Sitti Nurbaya's Padang: A Reflection Amid the Devastation

Updated 1049 6 Oct Got news from Kampung that everybody is ok. Alhamdulillah.

Updated 1542 hours 3 Oct - 618 from one kampong buried alive. 400 attending a weddingfeast dead. It is getting grim in Padang.

Updated 1626 hours 2 Oct - Good news from Padang. Alhamdulillah keluarga Kak Yus selamat. Epicentre was in Pariaman, North of Padang, meaning it is near Tasik Maninjau (Tok Adam's kampung), meaning it is not too far from Kampung Haraban (Nenek Bulan's). Perhaps equidistant to Padang and Padang is reeling in the aftermath of the earthquake. Keeping my fingers' crossed, and praying hard.

Updated 2238 hours 1 Oct - All lines leading to Padang have been cut off. No communication is possible. Awaiting updates from Krinchi. - Latiff.

And alas, Zul's contact given is his email and I am sure email communication is totally cut off at this stage.)

I was stunned tonight when I saw the devastation in Padang.

The children crying excessively in the news clip during Buletin Utama was just too much for me to bear sitting alone in my house while Akmal was away at the surau. They were in such distress.

I felt so lonely and alone.

And suddenly I found myself wiping out tears rolling down my cheek.

I didn't bat an eyelid the night before when news trickled in that Sumatra was hit by another earthquake. I mean we have had that kind of news for years. In fact it was the tsunami in Samoa that caught my attention more than the earthquake in Sumatra.

Then I didn't know it was Padang itself which was hit.

I first saw Padang from the air during a flight from Palembang to Medan 15 years ago during a business trip. From the air, Tasik Maninjau and Singkarak, and the mountains surrounding it, including Bukit Barisan looks so serene and beautiful. From there on, I knew I have to return to Padang one day.

But it took me another five years before I was able to go and enjoy Padang - it was Jejak Kasih trip for my bro and I in our quest to find the kampong of our Nenek Bulan in Bukit Tinggi. I extended the trip to include Padang as a Menjejak Sitti Nurbaya trip.

The news says that a hotel in Ambacang collapsed. Our trip took us to Ambacang (a suburb of Padang) to Sekolah Ambacang since it was suppossedly the school Sitti Nurbaya went to in the 1920s. There we were welcomed by the principal Cikgu Yus (Kak yus) who would later become a family friend to us. To be honest, I am not sure if it was this school that Nurbaya went to, but in the end it didn't matter. I have done what I wanted to do when I read that novel; at least I was there in spirit. I had traced back all her steps as described in the novel.

We also went to Gunung Padang where Sitti Nurbaya's grave reside. But there was only one grave, whereas in the novel it describes (at the end of the chapter) that there are three graves there including Syamsul's. This was also the place where Nurbaya, Syamsul and friends used to picnic when they were kids.

And Teluk Bayur. Aaah, we would never forget that song by Ernie Djohan, a song that was popular during our days in Lenggong. This is at that rumah kayu in front of JKR where Cikgu Aziz's house is now.

I am not sure how many friends and relatives that we have residing in Padang. I would think quite a few. I hope Kampung Haraban which is may over 100 kilometres North of Padang and BukitTinggi would not be affected.

And I do hope that Pagar Ruyung would be spared. Pagar Ruyung is such a treasure. If it is lost, half of the Minangkabau/Malay civilization would be lost!

Now that I have lost my phone and contact info, I would not be able to contact them to see if they are alright. I can't even contact my own siblings and would have to wait from them to hear any news. Aboy, if you are reading this, do call me and let me know if everybody is ok there in Padang please.

I do pray things will be ok for everybody in Padang - I mean everybody, and not just our friends and relatives. The children crying as shown on telly tonight was just too much to bear for me.

We have to do something to help. I know I should. The question is to find the right avenue to make sure whatever little things we could do would reach them.

Ya Allah, berikan lah kekuatan kepada mereka dalam menghadapi ujianMu.

EPILOGUE

Sitti Nurbaya is the central character - the heroine if you must, in a novel - Sitti Nurbaya - Kasih Tak Sampai - written by Marah Rusli. And if you were to engross yourself in this novel, she would be real to you. Serious. That novel and the character will have that effect on you. You will feel her warmth, her joy and her love and you will share her pain and agony.

