1. MATI, 2 cols, 25 counts
1. MATI, 2 cols, 25 counts
Why can it be so difficult for local leaders to die?
When former president Soeharto was admitted to the Pertamina Hospital in Central Jakarta last December, people speculated that he could be about to die. The fact is the 78-year-old man managed to survive and was released from the hospital after intensive treatment.
People then linked his physical condition with a Javanese belief that such a person must be in the Sumlanggoro and Sumlanggem conditions, meaning the difficulty for a person to die because he possesses extraordinary mystical energy or strength acquired during his lifetime (called Joyokawijayan in the Javanese language).
Such a person must be fully aware that the powers in his possession will become a pepalang (obstacle) to his death though the physical condition no longer supports life.
This opinion was recently revealed by a Javanese cultural observer, Suryanto Sastroatmadja, to The Jakarta Post. He said a person who experiences great difficulty in dying at his old age is suspected to have some unfinished business in his life.
"But it's also possible that such a person has some secret mystical powers, which creates an obstruction for him to meet his death."
In the traditional Javanese belief, there are five elements that could make a person's death difficult.
First, in the case of a person who feels guilty for committing numerous sins in his life, it is called Pantirasianta, literally meaning the home of imprisoned emotions. This applies to everyone, from the common people up to the high-ranking leaders. Normally a huge number of problems reside inside such a person.
Second is Andayupanti, meaning to create superiority through various sacrifices, including searching for mystical powers to enrich oneself or to enhance one's physical prowess.
The person is less aware that the accumulation of these powers will weaken him against external energy. For example, when he is attacked with black magic sent by another person, he would not be able to resist but could only attempt to hold out and retain his physical self.
The third element is Wicaksagriya or Wicaksangriya, referring to an old person who cannot experience a simple death. Instead, he must go through a painful process. This could be caused as his early life was lived far from virtiously.
It also applies to those searching for mystical powers in faraway places to cover up their economic shortcomings in their youth. This kind of small-mindedness prevents them from positive interaction in the society and later creates difficulties for them in the face of death.
2. TOILET, 1 line, 35 counts
Indian toilet museum lifts the lid
NEW DELHI, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Forget the grand parliament building in New Delhi. Or even the majestic 17th century Red Fort in the Indian capital.
One of the must-see stops on the list of many tourists to the ancient city dotted with fabulous historical monuments is an unusual little building tucked away at a far end of Delhi: a toilet museum.
Toilets may have been the butt of many jokes for years, but the museum has taken the once taboo subject out of the water closet and made it an object of tourist curiosity. It also strives to make a serious point about the dignity of the poor.
The Sulabh International Museum of Toilets tracks the history of toilets from the basic burnt brick drains in India in 2,500 BC and the chamber pots of the Middle Ages to the high-tech waste disposal gadgets in submarines and spacecraft today.
The museum helps lift the lid on the world of toilets through an inventive use of photographs, copies of old loos as well as trivia on toilet humour, technology and etiquette through the years.
"We get about 500 visitors every month during the tourist season from November to January," Madhu Singh, spokeswoman for Sulabh International, told Reuters. "Most of them are drawn by the unusualness of the subject."
But the museum has a serious purpose. It is part of a wider effort by a non-governmental organisation, Sulabh International Social Service Organisation, to set up a string of public toilets across the country where many of the over one billion people still relieve themselves on roadsides and behind bushes.
Sulabh -- Hindi for convenient -- has built over 650,000 toilets used by about 10 million people every day and has also designed a mobile toilet which is used for huge gatherings such as last year's Hindu festival in the holy north Indian city of Allahabad attended by millions.
3. TOBACO, 2 lines, 27 counts
Tobacco may be good for you as food supplement
MANILA, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Forget for a moment that this plant is blamed for millions of deaths every year. If the Philippine government gets its way, tobacco -- held responsible for a variety of ills including cancer, emphysema and birth defects -- will soon be turned into food supplements, antibiotic ointments and skin creams. Building materials, paints, pesticides and paper are also on the way. Independent testing and approval for sale are still pending, but the Philippines is hoping the alternative products will supplement a farming sector set to suffer as evidence mounts about the harmful effects of smoking. "The phase-out (of tobacco) may be implemented slowly, but it will still have an effect" on farmers, said Carlitos Encarnacion, head of the government's National Tobacco Administration. The country's 62,000 tobacco farmers are better off than those farming other crops because demand is up -- smoking in the Philippines is still increasing by two percent a year, Encarnacion said. But fears that an international anti-smoking campaign would drive the crop toward obsolescence prompted the government to re-think its tobacco research in the mid-1990s. Government testing soon found the plant's seeds, stalks and roots -- not just the leaves people smoke -- could be used for a wide variety of uses.