MY WORDS, HER WORDS
I have this yen to be a writer.Chemical Engineering student as I am, and yet I love (so much, so much!) to write.
I feel my powerlessness all too well, Stella. Everybody would burst out laughing if they could look over my shoulder and read this little sheet of paper. What a crazy idea of mine, right? I, who do not know anything, has learned nothing, and yet would venture on a literary career? Still, even if you also laughed at me, and I know you don’t, I will never give up the idea. It is indeed a desperate undertaking, but “nothing ventured, nothing gained” is my motto. Forward! Let’s dare to do and try! Three-fourths of the world belongs to the bold.
Indeed that is what I feel. That is the plea of my soul.
Only, those words are not mine.
I was robbed of the personal satisfaction of my original thoughts when I –far too soon after- came across the letter Kartini wrote some a hundred and six years past.
They were her words that I wrote above (*1). I was amazed-, stunned-, utterly captivated to find out that Kartini knew my soul. We spoke the same language! (Hey, we could even start a club! ;p)
Suddenly it dawned on me that Kartini was more than a portrait of a chubby lady (that, thanks to the mastery –or folly?- of some artist, seemed so patronizingly old). A toddler I was, and that was my earliest recollection of her as yet. Kartini; one among so few of our heroines to walk along the hall of honorable fame (*2). With her pictures hanging on the walls of my elementary classes. Still, dead, neglected.
But she did live. Once she was full of life. She laughed and bounced and hoped and risked and feared and suffered. She dreamt, she struggled, she loved. Oh yes, Kartini lived bravely.
Yet “brave” is too feeble an expression for her. As she continuingly attempted to uplift the ‘civilization’ of the natives (women in particular) in this occupied land, she was completely ignorant to any restrictions, any barriers, any groundless conservative rules. It was utterly a rebellion. Hand in hand with her two sisters, they excluded their selves from ‘the common’ and jumped down without a safety net.
“Poor fools,” I hear you say, “just the three of you want to shake that gigantic structure and tear it down.” Yes, we will shake it, with all our strength, and even if only one stone falls down, we shall not have worked in vain.
Her dream was vast and her fire burned vehemently inside.
I want to go further, still further. I wanted to be free, to be allowed or to be able to make myself independent, not to be beholden to any one, and above all, never to be obligated to marry.
That she finally wedded at the age of 23 was a bitter compromise. It was not that she hated men; she just loved her dream of uplifting native women all too well, and she knew perfectly that marriage in Javanese culture would only mean an even tighter cage to keep her imprisoned. She tried to run from that uninviting future with all her might (*3). But her affection to her dear, ill father clouded all reasons. She finally gave up and found herself stepping into matrimony.
She gave up, yes, but of her dreams she never let go.
Like all creatures of flesh and blood, Kartini died. She passed away at the age of 24; a married lady and a mother of 4-days-old baby boy. She never did set her foot in Europe as she yearned, not did she taste those education and knowledge she longed for all her life. The struggle left unfinished. Life was a brief candle to her.
Perhaps the only reason of her sufferings was that her thoughts were far too advanced for the Age she was living in. This she realized as well.
There will come a change throughout our native world; the turning point is foreordained; but when will it be? .. My friends here say that we’d be smart if we slept for a hundred years or so, and when we woke up, the time would be just right for us..
Kartini must envy me for living in the Age she longed for. On the contrary, I can’t help envying her for all she had. Were she to live now, undoubtedly she would make every “modern, emancipated girl” hide their faces in shame.
Kartini was an idyll. Not just that she was wise enough to understand the philosophies of life, smart enough to construct thoughts and ideas that were way beyond the Age, and eloquent enough to convey them in at least 3 foreign languages. She was also privileged with the abundance of talents: an excellent writer, a notable painter (*4), an expert in Batik (*5), a brilliant cook (*6), and all these with the mastery of house-hold works. And yes, she had a pretty face with bright, dazzling eyes.
Out of them all, writing was one thing she always held dear.
I draw and I paint too, but I’m far more attracted to the pen than to the brush..
..then I shall try, by means of my pen, to arouse the interest of those who are able to help us to improve the lot of Javanese women.
There we share something in common. Writing has been the jewel of my life, too. So often I have thought about daring to really work on my writings, despite all these limitations. So often I harbored at the realization that I would (should, could) break the chains and take this road less traveled by(*7).
But Kartini and I are two different ladies. I would keep alight that little spark deep within my soul, the spark she poured down as letters on pieces of paper long ago, as it has always been a part of me. Even so, I have the least intention to follow her every path just out of respect. No. Each of us should be the child of our own era.
To me is my world. As she had hers.
And to me, my words. As she immortalized hers.
-Eloque, April 20, 2005. A tribute to Kartini.
(Among all her words, the quotation written in the beginning of this article remains my favorite.. coz it bounds me to her with an invisible string of the love of words. It was a sweet coincidence for me to figure out that those words were written on Nov 6, 1899. Precisely on the same date, 82 years after, I was born. It was nothing, of course, but the coincidence pleased me warmly.)
Note:
*1: A letter to Stella Zeehandelaar, Nov 6, 1889.
*2: It sounds silly now, that in not-so-old days children were encouraged to worship the ground that these heroes/heroines walked on without really comprehending why. Lack of personal, realistic touch in the reproduction of History depicted them as some sort of mythical creatures on the same league as Achilles and Hercules. What a shame.
*3: The fact that she went to matrimony at 23, whereas Javanese girls were supposed to marry at 15, was quite something.
*4: She drew in pencil and painted in both charcoal and oil. And I’m telling you, she was good!
*5: She wrote a book about batik, she innovated new motives, and furthermore she hand-painted and sewed her own batik clothes.
*6: She was that good at cooking that she once said if she had been cast aside in Holland, she would not have worried because she could always be a kitchen maid.
*7: The term “the road less traveled by” came from a beautiful poetry of Robert Frost’s.
Further reading:
There are already piles of biographies on Kartini available in stores, but I’d like to recommend “Panggil Aku Kartini Saja” by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. A superb work. And it must be beneficial (if not crucial) to peep into “Habis Gelap Terbitlah Terang” –Indonesian ed., “Raden Adjeng Kartini, Letters of A Javanese Princess” –English ed. (trans. Agnes Symmers), or “Door Duisternis tot Licht” –original ed. in Dutch, an anthology of her letters to a few Dutch friends compiled by Mr. Abendanon.
posted by eloque @ 1:52 AM
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