It was a beautiful love story set in 1920s' Padang amidst the colonial Dutch and the very traditional Minang setting. You should be reading this novel if you have not. It is a must read for all Indonesian student ie part of their curricullum. I can almost guarantee it that you will have tears in your eyes.The novel is so beautifully written. You would be taken by the love affair between Nurbaya and Syamsu, and you would feel like killing Datuk Meringgih when Nurbaya decided to accept his marriage proposal. Or you would think that your world is coming to an end yourself, as if you were Syamsulf! Damn!

I read this perhaps when I was a kid, but I re-read that when I stumbled upon the book in a bookshop in Palembang (or was it Lhokseumawe?) and got mesmerized and enchanted by her all over again. My sis told me that she had read the book too when she was a kid and would cry herself silly - so to speak. Girls! ;-) Just joking my dear sis.

If I have a daughter, I would name her Nurbaya, but then again, I don't have one, so I would stick with Arif and Akmal! ;-) (Put off that smirk Aya, you are not winning this son-daughter battle with me!)

Teluk Bayur is to Padang what Port Klang is to Kuala Lumpur.

While I was writing this, my bro called and mentioned that he saw the area affected by the earthquake is in the area where Kak Yus lives. I have lost all numbers and avenue for me to call anyone in Padang, and I am feeling helpless at this moment. Hang on, I think Zul did contact me through this blog more than a year ago. All I need to do is search the comment section.

Padang (Sumatra Barat) to the uninitiated is the craddle of Malay literature. I mean beyond the tonnes of novels and literary masterpieces that originate from this area (Hamka, Marah Rusli, and many others), Pulau Pandan, which is an important island in the psyche of the Malays, is an island off the coast of Padang. So is Pulau Angsa Dua.

You should know the pantun well. It reads like this:

PUlau Pandan jauh ketengah
Dibalik Pulau Angsa Dua
Hancur badan dikandung tanah
Budi yang baik dikenang jua

I do know that the Minangs are resilient people. I know they will be alright. I hope they will be alright.

I left my heart in Jogja

Prologue

I first went to Jogja more than a decade ago.

At that point in time, there was no Air Asia flight that would take you directly out of KL into Jogja; only a tiring 12-hour train ride from Gambir station in Jakarta to Jogja - 15 if you want to drive. The train ride was not that painful; personally I found Indonesian trains more punctual than their counterpart in Malaysia. The conference hosted by Gadja Mada University invited an estemeed colleague of mine Dr Wadekar, an expert in heat transfer and by chance being the SE Asia technical person, I self invited myself as a chaperon.

By then, I thought Jogja was a wonderful place that I would love bringing the family again. To me then – and even now, having visited practically the whole of Indonesia, from Aceh in the Nothern Sumatra to Palembang in the South, Anyir in the west of Jakarta, and Cilacap on the East of Java, and up north to Balikpapan and Bontang in Kalimantan, I found two cities particularly interesting and extremely beautiful and worth a revisit.

Padang and Jogja.

Padang was basically a homecoming for me and the beautiful culture and the beautiful Maninjau. So I guess one can understand my enthusiasm.

Jogja, on the other hand, was all about the monuments - Borobudur, Prambanan and Kraton. Or at least that's what I saw more than a decade ago.

It took me another 10 years and Air Asia to come back.

I LEFT MY HEART IN JOGJA

It was a holiday like no other.

I mean, despite our slogan of Malaysia, Truly Asia, we can't compete with many others c ountries in as far as cultural experience is concerned.

And I was determined that we were going to enjoy our holiday, like no other holiday that we had taken before. I mean, I would normally drive, be at the attraction, looked at it in awe, and left.

Of course in between, we would have taken many pictures. An I-was-there picture. It is important to tell ourselves -if no one else - that we were there before, not much for the bragging right, but more importantly for the memories.

So this time around, I thought it was going to be different. We are going to take it leisurely and we were going to have a guide at each place to tell of the background of each attraction. We could look at them in awe knowingly, and I guess it made each attraction even more attractive.

Borobudur

I am glad I can speak Indonesian. I mean after traveling the length and breadth of Indonesia for the past 15 years, I could passed myself off as one of them, if it was going to save my life. In the worst case scenario I would tell them that I am from Sumatra. If they asked further I would say I am either from Medan or Riau, as my slang could be passed off as from these regions and I know a few suburbs of these towns well enough.

Only once I was caught by my own web of lies!

