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Aku

(a posting that should have be done on 27th April 2008)

Chairil Anwar means something to every Indonesian. Mr. Anwar was one of celebrated Indonesian poets who died young. He was 27 years old when he died and never experienced any effect of his stardom. He would have been 86 years old today. During his lifetime he only made 74 poems. Those poems hold nothing back. His passion, his nationalism, his love to the newborn country all are part of those poems.

For me Chairil Anwar poems were a series of memories of my youth. Thinking back about Chairil Anwar gives me more or less the same cozy feeling like when I watch Friends for the past 10 years.

I read Chairil Anwar’s Doa for the first time at the poem reading competition when I was 8 or 9 years old. Without even understand the meaning, I liked the poem. It is easy to remember. Short sentences and a super duper short poem A bit later after that I read Chairil Anwar’s poem called Aku (meaning ‘I’ or ‘Ik’), I learned the word “jalang” (loose translation of jalang without the poetic context would be wild, but in Indonesia the connotation of jalang is negative-short form for bitch). I asked my mom, just like every other kid who would have trouble with difficult words and looking foor the meaning. Obviously my mom reacted just like other moms that found out her 9 year old daughter learnt a “new” word. She got a bit angry and demanded to know where I learnt the word. When she knew where I got it, she got that speechless look at her face

Sometimes later I learnt that Chairil not only made those great short poem that appealed perfectly to my young brain. He made my life more complicated with the Diponegoro poem. Gosh, at that time I no longer admired his work as I need to recite those poems in front of the school for Independence Day. What I could remember now, I just cited the poem with turbo full throat sound as fast as I could so I won’t forget any word of that poem. It was succesfully delivered with a deafening silence (I think it is more because I screamed from the top of my lung so everyone did think I was mad at them).

At that time, I promised myself no more Chairil Anwar reciting or memorizing. But at least if there was more to come, let it be short! When I moved to Lampung (southern part of Sumatera) from Ambon (Maluku) for my junior high school time, I found out only fools will be able to hold the line with Chairil Anwar. He made 74 interesting poems, and whether I liked it or not I had to cited one of his poem again. And this time of course…Krawang-Bekasi. Another heroic poetic nationalistic turbo sound full throttle poem of his. I still hate it. I found it annoying to keep reciting these poems which nobody understood. One thing that I started to realize at that time was Chairil Anwar seemed had an obssession with death.

Just like every other teen who is influenced by a progesteron hormonal change, my hatred feelings toward Chairil Anwar did not stayed for long. As I mentioned earlier, I moved from the eastern part of Indonesia to the western part of Indonesia. Not that anyone at my school was ignorant, but most of my junior high school friends found it very amusing to have a new classmate from another part of Indonesia. I spoke with a different accent than the rest of my classmate, eventhough we speak in the same language, Bahasa Indonesia. For sometimes I was the center of every “affection” due to my unique accent. At that time coming from Maluku, meant that my fellow students will ask whether I ever eat rice in Ambon or whether I saw the same television channels as the rest. It was quite depressing to be different from the rest. I tried my best to fit in and almost lost my pride to share experience of living in Ambon.

So when my Bahasa Indonesia teacher taught us a new Chairil Anwar poem, called Cerita buat Dien Tamaela (‘A Tale for Dien Tamaela’), that depicts the story Pattiradjawane, the guardian of nutmeg (Pattiradjawane is one of the family names from Maluku), I was touched with fire to notice that the great Chairil Anwar made Pattiradjawane, the guardian of nutmeg, the centre of this famous poem. That Chairil, through this poem, used a Malukuy mythology figure to depict the most happy feelings after the independence was proclaimed by Soekarno and Hatta. Reading A ‘Tale for Dien Tamaela’ I egoistically felt the sense of pride of being part of that part of Archipelago. After that I was an unstoppable ambassador of the beautiful sea near Ambon bay or just simply promoted how great those sea adventure from Ternate to Tidore. I was able to accept who I was, that dark-brown color of my skin, that unique accent of mine, even that nickname given by friends – Ambon – without even the slightest feeling of being a minority. Thanks to Chairil Anwar poem. That beautiful long, moving, nutmeg guardian poem of Chairil Anwar.