan uang sama sekali buat bayar taksi. Kenapa harus bersikeras pakai mobil? Dan yang paling saya garis bawahi di sini, kenapa teman-temannya masih membiarkan Apri menyetir padahal sudah tahu dia lelah dan mabuk habis mengkonsumsi macam-macam: alkohol, shabu, inex...
Tuntutan tanggung jawab dan caci maki tidak layak hanya jatuh ke Apri seorang. Setiap orang 'dewasa' yang bersenang-senang dengannya di dini hari naas itu sebetulnya turut bertanggung jawab atas nyawa-nyawa yang ditebas oleh Apri.
Sementara untuk urusan komen, saya tidak berada di pihak yang membela berapi-api mau pun mencaci maki penuh semangat...sebab nasi telah menjadi bubur, pemakaman telah usai digelar, jadi apa gunanya semua kata-kata yang berhamburan itu?
Apa komen-komen dan sentimen tajam menyakitkan itu bisa membuat keadaan lebih baik? Lupakah mereka, para komentator kasus tante saya mau pun Apri...bahwa kadang-kadang kita hanya beruntung Tuhan tidak menempatkan kita pada posisi mereka...setiap orang kan diciptakan, dibentuk, dan diberi jalan yang berbeda...jadi kalau saya diberi keleluasaan sebagai pihak yang mencibir bukan dicibir, sebenarnya itu hanya soal keberuntungan saya semata.

Lantas apa karakteristik Indonesia sebagai negara pengguna sosial media? Indonesia itu negara para "komentator".

11 February, 2012

it is a sin to kill a mockingbird

Tom Robinson is the mockingbird. His innocence is denied because he is black and in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, the whites (majority) must see black people fulfill their destiny as 'trash'. That is from the eye of Jean Louise "Scout" Finch.
The un-girly little girl Scout lives with her father Atticus, her older brother Jem, and their loyal housemaid Cal. During the summer, the siblings is joined by their best friend, Dill who comes during the summer to live with Miss Rachel, the Finch's neighbor. Dill goal is to get the reclusive Boo Ridley to come out from his house.
The novel is divided into two sections and its entire story is told from Scout's point of view. The first section is focus on childhood mysteries of friends and treasures. While the second section depicted the loss of childhood innocence after the children witness Tom Robinson trial. The second part nuances by social political cause and Harper Lee has given a clear-eyed depiction of America's biggest sin: racism. Although Atticus delivered the evidence that it was Mayella Ewell that was making sexual advances toward Tom and Bob Ewell, her father, knew exactly what happened, the jury voted Tom guilty and sentenced him to jail.'
"If you was a nigger like me, you would be scared too"
When Dill was so upset with the way the court delivered questions to Tom Robinson, Scout simply replied, "He's only a negro."
In Indonesia where text is read as plain as it were, this sentence could dangerously be taken as the writer's racist view. But what Lee attempted to portray is the system of inequality and segregation between human race and how we never --rarely-- question the complexity of social codes among us. Even worst, like most citizen of Maycomb, we choose to take side and let ourselves blinded from truths, even though those truths lay right in front of our eyes.
Many critics noted the strength of Lee's talent for narration, I myself see her strength on creating strong characters to represent what she has wanted to say in this novel. A novel that offers so much complexity and compassion on human kinds. In the world where everything is divided into black and white, it would be so refreshing to have more people like Atticus who is willing to comprehend things behind what it seems.
Atticus tells his daughter: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Until you climb around in his skin and walk around in it."
As for the title, why it was chosen? In one part of the novel Miss Rachel tells Scout that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. Because mockingbird is a bird that can sing beautifully and never harm anyone, therefore it is a sin to kill (the bird).

It is as sin to kill an innocent man.

22 January, 2012

A Purple Sun from Africa

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is my newest favorite writer. I bought her book Purple Hibiscus in 2009, during the Aksara books sale and admiring her writing style ever since. A young writer she is, born in September 1977, she wrote with such maturity and delivered to her readers such insightful characters. Chimamanda's writings are simple yet well crafted, carefully written. If we're talking about painting, Adichie is a true realist. Haven't read her first and latest novels, but thanks to dear mr. Google I found a link to numerous short stories she wrote: 

From all short stories she has written, Cell One I like the most. Begins with an introduction from a sister point of view on her older brother's habit of stealing things. Readers would first drawn into antipathy to the first character's brother, a popular man on campus, handsome, unreliable and all things worldly...until the day the brother is brought to jail for a crime he doesn't committed. Enters a white man, the old white man is brought to replace his son who the police could not find.
In jail the white man must suffered various treatment from the police and the brother does not like it. The story ends with readers expose to the brother's solid character, of how he does not making things up when he could, someone as good looking as his, exploiting what he has done to draw his parents sympathy. In the age of infotainment programs, Facebook Status Updates and Blackberry Messenger, where people love to expose their 'tears' in order to get sympathy *sic*, people who know how to guard their feelings are indeed...admirable. (I) Like the character Adichie carefully built.
Let me end this with a piece of interview I got from internet, it's a sole prove of how unpretentious Adichie is as a writer...she does not feel ashamed to admit she also reads bad fictions...

CNA: I really don’t know. I am sometimes suspicious of the ‘literary influences’ question. It makes me wonder if it really means – tell us who you are trying to imitate. It also makes me wonder if the person asking is trying to ‘place’ you somewhere as a writer. Chinua Achebe will always be important to me because his work influenced not so much my style as my writing philosophy: reading him emboldened me, gave me permission to write about the things I knew well.
I am influenced by everything I read, I suppose. I read bad fiction and it influences me in such a way that I know what never to do. I read good fiction and it makes things flow for me, as it were. I generally prefer quiet, careful writing, story and style done well, literature that makes you think of that interesting word ‘art.’ One of my favourite novels is ‘Reef’ by Romesh Gunesekera. Some writers I have recently reread and will probably read again are Paule Marshall, Amit Chaudhuri, John Banville, Nawal El-Saadawi, Graham Greene, Flora Nwapa, Bernard Malamud, Ivan Turgenev and the incredibly talented John Gregory Brown.
So many people have affected my writing; for everyone I meet and/or talk to, there is the possibility of my fiction being influenced. Of my contemporaries, perhaps the greatest influence is my friend the Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina. I am in awe of his brilliance. Although we often disagree, I think our ideas take better shape when bounced back and forth between each other.

07 January, 2012

White Walls

Dear white walls,
you used to be green
but green is the color of envy
and I don't like that
You were the first thing I changed
because I want to start present without the past
and all those shabby memories within