AC (After Coronavirus): Survived the Pandemic

Fragments of my Covid-19 pandemic stories.

‘Happy new year, Scott! How are you?’

‘Happy new year too, Suar! It’s hot here, 51 degrees [Celsius].’

‘Right, the bushfire.’

‘How are you?’

‘I’m starting work at the new firm tomorrow. With a broken ankle. I slipped on ice in Georgia. Got too excited seeing snow on Kazbegi mountain.’

‘My family will be coming with me to Jakarta after this Christmas holiday. Let’s catch up then.’

‘Yes. I hope their adaptation from Phuket-Brisbane to Jakarta would not be too shocking.’

…

‘Happy Australia Day, Scott!’

‘Thanks Suar! *Australian flag emoji*’

‘How are you?’

‘I’m good, but this dispute with Pertamina is keeping me busy. Angus is enrolled at the British International School. How is your leg? How’s working in the new firm?’

‘I’m good. My mobility is still restricted, good thing I don’t have to go to courts yet.’

‘We’ll catch up, ok?’

…

‘How are you during this lockdown, Scott?’

‘I’m good. I still need to meet a lot of officials though. How are you?’

‘Coping with the isolation. I just realised this is the first time I have to be with Dinda all the time at home. Usually we are only together for 24 hours when travelling. How’s your PhD?’

‘On track. I can’t travel to London to meet my supervisor. But it’s a part time programme anyway.’

I texted Scott again on his birthday, undelivered. I emailed him in August 2020. But no reply. I thought our friendship drifted off.

In 2021, Hanna texted me: ‘Do you know that Scott died of Covid in August last year?’

Scott’s death made news. He died just before he was about to be evacuated to Australia.

We met at Queen Mary, University of London. Part of LLM programme’s induction was drinks at a bar in King’s Cross. 

‘Banyak cewek-cewek manis di sini, ya?’ He said in Indonesian, looking at our classmates.

He commented at my drinking pace, ‘There is no Indonesian word for “tipsy”, because you all get straight to drunk!’

He took Energy and Natural Resources specialisation. We were in the same class for International Energy Transactions and Energy. An overachiever: he’s a C-level executive in an Indonesian oil company. He had five bachelor degrees. An MBA from Oxford and master’s degree in law from QMUL. He was doing his PhD in SOAS. He was a mayor of the City of Victor’s Harbor. He spoke Mandarin, Thai, and a little Indonesian.

He loved drinks, rugby and Australian football. He looked serious. Corporate: suits, ties, loafers, polo shirts–country club wardrobe. 

St. Patrick’s Day. We were at McGettigan’s, an Irish pub in Jakarta, the wives of expats were dancing. ‘You see, that’s why bule men prefer their Asian girlfriends.’

He hated entitled mediocre white men. Maybe he feared to be associated with them, being a member of Jakarta’s expat communities who work in the private sector. 

He knew how to act Indonesian. His boss, who died with him at a Jakarta hospital, was an Indonesian tycoon. Scott could work with him because he understood Indonesian quirks in doing business; on how we mix professional and personal life, family and business relations.

‘This is Pak Scott. He’s an Australian, his wife is Thai,’ Scott’s boss always introduced him with such irrelevant personal details. Yet, in Indonesia, your Self is defined by your role and relationship in the society; family matters a lot.

He wanted to return the favour, ‘This is Pak Boss, his wife is Chinese Indonesian. His mistress is Sundanese.’

When we were in London, sometimes he acted like a chaperone to his boss’ son—making sure he’s completing his study, not consumed by the temptations and vices of the Greatest City in the World.

I was not comfortable friending him at first. Being around overachievers made me feel inadequate. But I know, I needed that. 

Scott loved to learn. He encouraged me to push a little further in my academic pursuit. He gave me a ticket to Magna Charta public lecture at the Temple Inn; proofread my dissertation. We talked about books, we both love Alain de Botton’s works (he didn’t like him when he met in person, though). 

He suggested that I get a Neapolitan suit, because it is suitable for the Indonesian climate. He taught me not to be apologetic, to make the most out of this Asian Century and to be prepared for the upcoming rise of Africa.

I never got the chance to be introduced to his family. So I didn’t send my condolences to anyone. In 2021, when we stayed at Portibi Farm, we met a British couple. The wife is a teacher at BIS. She was Angus’ teacher. She knows Angus’ dad died of Covid. 

‘Angus is a good kid. He and his mum moved back to Thailand. That’s all I know.’

We renovated an unused bedroom upstairs during the pandemic. We converted it into a home office space. The working from home transformation taught us that we need a psychological buffer between rest and work. Working from our bedroom messes our mind. It is harder to switch off from work when you spend all day in the same space, blurring the boundaries between work and rest.

Remote working is a worker’s paradise, to a certain extent. Especially if you live in a congested city like Jakarta. No commute means time and effort conserved. When the lockdown started, 17 March 2020, I had already removed the cast. But I still needed to use crutches. I was saved from commuting as a disabled person, but I was prevented from working on my ankle’s recovery. Cancelled my physiotherapy bookings; less opportunities to move around.

Remote working can work. Lawyers’ work is consulting work. However, the sense of isolation is depressing. I feel less connected with my coworkers. It may be my extraversion. I need the casual interactions: the impromptu coffee or water fountain small talks. They build emotional bonds.

The best thing about the pandemic is the digital transformation. People are forced to embrace digital communication technologies, the collaborative softwares, to survive. Even the Luddites yielded and actually made the efforts to catch up. The Indonesian courts’ e-Court system was launched in 2018, but its effective utilisation only came through due to Covid emergency.

That being said, the pandemic has taught us that digital totalism is not feasible. At least, not yet. We can work remotely, but there are times when being in the same space and time makes collaboration more effective. The digital world is flat and two dimensional, there are aspects of communications which are lost. The simplifications and representations are helpful, but oftentimes we need the analogue observations. Our touches and smells are yet to be digitalised. Our visual and auditory senses become tunelled in the digital world. Speed is not always desirable; efficiency is not always effective. Frictions are needed for tractions.

Video calls, except for personal relationships, are overrated. Good old fashioned audio calls, one-on-one and conference, can still get things done.

The home office space also becomes our library. We have been putting our collection of books in our bedroom before. While it is nice to always have access to all my books before sleep and the morning wake, I am asthmatic. Books collect dust.

Mari Kondo said that if a book we bought remains unread for a few weeks, most likely we will never read it. Such a rule was overridden during the pandemic: I often browsed my old book collections. I picked up some unread books bought years ago and enjoyed them. My reading speed has always lagged behind my purchasing speed. But that’s okay. The cluttering of books makes me feel the pressure to read more. Digital books don’t create storage costs, easier to buy and forget.

We decided not to install any television in the home office. We want to limit the available screens to our laptops and mobile phones. The essentials for working. If we need entertainment, browse the books or listen to music (we bought Marshall speakers).

The home office is where I go when I need alone time. Other than ‘work’, this is where I write with my typewriter, have my online therapy sessions, clean my cameras, daydream and have my alone time.

When the lockdown was relaxed, we gladly returned to the office. My firm and her firm offer flexible arrangements. We don’t have to clock in and out at specific times. We can drive when the traffic is less bad.

The hardest part of the lockdown is the repetitive days. You wake up and repeat what you do. Weekends don’t feel special anymore. Hermetically isolated like a monk. It was a time for contemplation and reflection, a long period of withdrawal from the world. An exile, a prison.

I read my travel journals whenever I suffer from wanderlust withdrawal. Travel experience is one of the most valuable savings in my memory bank. When I close my eyes, I can relive the moments in my mind’s eye. The photographs I took or taken by my travelling companions augment them. My travels provide me with writing materials—a narcissistic effort in immortalising my life.