But still, when my driver (Pak Supir named Nimin) dropped me off at the Indonesian booth of Borobudur, I was apprehensive. I am not sure if Mak, with her baju kurung could be passed off as an Indonesian. And as I wanted to enjoy my holiday, I would not mind paying the higher ticket price for foreigner. After all, how much higher would they make it? Double the 15,000 rupiah the Indonesians would pay?

Later on we found out from our guide that it was a whopping US$12 per person for us to enter. I guess my 15 years of traveling the length and breadth of Indonesia has finally paid off!

Borobudur was built by Shailander dynasty in the 800s AD, so he told me. There were two dynasties then ruling Java, the other one being Sanjaya, and one was Hindu and the other Buddha.

How people in the 8th century in medieval Java have the technology to build such magnificent monument is something of a wonder to me. Afterall, all other Javanese or Nusantara kingdoms such as Majapahit, Sri Vijaya, or Melaka for that matter did not leave us much in term of stone structure. Much of the old istanas built of wood would have been eaten by time, and the environment, I guess.

And since I was a disciple of Dr Ali Shariati's teaching during my university days, what does it take to build such a magnificent monument? How many 'slaves' - if you must use the context of how the Pharoah built the pyramid, did it take to build it, and how many had died in the harsh tropical environment in the 8th century.

These are some of the points we pondered upon as we looked in awe at the Borobudur.

Ramayana comes alive

Growing up in Taiping, our house was always like a library. Bapak would buy all kind of Malay/Indonesian novels and of course religious books. Mak would make us save our pocket money and buy Cinderella. Of course my elder sis would buy Enid Blyton's and all kind of Mills & Boon, while I would go for Alfred Hitchcock's.

I was taken by the story when I was in primary school. The Malay version of Hikayat Seri Rama was edited by one Onn, and published by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Actually I would think it was a Malaynised version of the epic Hindu scripture. In fact make that Islamic. I mean, when the Emperor Rahwana requested Allah for four kingdoms for him to rule, the person who granted his wishes was no other than the prophet Adam.

In Jogja, the story of Ramayana came alive for me.

(The irresistible Sita Dewi, queen for Seri Rama and the object of desire and obsession for Maharaja Rawana. She is so gracefully in this dance play.)

(Maharaja Rawana wooing Sita Dewi with her resisting all the way before he decides to kidnap her. Unfortunately it was raining, so the play was done in a hall and we were seated on the third row, so at times the heads of those tourists in front of us - and they are bigger than us, would interrupt our view and of course the camera. I didn't have the time to edit them yet.)

So with the love story of Seri Rama and Sita Dewi intertwined into this epic, it would make a compelling ready for this school boy deprived of television in the early 70s. With no visual outlet, the imagination would make it a more fantasy - make that a fantastic fantasy with the imagination running wild with each chapter.

The battle between Seri Rama and the sons of Rawana, Indrajit among others would easily put any modern tales or Hollywood blockbuster and epic to become B Grade movie. One can imagine Seri Rama with the help of Laksamana, and Hanuman battling the forces of evil. If I am not mistaken, indrajit has 1000 hands and heads and each time one cuts off his limbs, it would grow again.

(The riots of colour in this battle of evil versus good. Hanuman, the monkey king was there; so were Jentayu the bird who eventually lost all its limbs in the battle with Rawana, and fell down to earth. It was mesmerizing for us.)

As I have said, the story is set with the prophet Adam as the ultimate religious icon, and this makes it palatable to this 12 year old mind.

And this Sendratari is a must go for anyone visiting Jogja.

I do wish we could see the play in the open air theatre with the Prambanan temple as the backdrop, but this would only be held during "bulan purnama" and the next play was only scheduled in May.

To me, a decade ago, Jogja is all about Borobudur, Prambanan and Kraton, and all things monuments. This classical dance play changed it all in my perspective. Jogja is much more than her medieval ruins.

She is alive with her cultural heritage.

I am enjoying my ice-cream before it melts!

Driving down memory lane

(HOuston downtown seen while I was driving on I45 South)

In the freezing Houston winter - which is really rare, I drove to League City where we used to call home.

It was a drive down memory lane, if I may phrase it that way.

It is freezing this morning in Houston. In fact the whole of America has been hit with the bitterly cold Arctic Air coming from the North. Minnesota -36, and you are talking about Fahrenheit here. It would be dangerous to stay out at all. The front is moving to the North East, and I certainly hope that that would not jeopardize my travel schedule. I am supposed to take a connecting flight from New York at midnight tonight.