Pandemic days were long, but pandemic years were short. I know we all went through the same storm. But some of us are luckier to go through it in more comfortable shelters. I did.

For the privileged members of the society, the lockdown was a boredom to endure. We distracted ourselves with overconsumption: GoFood deliveries, Netflix, Instagram and/or TikTok, online shopping. Got into new hobbies: baking, cooking, gardening, Siamese fighting fish breeding, analogue photography. Eid was hampers galore. People were sending each other snacks and meals, but had no guests to serve and share those food for.

But even a palace turns into a prison when you are unable to travel outside. I developed PTSD and the home office triggered it. There are times when I hated to be in this space now, where I am writing this piece. I feel guilty for this trauma. I know this is the shelter I took refuge during the storm. 

A friend told me that he lost so much time during the pandemic. He was poor; his starting point was rock bottom. The pandemic prevented him from doing more personal and professional development.

‘I need to hustle more to catch up with my peers from a middle class background,’ he said.

He was learning to drive cars at 29 (I, like most middle-class Jakarta men, started driving at 17). Never had the luxury of owning a car. Got married a few months just before the pandemic hit. Like most perantau (migrant Jakartans), he has to pay a premium for housing. The rent price in Jakarta is cheap compared to big cities in affluent countries. But the average income is much lower too. Landlords ask for 6 months rent upfront, at least. Guarantor or referral means nothing due to an ineffective judicial system; the only way to protect their economic interests is to receive cash.

We worked out at home. We bought a workout bench, dumbbells, 20kg kettlebell, Lulu Lemon yoga shirts and pants; we used the TRX suspension trainer again. But we cannot progress much. Gym membership is more cost effective. Some things are best shared. It is expensive to keep buying heavier weights and the lighter ones would occupy space, unused.

A gym also provides more than training space and equipment. It is also a social space. You become familiar with the trainers and coaches and other members. You become a part of a community.

Alas, there is also the psychological space. When you are in a space dedicated for workout, your mind is attuned to workout. Just like the office (or the home office) creates the psychological buffer to work.

I admit that I slacked off more. I ate more. Those homemade baked goods, spirits, and cocktails made by Jakarta’s idle creative minds. The isolation also prevented me from doing micro movements: walking, standing, climbing the stairs. There was little need to go to your coworkers, to fill your jug at the water fountain, to go to the shared toilet. No opportunity to go to nearby coffee shops or to have lunch outside. Sitting calories burn more than laying calories. 

I drank curcuma based potions. ‘Anti-Flu Shot,’ it advertised. To prevent Covid infection. I still got infected; the only noticeable effect is the increased appetite and chubbiness. At least it tastes good. 

I was depressed but I gained weight. An anomaly to my ectomorphic body. I became fat. I lost muscles. My clothes and pants didn’t fit at the wrong parts: belly and waist. Not the gain I was looking for. I started snoring.

Maybe my age also doesn’t help. I’m pushing 40. I felt I was losing my youth.

I became addicted to writing with a typewriter. It is impractical, like film photography. But my body loves the feeling of touching the mechanical keyboards. The immediate print, ink on paper. When I replaced the ink ribbon, my hands, my fingers got stained. The smell of iron, grease, and ink.

I am braver with a typewriter. No delete button, no spell check, no grammar correction.

My home office becomes one with the typewriter. It is the only locus I can write with the Arori Express R213.

The home office was also my zendo. But you can be templed out when you stay in a temple or visit too many temples. Monastic life does not suit me. I am no monk too worldly, too encumbered with desires. 

I have less chance to go out and shoot during the confinement. But I read photography books, which instruct me to read books on other subjects especially fiction and literature.

I learned to appreciate instrumental music. I like to wind down with classical symphonies now. I write with jazz music in the background, imagining Murakami’s desk. 

After the third dose of vaccinations, the social distancing was relaxed (either that or we just had enough and the economy could not cope).  We could go to coffee shops. I could get proper haircuts at the salon. I travelled to France. I attended a jazz concert for the first time: Joey Alexander. I was worried that I would get bored, a testament that I am a philistine. I didn’t.

I decided to fix my crooked teeth. I don’t want to look like a teenager, wearing braces. I took the opportunity of the zeitgeist, when wearing masks was still the norm. 

My dentist underpromised and overdelivered. Planted the braces in January 2022, removed them in December same year. I have forgotten the discomforts I endured for 11 months. The headaches after readjusting the tightness. The dirty mouth after meals, with food residues stuck in between the iron and teeth. The inability to chew on the best baguette in Paris.

Now the lockdowns have been lifted. WHO has declared that Covid 19 emergency is over. The buzzword now is no longer ‘pandemic’, ‘recession’. We’re busy planning for the future again. Worrying about missed business opportunities, of the chance for getting rich. We talk about competitions during the recession; the difficult times ahead. Made travel plans and travelled.

I often forget the core lesson of 2020: that plans could go bust. In the pandemic years, I was glad to survive. To cope with loneliness and to stay afloat living. I accumulated money, because there is only so little you can spend when you can’t go out. The economy is social. 

I was in my mid-thirties before the pandemic, just broke off my golden handcuffs. During the pandemic, I renegotiated my relationship with my partner. We helped our best friends in their divorce; acted as counsels and witnesses in the court proceedings. 

The four of us travelled together in our 20s: Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Turkey. We are glad that they never made us choose between them. We can’t hangout together, the four of us—not yet, at least. But we are friends with their new partners.

I am pushing 40 now. Nearing the end of my youth. I am a cis heterosexual man, ageing is not too much of a pressure. Still, I am concerned. What happens when I am no longer attractive, physically strong, or mentally sharp?

Don’t overthink it, boy.

September 22, 2023

Eulogy for an Old Friend

Saturday, 29 July 2023 23.11 West Indonesia Time.

And at the Hour of Death, I feel grief got hold of me. But also release, the gladness that comes for the fact that he is released from all of his pain. The man, the boy, who taught me to be charming. The old soul who taught me how to harness empathy; the simple fact that we all want an acknowledgement of existence. That we can provide such need just by a simple smile and attentive listening. That if we have the courage to greet first, we would have the initiative in relationships.

He was an overt Bollywood aficionado in a time before Slum Dog Millionaire. Risked ridicule in 1999-2002 South Jakarta high school scene, when only anything Western pop culture was deemed cool. But conformists can never be charming.

We lost contact for years. He was a little lost after high school. We were in a gang. Lived our lives being a collective, bulging with hormones and no adult responsibility. That carefree teenage years attitude where you resolve life issues with laughters, substances, or violence is not suitable for growing up. 

With a classic “Boys Don’t Cry” attitude, he preferred contact on his own terms: you don’t find him, he finds you. He contacted me again last month, announcing his terminal illness: liver cancer. I showed up. People showed up. The high school gang, old friends whom he ghosted. He was that charming that we looked past that.

We reconnected. In the impeding death, we caught up on our lives. Everything is good again. We found the children, the teenagers, we were once before (sans the need to prove ourselves to be the Man).

He kept his religion. I am liberated. We talked of after life, his views and mine. The Resurrection Day and the Nothing. Faith is relative, but Death is absolute. We knew that was a goodbye conversation.

Farewell and good night, Teuku Syafriansah aka Habil aka Baralig (the Mad Arab).

Teuku Syafriansah, 2002/2003, borrowed a Canon SLR with kit lens, Ilford BW film

August 6, 2023

Jogjakarta, Ramadan 2023

Karawitan and Javanese magic.

Pak Gembok

Pak ‘Gembok’ (Mr Padlock) leads Sanggar Widya Pramana, a Javanese traditional performance arts studio for underprivileged children. A self taught musician and a dancer; an ophiophilist (he has three pythons, he feeds them with live chickens). 

He got his nickname because he has ways with padlocks and locks. He has a collection of knives and blades, some have been wetted by human blood.

Pak Gembok has shed his old skin. He lives a quiet life now with his wife and children, as an artist. His eldest son just got admitted to Universitas Gadjah Mada. School of engineering.

He’s good friend with Pak Edi, a healer. Like the Balinese counterpart, Javanese healer’s therapy involves massages, slicing your chakras with sacred keris, knocking your head with agate imbued with magic, or inflicting pain on other parts of your body that you forgot the original pain. Like many healers, he is also a purveyor of psychedelic potions and herbal cigarettes; a broker of antique collections.

Pak Edi’s agate ring

I became his willing patient (or subject?). 

‘Your body shows you have a lot of repressed emotions,’ Pak Edi said.

‘Mood swings. You look composed on the outside but turmoils in the inside. Signs of PTSD.’

The mantras he performed, the parapsychology analysis, and the small talks about metaphysics made the healing experience ‘an intellectual decompression chamber’, a ‘high magic’—a LaVeyan Satanic Ritual. Being ‘read’ was scary for me, I felt vulnerable when someone could see through me. But it also made me relaxed and felt the human connection.

Pak Edi is not against modern medicine. His children are medical doctors. His wife, with her sharia views, wants him to abandon his ‘pagan’ practices though.

Pak Edi said that he and Pak Gembok were a band of warriors in their past lives, 3000 years ago. Fought side by side among or against the ranks of chariots and war elephants.

The sanggar provides training to children interested with karawitan, the Javanese traditional performance arts: dances, wayang kulit (shadow puppets), and gamelan. 

Some of the kids have no formal education at all, some survivors of abuses. The arts may be the only luxury they have, something beyond survival needs. An existential outlet.

We had iftar with the sanggar at Iwak Kalen, courtesy of Tito as their patron. We all sat cross legged on plastic woven mats. The favourite dish was the grilled catfish, freshly caught straight from the ponds of the restaurant. 

The menu

The smell of muddy fresh water and sweet soy sauce in hot and humid Jogja weather may be ‘anyep’, Pak Gembok said. But it is his favourite restaurant. His happy place.

We were graced with a welcome performance: a gamelan orchestra and a ronggeng dance. The dancer wore hijab, but the dance is sensual; the sounds of gamelan are mystical. 

The performance arrested my attention. I pressed the shutter release. I was in the flow state: the subjects and the environments were aligned. Usually, I don’t like photographing Java’s tropical hues in colour—the light is either diluted by high humidity or flat bright under blazing sun. But I am pleased with the Kodachrome Classic based film simulation recipe I set on the X100T.

After the iftar, we shared a bottle of Bushmills Blackbush at Pak Gembok’s home. Pak Edi told us Javanese parables on drinking:

Eka padma sari: one shot, like a beetle suckling nectar;

Dwi amartani: two shots, humbled oneself–prone to any persuasion;

Tri kawula busana: three shots, everyone wears the commoner dress–becomes equal;

Catur wanara rukem: four shots, like a monkey fighting for rukam (fruit, Flacourtia rukam);

Panca sura panggah: five shots, fearless and shameless;

Sad guna waweka: six shots, paranoia;

Sapta kukila warsa: seven shots, like a soaked bird–babbling;

Ashta kacara-cara: eight shots, uncontrolled speeches;

Nawa wagra lapa: nine shots, like an impotent tiger;

Dasa buta mati: ten shots, like a dead giant.

We stopped at third shots. We were officially friends by the first shot anyway. This year’s Ramadan’s blessings.

Sanggar Widya Pramana is one of the few sanggars with a complete set of wayang kulit. They hold regular performance every Kamis (Thursday) Wage. Honouring the arts’ heritage, the schedule follows the Javanese Calendar, the Anno Javanico—a mix between Gregorian, Islamic, and Saka calendar systems.

Contact: Jl. Cakra 4 Cokrowijayan, Banyuraden, Gamping RT 04 RW 18 Sleman, Yogyakarta

May 27, 2023

Paris: Summer 2022

First international travel AC (After Coronavirus)

I visited Paris for the first time in 2015. As a postgraduate student from London. Paris confirmed my expectations of Parisians: rude, but stylish and charming. It is easier to befriend the French than the Brits. Most French will tell you when they don’t like you. Is it not super? You don’t waste time. The way you make friends and date after 30.

Paris is easy to love. It is drop dead gorgeous and charming. Tourists who said otherwise, the ones who suffer from Paris Syndrome, expect that the City of Light has no shadows. They thought Paris is made only of luxury brands, of Vuitton and Hermès. Instead, they found dirty streets, homeless; rude wait staff; and unhelpful locals. 

But Paris is opulence. One of the epicentres of the Global North, a capital of commerce and culture. One of the symbolic metropolises of the Western civilisation, the modern civilisation. Parisians’ affluence was demonstrated by the Yellow Jackets. They highlighted the inequality of the city, and the country, by occupying the Champ de Elysees. They protested about the rising living costs; on how they can only eat out twice a week.

The city celebrates life’s joys and terrors with grace. It endured suffering with hedonism. The blood and death spilled on its streets are equalised by the salons and arts. Paris survived Viking raids, the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, Nazi occupation, Bataclan terrorist attack, and plagues—the Black Death; the Spanish Flu; and Coronavirus.

I bought the flight tickets to Paris in January 2022. The price was so cheap as the airlines were betting on travel restrictions. As the months went by, we were optimistic that our risk taking is going to yield us a win. Quarantine period was reduced, then removed. International borders were opening.

Then on 17 May 2022, my mum had a stroke.

Some of the extended family members tried to give a hint that I should postpone or even cancel the trip. I went anyway. I’d regret missing a travel opportunity more than being absent in case of Ibu’s death, especially after those lockdown years. 

Still that thought lingers in my mind. My extended family also made sure to remind me; asked if I could shorten my France trip. 

‘You’d regret it when she’s gone.’

‘She misses you,’ said an aunt speaking on behalf of my mum—believing she can read my mum’s mind. She barely recognised me. 

I carried with me that filial guilt, Asian upbringing weight heavy.

Thankfully, I have got rid of the expectation that I should always be joyful when I am travelling. You cannot outrace the speed of thoughts, no matter how far you travel. But you can go to places which remind you that life is bigger than your problems.

I deleted the Instagram app on my phone. I decided that June, when I travelled to France, is the no social media month. I used an analogue camera, the Leica M3, to document this trip (backed up with my iPhone 12 mini and my travelling companion’s Fuji X100T). They were intentional constraints I imposed to be present.

Parisian street

On this second trip, we pretended that we were Parisians. We rented Airbnb flats, instead of staying in a hostel or hotel. We dined in bistros, sat at cafes, took the Metro, walked and walked. Did a little shopping too–we’re still consumers. We didn’t ride on the electric scooters though.

I read Paris has the ambition to be a carless city. During the pandemic restrictions, the Parisians decided to close down the roads to make room for restaurant tables, outdoor seating. ‘Restaurants are Parisian institutions. Cars are not.’

The first restaurants were opened in Paris after the revolution. Chefs usually worked for aristocrats’ homes. Then when the aristocrats could no longer provide employment, the chefs decided to render their services to the bourgeois.