This is our fav souvenir shop at NASA Road 1. Cheaper than what you can get at NASA Sapce Centre Gift Shop. Of course the kids' fav is Astronout's Ice Cream - freeze dry one. (the packet in red below)

Blizzard has disrupted my partner Peter's flight to Chicago yesterday. He had to stay overnight and missed his jury duty on Tuesday. I am really sure he didn't miss that jury duty, if you know what I mean. :-)

Anyway, seeing the suburbs where a very young Arif (7 years old) and Akmal (4) used to roam certainly brings back the memories of the good old days. And of course, then this blogger was not as old!

1 Signature Point League City, TX. Our home while in Houston. This is the place the kids would wait for their yellow bus that would take them to their school - all for free. We didn't for anything for them to go to school. No school fees, not bus fare, no books to buy.

Just when I am about to acclimatize -- both in term of time zones and weather, the journey starts all over again, this time in reverse order.

1110 NASA Road 1 - This was my office in 1998, and from the office I can see the Johnson Space Centre and Saturn V rocket. And I was not a rocket scientist then, and I am not now.

Selat Melaka bukan pemisah

So Bapak Presiden is here in Malaysia.

So there had been many issues affecting bilateral relation between the two nations, and somehow they have affected the people-to-people relationship. Somehow, I do think many of them were over-hyped and sensationalized.

Personally, I don't have any problem with the Indonesians per se and I don't think we all do. In fact, I can count on many of them as my friends. Friends who would invite me to their home whenever I was in their town, and friends I would invite for a meal at my own home here in KL.

The writer in Bontang - a remote Kalimantan gas town with a Badak engineer and his family at their home. Nice bungalow with two maids and a gardener, something I can never afford in KL. This is circa 1997, and his name escapes me at this moment. Maaf Pak. Sudah lama kita nggak ngobrol, iya.

If I were to meet them by chance at Sukarno-Hatta, or at any bandara for that matter, many would greet me with a title "Pak Guru." Personally I think the Indonesians are the most polite people (other than Japanese) on the face of the earth and that Malaysians (including me) are typically 180 degrees opposite.

I don't get the same red carpet treatment from anywhere else.

"Pak Guru" with his understudies at the end of a training session at Lemigas in Jakarta, circa 1996.

I should know. I have been frequenting Indonesia since 1994 and have travelled the length and breadth of the country. I am proud to say too that I have done the Friday prayers at many different mosques in Indonesia, more than what I have done in Malaysia. Aceh - the nothern most part of Indonesia, yes I have prayed Jumaat there; Medan, sure. Kg Haraban near Bukit Tinggi, and in Padang too (both in Sumatra Barat), mosques in Pekan Baru, and Dumai (both in Riau), mosques in Palembang, Sumatra Selatan.

In Jakarta, of course the Istiqlal, not to mention other smaller mosques and even in office building. Cirebon, Balongan, Jogja, Bandung are some of the cities I have been having my solat. Banjarmasin, Balikpapan and Bontang in Kalimantan, I have been to all.

I have stayed and do training for one months for their engineers in Jakarta, partially during the fasting month.

I have known one client (who later on became a good friend) - a big sized Batak named Simanjuntak. To be honest, he is perhaps the friendliest person that I have ever met. He would acknowledge me from the other end of Sepinggan Airport when I had only met him once - and everybody looked at me when he shouted my name when he saw me. As if I was his long lost friend!

I remember talking to one by the name of Ricky in the small oil town of Dumai in Riau. He once told me, "Pak Rahman, saya suka sama Ziana Zain, Fauziah Latif dan Ning Baizura." I smiled at him. "Waduh, Pak Ricky, kok suka sama yang cantik-cantik saja," I teased him.

"Well, not really," he responded, "Ning tidak cantik."

He was right (Sorry Ning!). But one can imagine the closeness of the relationship between the people of the two nations.

Another friend, Nurul - he, yes he is a he, is from Madura, told me during a phone chat some eight years ago, how our songbird Siti Nurhaliza was on telly the night before. "I wish she is Indonesian," he said. He was going ga-ga over her singing.

I laughed at him. "Yeah, right. Fat chance we would allow that to happen," I said.

So what's the problem really?

Government to government perhaps?

The one month training in Jakarta in 1997. We did our fasting together too. This is a time when my hair is still black.

EPILOGUE

The title of Pak Guru is just a term of endearment and I know it does not reflect my standing in the industry. I brought it up just to show just polite they are vis-a-vis us Malaysians. That's all.