Thanks to those Parisian chefs’ entrepreneurial pivot, the world has establishments which are essential to the procreation of our species. Romantic and sexual relationships, political connections and business deals, are made in restaurants.

Paris may be an expensive city. But thanks to socialists’ democracy and capitalist welfare system–financed by colonial inheritance–you can still enjoy the city for free. 

We walked along the River Seine. Sat on its bank. Smoking, drinking, talking and people watching. Waved at those river cruises. If you’re feeling belligerent, give the middle finger instead. That’s also an expression of love, in a Parisian rude kind of way.

A group of androgynous models sat beside us. They were taking photos of each other. One of them looks like Benedict Cumberbatch. She (or he) speaks Russian. A group of Indonesian students talked in Indonesian. We didn’t impose an introduction. It is weird that we’re glad to meet fellow countrymen and women abroad, but would not be excited meeting them in our home country.

When we visited Shakespeare & Co, it was the celebration of 100 years of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses. We had to queue to get inside. Once the bouncer lets us in, there is no time limit on how long we can stay inside the bookshop. 

We went upstairs. I don’t know if some writers still want to spend a night there; risking flea infection for the sake of sharing the same bed with the great American writers of the post-World War I era. 

I didn’t meet Eggy the Cat. We were warned not to feed him, lest he get sick. Bought Camus’ The Rebel, and Sade’s Justine for a friend. I rewatched Before Sunset on the return flight, naturally.

100 years of Ulysses

My mum’s best friend and her Parisian husband have returned to live in Paris. Uncle Maurice retired from his corporate job, after being stationed in Singapore for decades. He missed Asian foods, therefore invited us to a lunch meet up in Chinatown.

Palais d’asie is listed as ‘Pan Asian restaurant’. But they only serve Chinese and Vietnamese. The audacity! How about us Indonesian? Yet we do not trust any ‘Asian’ restaurant that specialises in all Asian food. Eating Chinese and Japanese may require you to use chopsticks, but their foods are not to be mixed.

Located in a  typical baroque Parisian building, juxtaposed with neon signs of Chinese characters. A Space Invaders’ tile mural of ‘Noodle’ on its building’s wall testify the authenticity, I suppose. 

The proprietor served us. A middle aged man in short sleeved shirts, a bit oversized, and brown pleated pantalon. Pens in his shirt pocket. The 90s Hong Kong movies’ Chinese uncle looks. He took our orders in French.

We strolled around Chinatown. The concrete tenement blocks make the area feels like Hong Kong. Peddlers, unlicensed, were selling traditional snacks. Asian sex workers loitering around the neighbourhood. We entered a high rise building, the lower floors are a commercial zone. Shops selling bubble tea, mango sticky rice; bars serving Asian cocktails.

Tante Yanti told us about her student life in Paris. The Chinatown was a mustering point for Indonesian students, mingling with the other Asians. Her father was a sympathiser to the Indonesian Communist Party. After the 1965 Jakarta Method purge, she did not have much opportunity in Indonesia as a daughter of a sympathiser. She got a scholarship to study at Sorbonne.

Compared to my mum’s life, hers is a tumultuous one. Ibu had a sheltered life, at least from Ibu’s stories. She played it safe, or rather passive. Worked for the same company since she graduated. Stay married to Bapak.

She endured. ‘Because life could have been worse,’ she always said. 

Tante Yanti left her first husband to be with Oom Maurice. She took his son with her. Oom Maurice raised him as if he is his own son. They have a daughter.

She lives a bourgeois life. Tante Yanti is a stay at home wife. Making sure the nest is well kept, children fed and educated. While her husband worked a C-level executive job.

They are doing well. Family vacations to exotic or fancy destinations every year. Their son and daughter were sent to Canadian and UK universities. Careers in London and Stockholm.

When Oom Maurice retired, their children moved out to live and work in London, the old married couple renegotiated their roles. Tante Yanti demanded Oom Maurice to be more involved in domestic chores. In Paris, they don’t drive anymore, they walk and take the public transport.

Oom Maurice, being old school, prefers the Metro’s paper tickets to the electronic card. The one you pay per trip or buy in bulk of 10 tickets. I tend to lose those papers (and it’s greener to use reusable cards).

With Oom Maurice, I talked about big things. How Paris is prohibiting prostitution again by criminalising the demand side (soliciting sex services are allowed, but procuring them is a crime). Public private partnerships in the construction of Jakarta’s MRT, and how Jakarta tries to imitate Singaporean business model: to profit from renting the spaces in the stations to retailers. The Ukraine-Russia War; the upcoming recessions.

Tante Yanti likes to talk about small things. How to register for PeduliLindungi, Indonesia’s Covid-19 tracing app. How sad she is that her children have grown and left home; how glad that they are not struggling and living their own lives in other European cities.

Tante Yanti and Oom Maurice treated us ice cream at Berthillon in Ile de Saint-Louis. Told us about Louis IX, the sainted King of France. I asked what his miracle was. He didn’t know. He’s a well read free-thinking Jew, but sainthood canonisation is not one of his interests. (I researched later, Louis IX sainthood is attributed to cure tuberculosis and blindness by touch, and extinguishing raging fire in Paris) 

Took us around Marais. We went inside Cathedrale Sainte Croix, near the gay clubs. A White Pantecost Mass was ongoing. Marais was the Jewish quarter, gentrified into a hipster area full of designers’ shops. Oom Maurice told me that an Islamist terrorist attacked HyperCacher (super kosher) in 2015. One of the victims was a Muslim, Lassana Bathily, the heroic employee who saved several Jewish customers.

Our last stop with them was Place des Vosges. I did what I have always loved to do in cities with decent public parks: laid down on the grass. In sub-tropical temperate summer, the earth is warm and dry enough. Unlike on humid tropical soils, it is still hard and dry enough to be comfortable on it.

We dined, most of the time without reservations. Even at Huitrerie Régis which usually requires advance reservations. A Vietnamese family said they had to reserve 4 months earlier; we just came in and the wait staff said there was one table left beside the toilet.  

We sat outside whenever we could. Curbside dining, drinking, and smoking are quintessentially Parisian pleasures.

Unlike our previous visit, Parisians waiters and waitresses were polite and welcoming. I thought it was because of our charm, which matured as we age. A Parisian who sat beside us at one of the bistros shrugged, ‘We finally realised how much we need you, tourists, after the pandemic.’ 

Fair enough. Hemingway warned how simple it is to be liked in Paris: just be generous in tipping. 

My first visit in Paris was spent on the great sights: the Notre Dame, Louvre, Orsay, Canal St. Martin, and, of course, the Eiffel. This time, we visited just one museum: Musee Rodin.

‘The Thinker’ may be the Master Sculptor’s masterpiece. But it was ‘The Helmet Maker’s Wife’ that arrested me. A meditation on the fleetingness of youthful beauty; a sorrowful acceptance to ageing and impending death. A figure of a naked crone with sagging breasts; wrinkled skins of the decay of time.

‘The Wife’ triggered my memories when I washed Ibu at the hospital bed. Her skinny arms with paperlike fair skin. Her face, I noticed, has become a masculine one. Tante Yanti said she used to be the cute one among them. She endured an awful marriage. She is still. 

‘The Kiss’ also fascinates me. It is a strange mating gesture, kissing. Before my very first kiss, I imagined a kiss would be a grand mind blowing feeling to meet each other’s lips and tongues. But I found it simply a gateway to the intercourse. My partners like it when I kiss, so I do it. 

Maybe it is the emptiness inside me which made me unable to truly appreciate kissing. Or I’m simply not a good kisser.

Maybe kissing is an affectionate gesture, rather than sexual. It is difficult for me to be at ease when hugging and cuddling too. Not that I am against emotional connections. I yearn for it.

I read the plaque. The couple kissing are Paolo and Francesca, from Dante’s Divine Comedy. They were forbidden lovers. Francesca was the wife of Paolo’s brother. When Paolo’s brother found out about their affairs, they were stabbed. 

Rielke said that Paris is like a city in Biblical stories. A city that invokes the wrath of God. No wonder Paris is so appealing. An unapologetically immoral city. Luciferian, the City of Light is.

Paris is a walking city. Our iPhone tells us that we walked 15,000-20,000 steps on average. Like hunters-gatherers. It was the peak of the summer. Heatwaves of 31 centigrade. Enough to make us, tropical people, sweat. 

We met up with Rich and Em. They took a train from Geneva for a Parisian weekend. They brought their son James, Si Anak Bule (the white kid). 

It was surprising James is given such a white name. Em and Rich work at the UN and have lived in Asia for a long time. They met in Indonesia; Iowan Em even speaks Arabic (she was stationed in Egypt before Indonesia). I was expecting a more exotic name, but ‘James’ is Rich’s granddad’s name.

Paris is not wheelchair friendly, which means it is not buggy friendly. It was difficult to navigate Parisian streets with a baby and a buggy. We collaborated, the four of us. But Em as the mother carried the heaviest burden. She had to breastfed hungry little James. 

Even in Paris, when you’re with a baby, people are more receptive. The Resistance smuggled and transported contrabands under the cover of babies. Mothers hid the guns and classified intels past through Nazi sentries with their buggies. The same trick the Indonesian revolutionaries employed to pass through occupying Allied Dutch checkpoints. Well, as long as the kid does not throw tantrums. James did not, two madames on Metro kept James entertained.

We visited the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation. I baptised my M3 at the Grand Master’s temple. Bought a copy of Images a la sauvette, the French edition. 

France may not be known for its camera brands, but the first photograph was taken here. It has a long tradition of photography. I wanted to buy another Leica M, but I realised money spent on a camera would deduct my budget for experience. Also my time shopping would take my time photographing. When you are in a stimulating environment such as Paris, you’d lose your consumerist impulses. Such a paradox, Paris is one of the consumers’ paradise. 

One of the earned wisdom I gained from travelling is to become a minimalist. I converted to the Leica M-system because it is a minimalist system. Dissonantly, I became obsessed with the idea of collecting Leica Ms.

Good thing that Paris, France, and travel in general, allow me to focus on what really matters. I have all that I need: a Leica M3 with a Elmarit 28mm f2.8 lens. HCB used one camera and one lens for the rest of his life. (He shot only in black and white though, Ilford HP film stocks)

We went to Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. It feels like London’s Hampstead Heath, but the people are more stylish. No trainers and dirty sneakers. We met up with Momo and Thibault and Em and Rich. Momo brought me the handmade leather documents/macbook pouch I ordered from Corman Mariquiners in Noyers, Burgundy. We had a proper summer Parisian picnic. Red and sparkling wines; pickles, cheese, and ham in a wicker basket. Sat on a red and white chequered mat. We chose a spot under the shade of a cliff and right outside a cave mouth, where the air circulation kept us cool.

The summer light was perfect. I love how Kodak Colorplus 200 captures it.

Couples, friends, parents, and children were playing. The kids noisily gathered around the water fountain–drinking and refilling their water guns or plastic bottles. They didn’t respect the queue, until a madame yelled at them in French with the authority of a Mother Superior. 

This is Affluence: a beautiful public park where people can walk for the sake of walking. Just bring a bottle (or two) of wine and some charcuterie (or any food you like). Smoke some pot, play some music instruments; talk about nothing and everything with your friends and lovers. 

Again, Lonely Planet is right. ‘These Europeans. They know how to live.’

May 20, 2023

Extinction Inspiration

Pharmako AI, the first book co-written with AI program GPT-3. The human co-author K. Allado-McDowell established Google AI’s Artist + Machine Intelligence program.

It was eerie at first to read philosophical and artistic tracts generated by a machine. The words are still prompted by humans. It is a wonder to see the collective memories and intelligence stored into the internet accessed then synthesised into esoteric-gnostic ruminations.

We have to move from anthropocentric views of knowledge and everything. It is unsustainable to hold on to a pre-Darwinian perspective. Everything in the universe is connected. The hyperspatial-continuous memories. All life forms are Life: plants, humans, animals, machines.

AI x humans relationships would not be as contentious as in The Matrix, The Terminator, or The Bladerunner. There will be singularity. The only way to evolve from Sapiens into Homo Deus is to embrace AI as part of us.

Yes, most probably humans will go extinct before AI. But AI will be our successors. Just as we are the successors of primitive mammals.

In The Turning Point, Hayao Miyazaki posits that the Japanese belief system is beyond good and evil. It embraces nature as it is, not just the useful and non-harmful elements.

We adapt to Nature, not the other way around. The anthropocentric view that Nature and all its contents are ‘created’ for humans is a Judeo-Christian narrative. It was useful as the foundation of modern society. But Evolution has rebuked this notion. Voltaire has suspected the fallacy of anthropocentrism in Candide. Pangloss’s optimism must evolve, we must tend our gardens. Our lot.

We may be the dominant species, capable of shaping our environment and engineering natural processes. We are gods, but we are not the centre of the universe. Believing otherwise is not just delusional but drives us to be unsustainable. 

In the sci-fi video game Stray, we play as a stray cat in post-apocalyptic earth. Humans have gone extinct due to a global pandemic. The city is inhabited by anthropoid Companions—robots created by humans which/whose AI have evolved. They become the successor of sapiens.

Seeing in a cat-eye view of the post-human world is mesmerising. The Companions inherited our existential angst as intelligent-sentient beings with hopes and desires;  fears and aspirations.

As a cat we are unable to manipulate objects and tools. We need to work with the Companions and our guide drone B-12. 

The drone is sentient, it was a human—a scientist who transferred his consciousness before the extinction of sapiens. Many times B-12 recalled how wonderful it is to have a body.

At the end of the game, B-12 sacrificed himself to liberate the city from the lockdown which started during the global pandemic that wiped the human race. With his consciousness deleted by the destruction of B-12 hardware, humanity went to total extinction.

The cat looked sad, stayed with the dead drone—headbutting, licking it. Mourning a dead friend.

And life goes on. The lives of the cats and the Companions. The earth continues hosting life. The legacy of our species is carried by the Companions.

In Islam, the religion I grew up with and taught into, the earth ends together with humans. The last of humanity who will see the end, kiamat, are the non-believers. 

‘When the sun is put up / and the stars fall down / and when the mountains are blown away / and when pregnant camels are untended…”

At-Takwir (The Folding Up)

‘..the stars of the sky fell to the earth like unripe figs dropping from a tree shaken by a great wind…’

Revelations

Astrophysically, those religious prophecies show that the author(s) didn’t know what stars are. (The Bible also misses how old the earth is and, therefore, the geological and cosmological timelines)

In literary defense, they may have spoken in metaphors. Gods love to speak in riddles and be capricious. Yahweh/Allah is no exception, regardless of their claim as the Most Merciful and the Most Benevolent. His omnipotence and omniscience seems to cancel each other’s quality. 

In Answer to Job, Jung reconciled the dissonance of the Christian God with his collective unconscious theory based on the Oriental Wisdom: Satan and Yahweh are the same Godhead, He needs to suffer as a Son of Man to be complete.

The Oriental Wisdom is closer to the Truth. However, it was the Judeo-Christian traditions which promoted a culture of inclusive learning. In Ancient Sanskrit and European pagan traditions, scholarship was reserved to an elite caste of Brahmins and druids and seers. The wisdom of the ages are disseminated in runic and esoteric exclusivity. A systemic discrimination by birthrights.

The Scientific Revolution is made possible by keeping the scholarly attitude towards inclusive learnings and the jettisoning of the idea that the Divine Absolute Truth is contained in the Scriptures. The printing machine and the Phoenician alphabets, made dissemination of information—albeit simplified in textual and visual forms—ubiquitous. 

Then the internet exploded our capacity to store and transfer our collective knowledge.

Yet, the simplification of information collection and digitisation reduces our learning to two dimensional. We lost some of the capacity of three dimensional learning of our hunter gatherer ancestors: to read tracks and winds intuitively; to communicate with primitive howls and tongues. All in exchange for a higher survival chance.

At our early stage of our lives we learned instinctively. Actions came before thought. Modern education system and society made structured learning, a kind environment, possible. But let us not be fooled that our learning process should or can be linear. The forms and the labels help us to make sense of the chaos of Reality. But they are not Reality, only representation of it.

Contemplating about extinction is not a gloomy exercise. It is, in fact, relaxing. You stop taking yourself too seriously. You zoom out of your daily pettiness. The awe induced by the majesty of the grand universe. It will give you perspective. Reminds you of the fleetingness of your existence.

Our lives are improbable. Either they are random chances or Destiny, the odds of existence are so low that it is not an exaggeration to call life a Miracle or, at least, an improbable luck.

The poison and the cure. Existence and extinction. Life and death. Suffering and joy. Pleasures and pain. Darkness and light. Jesus and Satan. Chaos and Cosmos.

Only when we become All-Embracing that we are the strongest. 

There is only Now. The past has gone and the future has not arrived. 

We will meet our end, we must learn from the past.

Lord Shiva dances to the Drum of Creation and the Fire of Destruction. St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, Glasgow.

December 27, 2022

Subject Suriani Nasution

I am a writer even before I am a photographer. I prepared a note, a report, an essay on my subject for ‘Asih itu Hening’. It feels important, at least for me, to have a textual story of her. I know I am at risk of polluting my visual story, but here goes.

Suriani Nasution—Ibu Ani—fulfils the stereotype of ‘Ibu-Ibu’ Indonesia (Indonesian moms). At the first glance, Ibu Ani and family can be the poster girl of ‘Happy Indonesian Family’ of Orba (Orde Baru, the New Order–General Soeharto’s dictatorship regime)’s Keluarga Berencana (Planned Parenthood) programme: his husband Saipul is a civil servant, a staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; she is a housewife active in her neighbourhood initiatives. They have two children: a son and a daughter. 

She wears a hijab, her daughters too. Symbolising observance to religious values. They are homeowners in Bojong Pondok Terong, Citayam.

No one can live an idealised version of an ideology. A domesticated suburban life swings from oppressive idleness to a cycle of unending chores.As a woman, you are expected to be a nest defender; juggling so many responsibilities with personal needs and wants.

Like everyone, she has to negotiate her priorities.

For her, volunteering activities as a cadre take precedent. Ani gleamed with pride when she told me how she championed the construction of Posyandu (integrated community services office) building, public toilets, and communal septic tanks–with and without government support.

When her son was three year old, the neighbours reported to her husband that their son was crying home alone. The reports made Saipul unable to focus at work. They lost their first born before. Nevertheless, Saipul knows and understands that volunteering is important for Ani. 

So he let her be. 

Ibu Ani’s son just graduated from a private institute, majoring in transportation and logistics. She said he didn’t bother to try the public universities entrance exam. 

I asked why. In Indonesia, public universities are where you can get relatively good education at the cheapest costs (I know because I graduated from one; it has opened so many doors, including this photography scholarship).

Ibu Ani just said, ‘He’s the one who has to study. So I let him choose. It’s his life.’ 

Then I asked why he chose the major.

‘I think he just followed his friends.’

When asked about her daughter, Ibu Ani said that her daughter always stays in her room after school. She does not know what she’s doing, locked up in there. But she’s glad that her daughter does not go anywhere, as good girls shouldn’t be.

Ibu Ani is pretty laissez-faire to her children.

Saipul was elected as Ketua RW (neighbourhood chief) in 2000. Because of his day job, he was rarely involved in the neighbourhood affairs. He only visited Kelurahan (Borough) Office twice during his office. Ibu Ani as Ibu RW (the First Lady of the Neighbourhood) was the virtual Ketua RW. She handled all the affairs. Her husband’s title gave her the legitimacy she needed.

Having a husband who works a government job means Ibu Ani’s family has a steady income. From Saipul’s salary and remunerations, they managed to buy several properties in Citayam and rent them off.

Such a financial position gives Ani more power in her roles in the neighbourhoods. 

Witnessing Ani’s daily lives, I learned that these volunteering Ibu-ibu are the nervous system of the neighbourhood. No public policy, governmental or non-governmental, can be implemented without them. 

Cadres are direct action operators. They assisted locals in accessing public healthcare, conducted surveys and census for infrastructure development, and resolved local social conflicts.

They have to be agile, patient, and persuasive. Persuading denizens of densely populated areas such as Bojong Pondok Terong–who are mostly short on cash and lack higher education–requires those soft skills. 

But they should not outshine the official neighbourhood organs. A Ketua RW complained that his cadres make him look bad because they are so smart, i.e smarter than him. 

I asked if there was ever a female Ketua RW. 

‘No. There’s no shortage of male candidates,’ Ibu Ani looked at me as if I asked something so obvious.

I attended a coordination meeting at the Kelurahan office with Ibu Ani. She let me piggy back on her Scoopy moped. She was baffled that I can’t drive motorcycles–so unmanly. The main agenda was to train the cadres in conducting surveys on the local families’ living conditions. 

Despite the training being facilitated by Ibu Ani and a female official of Kelurahan, the meeting has to be opened and closed by Pak Lurah (President of the Borough). The presence and blessing of a man is needed to make everything legitimate.

In his opening speech, Pak Lurah said that he is hoping that Depok is transferred to DKI Jakarta administration from West Java. Especially because of the Citayam Fashion Week.

‘People who live in Depok are mostly Jakartans, who migrated due to gentrification. Many of them still work in Jakarta,’ said Pak Lurah. 

Such a Jakarta centric attitude feels like a relic from the New Order regime’s centralism. But the Jakarta administration, as the capital, has better access to public funding.

These Ibu-Ibu were so enthusiastic in the coordination meeting, donning their green kebaya uniforms. Ibu Ani said the best part of volunteering is to hangout with her friends, her squad.

Ibu Ani came from Medan to Jakarta after finishing high school. She wanted to go to medical school, but failed the public universities entrance exam. So, in 1989, she took the ALS bus (interprovinces coach, notorious for aggressive driving). Arrived at Kalideres Bus Terminal. From there the bus driver took her to her uncle’s address in Kebayoran.

She stayed with and worked for her uncle, who was a contractor for the Directorate General of Tax. She would drive around Bekasi-Tangerang area to photograph billboards which have not paid the billboard tax.

Saipul was a neighbour. When he asked her out, through her uncle, Ibu Ani’s first question was ‘Does he have a job?’ 

She did not want her life to be harder.

They dated for a year and got married in 1993. At first they rented a house in Kebon Jeruk. When Saipul’s brother told them the land plots in Citayam were affordable, they used their savings and bought one. Moved there in 1997.

She said it was an easier time, the Suharto Era. ‘Now everything is so expensive.’

When she first lived here, the surroundings were mostly banana plantations. Her neighbours had no septic tank so their blackwater was channelled to the open sewers. She persuaded the neighbours to crowdfund the construction of communal septic tanks and other infrastructures. There was no government support at that time.

Now, there is more government fundings. Ibu Ani’s main role in caregiving the sick locals is helping with the admission process to the hospitals. Many of her neighbours are scared and confused with the daunting administrative tasks.

Ibu Ani helps them with the paperwork, including with the bureaucracy of accessing the public healthcare benefits. She gave a tip: if the patient does not have BPJS or Kartu Indonesia Sehat (KIS), they can apply for social welfare funding from the municipal government.

She pays for her own transport. She often covers the photocopying costs and provides meals for the patient’s family. Sometimes those expenses outspend the incentives she received. However, she believes Allah would return her kindness.

Sometimes, the patient’s family gives her money although she never asks for anything.

Ibu Ani’s charitable acts and activism grant her access to many important people. She knows all the heads of Puskesmas (public clinic), past and present. She owns and runs a clothing shop business. Her activism brings businesses, as many volunteering and local events require ‘uniforms’.

She is influential. Once she intervened in domestic violence. A wife confided in her that her husband physically abused her. She threatened the husband with a formal criminal complaint (she knows the local police). She also advised the wife to listen to her husband when he talks. Their source of disputes: money.

It’s true that the poorer you are the more charitable you’d likely to be. I saw in Bojong Pondok Terong people give money to beggars and buskers–despite the fact that they are also strapped for cash.

They don’t think about how charity alleviates the pain of the working class; how it prevents class consciousness, therefore, the revolution. Or how charity would make people lazy and complacent, therefore preventing the creation of self-reliant and empowered individuals contributing to a society free of freeloaders.

These Marxist and Randian extremes are outliers. A functioning society is something in between. Altruism is not necessarily selfless. We have the interests not just to compete but also to collaborate. 

From the moment I arrived at Citayam Station, I knew you’d need to rely on each other to live in an environment like this. The road can only fit one car. Space is a premium. Most, if almost all, people ride motorcycles. 

I had to receive a call from a client (for my day job as a lawyer). I realised how noisy the neighbourhood is. The mopeds, the chatters, the blaring mosque speakers.

When money is scarce. You negotiate with other social currencies: time, space, and privacy. Your neighbours, your community, are your main safety net. If not careful, you’d give up your individuality. 


For low income families who can’t afford private or even public healthcare, these volunteers are godsend. They are mothers.

As with mothers, they can be overbearing. They would intrude into your lives. 

When a new couple moved in, the locals demanded that they show their marriage certificate. The couple didn’t have one, but insisted they have been married under Sharia law. The husband is a mualaf (a convert). 

The locals can accept non-state sanctioned marriage. But the ‘under-the-hand’ marriage was conducted without the presence of the bride’s father. Therefore, under Sharia Law, the father has not given away his daughter. The legitimacy of their Islamic marriage was questioned. 

The couple admitted that they eloped. Saipul, as Ketua RW then, and Ibu Ani managed to mediate. The father of the wife was invited to the renewal of their marriage ceremony. This time legitimised under the laws of the state too.

Ibu Ani and Saipul took pride that they have ‘cleansed’ the couple’s relationship. They have successfully prevented adultery (in Islamic terms) in their neighbourhood. Many Indonesian muslims believe that adultery will invoke the wrath of Allah on the entire community.

Overbearing, but with good intentions. 

Ibu Ani’s plan for the next 5 years: she hopes to live in Saudi Arabia. Her husband is entering his final years of service before retirement. He will be posted abroad for his last 3 years. Ibu Ani wants to do the Hajj pilgrimages thrice–once each year. 

She finds solace in prayers. She feels close to Allah whenever she prays. She has gone umroh twice. In Mecca, she felt much closer to God.

On worldly matters, she likes watching Western action films when she’s alone. However, Ibu Ani looks the happiest when she’s hanging out with her friends. After organising a monthly immunisation programme, we had lunch together. Those Ibu-ibu fed me with nasi padang for lunch.

It is hard to imagine them in their hijabs as sexual entities, but they are. Some of their jokes directed to me are borderline sexual harrasments.

‘Do you want to drink? Milk, but expired! Hahaha.’

They gossiped about neighbourhood sex scandal. A woman whose husband is paralysed by a stroke had an affair with a hansip (neighbourhood watch). They fucked in the room next where the husband was lying powerless.

‘How cruel the woman was! Her husband must have been so dishonoured for being that impotent.’

The local mob raided the home, beat up the hansip.

Extra-marital affairs are not uncommon in Jakarta. But if you are richer, you can at least do your business at a hotel.

Ibu Ani asked if my wife would question what I am doing. I told her that my wife knows I’m on assignment. I assume her underlying question is whether my wife is jealous or suspicious. In Citayam (like elsewhere), some people mistake love with entanglement. Jealousy is seen as a manifestation of love.

Well fed, she and other cadres used the PA machine–linked with YouTube–for impromptu karaoke. Dangdut songs: love songs with lyrics on heartbreaks, guilt-ridden by the sins of pre- or extra-marital sex; and grassroot financial struggles.

Ibu Ani is not much of a singer. Her singing was off key. Like mine. But karaoke is about having fun with her girls. They apologised for being loud and for disturbing their neighbours’ siesta. Then carried on singing.

If working moms get their dose of social life at their office–and rich Mentari moms at their kids’s [private] international school, these Citayam moms volunteer.

November 21, 2022

Asih Itu Hening: Kerja Kesehatan yang Tak Kasat Mata (Love is Silent: Invisible Health Work)

Arkademy Project x CISDI Documentary Photography Exhibition, 5-16 November 2022 at Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia

Ahoy! It’s my first photography exhibition!

Yes, my day (and night) job is a dispute resolution lawyer. And yes, I am passionate about that—not just to make a living.

I’m human. I’m multifaceted. I am more than one thing, to quote David Whyte’s ‘Istanbul’.

Photography is one of my long-time other passions. While I am not a professional, I am no dilettante. I hope this exhibition serves as evidence to support such claim.

I was paid, ‘on assignment’ arrangement, for my expenses in this documentary photography scholarship. 12 photographers were assigned to cover the stories of health volunteers in Depok, Bekasi, and Bandung. 

These invisible health workers implement the public health policies and initiatives at grass root level: identifying Covid infections in their neighbourhood, assisting underprivileged patients with the paperworks for accessing public healthcare. They are working closely with public clinics and hospitals and local government apparatus.

Observing them and representing them in a visual story have been an exercise of the Good Life. To understand people outside my socio-economic bubble.

October 31, 2022

Bertemu Mahfud Ikhwan

September memberi saya banyak hadiah, antara lain: lensa antik buatan tahun 1958 dan pertemuan dengan salah satu pengarang Indonesia favorit saya. Malam minggu itu, di toko buku independen kesayangan Post Santa, saya nongkrong di pasar (Santa) bersama para kutu buku. Saya menempelkan lensa antik di kamera digital sensor monokrom untuk mengetes sekaligus mendokumentasikan.

Saya berkenalan dengan Cak Mahfud dengan Aku dan Film India Melawan Dunia. Kemudian Dawuk–yang membuat saya ingin membuat novel grafisnya. Lalu Cerita, Bualan, Kebenaran; Belajar Mencintai Kambing.

Cak Mahfud itu, bisa dibilang pengarang ‘one trick pony’. Motif ceritanya selalu kemiskinan di pedesaan Jawa, buruh migran Malaysia, gembala kambing, Musholla, santri, Muhammadiyah dan NU, sepakbola dan film India. Apabila ada [Haruki] Murakami Bingo, seharusnya bisa kita buat Mahfud Bingo. 

Sebagian yang hadir malam itu memiliki kedekatan emosional dengan kehidupan desa di Jawa. ‘Seperti mendengar dongeng eyang.’ 

Namun bagi saya yang berlatar belakang Jakarta, cerita Cak Mahfud juga tetap memukau. Gaya berceritanya Orwellian–jauh dari glorifikasi atau mengibakan kemiskinan–dicampur dengan realisme magis ala Salman Rushdie.

Orangnya mengaku sebagai penulis yang malas, tapi bukunya yang sudah terbit ada 10 (yang saya tahu, 2009-2022; tiga di antaranye menang penghargaan). Sebagaimana pengarang ulung, karakter-karakter rekaannya merupakan tribut yang terinspirasi tokoh nyata. Sebagai pengarang bertanggungjawab, ia melakukan riset keras untuk membangun realisme fiksinya (salah satunya tentang pengangkutan kayu jati di Jawa pada akhir abad ke-19 dan awal abad ke-20). 

Ia juga membatasi diri hanya menceritakan subyek yang dekat dengan dirinya; ia takut meliyankan subyek yang mana ia tidak memiliki kedekatan psikologis.Saat menceritakan soal pengalaman buruh migran di Dawuk, ia sengaja meminjam mulut pembual di warung kopi. Agar pembaca waspada: ini bualan kemplung, jangan dipercaya mentah-mentah. Menghibur, tapi bisa jadi hiperbola.

Sebagai orang yang mencintai seninya, dia patah hati atas kegagalan buku pertamanya Ulid. Edisi pertama bukan saja tidak laku, tapi diterbitkan dengan desain sampul tema Ayat-ayat Cinta. Tapi toh ia tetap menulis; membuat blog tentang film India dan sepak bola, meski tak berharap ada pembaca.

Akhir sesi, kami antri meminta tanda tangan beliau. Meski sudah jam 9 malam, Cak Mahfud masih minum kopi hitam. Post merupakan ruang ber-AC, kalau tidak bisa jadi dirinya merokok sigaret kretek. Di depan mesin tik.

Lulusan Sastra Indonesia yang benar-benar jadi sastrawan. Beberapa orang memanggilnya Dawuk. ‘Padahal saya Warto,’ ujarnya. Saat batas identitas penulis dengan tokoh ciptaannya sudah kabur, di situlah bukti kedigdayaan seorang penulis fiksi.

September 28, 2022

Reuni FHUI 2002: 2022

Dua Dekade FHUI 2002

August 26, 2022

On The Move

Sri Lanka: pre-pandemic and bankruptcy.

I travelled to Sri Lanka in 2018. It was a difficult time for me. While I did not suffer any financial hardship, it was the first time after 11 years of seemingly unstoppable career in private practice I became unemployed.

It was a debilitating experience. In this consumer capitalist society, we take our identity from how we make a living. Our self worth is measured by how productive we are. The main metric is how much money we make.

I clung to my identity as a lawyer like a flotation device. When I had to let it go, I sank. The profession which demanded much of me and given much to me was lost.

I travelled with this hanging anxiety. A blurry sense of self. 

It’s true that you can’t escape your thoughts no matter where you go. At Ella’s Rock, I stepped closer to the edge. I was thinking of jumping. The idea of ending the mental sufferings in beautiful vistas seemed romantic. 

But my self-preservation instinct kicked in despite bouts of nihilism.

Sri Lanka, a Buddhist country, is also a prime centre for meditation retreats. I had been thinking of starting meditation, but at that moment I knew it was urgent to start. Just like a serendipity, I found a copy of Hermann Hesse’s Siddartha in the bookshelf of Highest Peak Bungalow guest house in Nuwara Eliya.

South Asia is photogenic. However, I was not ready to brave the intensity of the second most populated country in the world. A friend recommended Sri Lanka. Smaller in size and population density. 

India Lite. 

The two South Asian countries, being neighbours, have had a rather tense relationship since ancient times. In the Ramayana myth, Lanka is the kingdom of giants. King Ravana kidnapped Queen Sita of Ayodiya (India). His husband, King Rama, waged war to reclaim her.

In modern times, tension between the ‘native’ Sinhaleses and the Tamil minorities–brought by the English colonists to work on tea plantations–is still present. Unlike their Commonwealth peer Singapore, which adopted English as lingua franca, the modern Ceylon insisted on Sinhalese to assert cultural primacy of the majority population.

The Sri Lankan people are not camera shy. In convention with the stereotype of South Asians, they were happy to pose. I may be guilty of voyeuristic exoticism, but I am genuinely interested in my subjects. Their willingness to trust me in recording a piece of their soul is something I do not take for granted. Some of them lend a helping hand to me as a traveller. I try to be a mirror when I am photographing: a magic mirror, reflecting with my sentiency–connecting, sharing a brief moment of shared time space.

I am sure that my subjects have their woes. Most of them are not as well off as me, economically. But in our interactions, we were both happy. Just to smile at each other. Maybe we distract each other’s miseries with our foreignness. 

I read the news that Sri Lanka is bankrupt–the government is bankrupt. The economic collapse led to institutional collapse. I wonder how my subjects are now. I hope they are persevering. 

***

I submitted these Sri Lanka photographs as portofolio for Kelana-PN Prima Documentary Photography Workshop scholarship application. 

Arkademy Project is a photography collective focusing on critical and reflective photography with an interdisciplinary approach. Translation: documentary, street, travel–human interest photography. My kind of genres. 

I browsed their website, the mentors’ portofolio. I knew instantly that I wanted to join their tribe. These are the photographs I am drawn to; the photographs I want to make: not just aesthetically pleasing but also meditations on human experience. 

To be a photographer as an intellectual and an artist.

I only had one day to curate and submit my photo series. I got  the information two days before the deadline (from an Instagram post, sponsored). I was not sure if I’d get the award. I have made entries to photography competitions before. Never successful (rightfully, when I saw the winners). 

I am not a professional photographer, but I am no dilettante. I am always wary of using the word ‘passion’. They have been overused by us, millennials. But I am passionate about photography.

I may not turn this into a profession. I don’t need to make money from it. Maybe I’d progress faster if I choose to make a living from photography. But this financial detachment makes me unencumbered by the ‘market demand’. Of course, I risk being too self indulgent.

I am glad that I decided to stay alive back in Sri Lanka. ‘To live the question’, as Rilke said. The photography scholarship is a tangible answer. 

I have not yet been able to love myself in the way people without a complex PTSD can. I still feel the need to attach an identifier, labels, to myself. I just realised that those labels are not fixed and I can use more than one. I chose identities which are relevant to the situation present. 

I would do photography despite not getting any award. But getting the photography scholarship, an external affirmation and recognition, feels nice.

The impostor syndrome within me asks: ‘Did I get the scholarship because I am good or because the other applicants are bad?’ I did ask how many applicants applied out of the selected 12 photographers: only 50.

However, when life gives you an opportunity you must seize it. It does not matter if the opportunity is a dumb luck.

When I met the other awardees and saw their submissions, I realised how competitive the selection was. I felt more inadequate. Most of them are younger than I yet their photographs show immense depths, which require maturity. 

I knew that I’d learn a lot not just from the mentors, but also from fellow participants. 

The mentors: Yoppie Pieter; Kurniadi Widodo; Ben Laksana and Rara Sekar.

The photographers: Adhi; Zizi; Uloh; Daffa; Erna; Faiijoo; Intan; Jesica; Prima; Reza; and Didi.

August 18, 2022