A journey to self-discovery through verse

A journey to self-discovery through verse

Lie Hua, Contributor, Jakarta

The Rites of the Bali Aga;
By Sitor Situmorang;
With Introduction + Epilog by Harry Aveling;
Metafor, Jakarta, 2001;
xix + 55 pages;
Rp 65,000.

In late 2001, Metafor brought out a collection of poems by Sitor
Situmorang, one of Indonesia's foremost modern poets. This
collection, The Rites of the Bali Aga, is interesting in that it
contains poems that Sitor wrote in English. (Many of his poems
have been translated into English and some other major foreign
languages).

The poems in this collection were written in late 1978, two
years after he was released from prison, where he spent eight
years for alleged involvement in the bloody coup attempt on Sept.
30, 1965, which was blamed on the now defunct Indonesian
Communist Party.

In the 1950s Sitor was regarded as a very gifted Indonesian
lyric poet much influenced by existensialism. The period he spent
behind bars -- without ever being tried in a court of justice
and barred from reading, writing or meeting anybody -- gave him
ample time to ponder his own existence and as, he admitted,
allowed him to be reborn as a mystic.

So, when he finally could set foot on the beach of the Island
of the Gods, Bali, it was like a pilgrimage for a newborn man.
Bali was then, to him, like a spiritual river in which he could
bathe, purifying himself as a new man. By chance, he found
himself among a group of hippies, who were in Bali to celebrate
their freedom on this island.

Living with these hippies, Sitor talked in their language and
shared their rites in practicing a free life. On the way back to
Jakarta, while on the bus or on the train, Sitor kept on writing,
like in a trance, poems in English, the language he spoke with
the hippies while in Bali.

It is apt to say, therefore, that the poems in this
collection embody Sitor's deep wish to see his own existence
relived in freedom. The dark days in prison were over, his
contemplation was over. He found himself still sane and would
celebrate this freedom in the way hippies celebrated their
newfound freedom in Bali.

In The Image, the opening poem, he writes: Out of the cage
of matter/gulping in/ the image you left/ in my void/ I sing./
It was this feeling that he had while in prison: he was deep
inside a cage of matter and he sang in his void. What did Sitor
sing? He sang of his own existence. In the dark cell, he sang his
own existence and kept himself sane.

The second poem in the collection, The Island, shows his
great respect of the sea, which he says, is "the abode of days,
moons and centuries". The island of Bali and the sea around it
bear the footprints of approaching century. The sea and the
island are like book without alphabet. How can you read the book
if there is no alphabet? So, the sea and the island remain
mysterious, just like a book without alphabet.

The title poem, The Rites of the Bali Aga, dwells on the lives
of the original Balinese, now making up only 2 percent to 3
percent of the Balinese population. They are believed to be
custodians of early Hindu practices in Bali. So, when Sitor
writes about the rites of the Bali Aga, he actually writes about
his own spiritual journey, which may be likened to a rite
performed by the Bali Aga people.
qIt is in this spiritual journey that Sitor has finally come to
terms to his own life and his search for existence. He writes:
/Where we will rest/bride and bridegroom/in one/ a body of sheer
light/heatless/colorless/soundless.// a formless vessel/of beauty
and/truth/beyond delight

When he has given himself to the universe and rest like a
bride and a bridegroom, he will find beauty and truth beyond
delight. This is the ultimate goal of his search for his own
existence. To be at one with the universe must be the greatest
mystic experience that anybody can have and Sitor has beautifully
described the process of this union in this long poem.

Clearly, he identifies himself with the Bali Aga people in
approaching the cosmic universe. While the Bali Aga perform their
rites to maintain their survival, Sitor survives because he
mentally went through a similar rite while spending eight dark
years in what he calls a "submarine block".

He has finally transcended his own ego and united himself
with nature and the universe. This is quite an achievement for
existentialist Sitor. He has found existence beyond existence --
the existence of the universe as a whole.

The other two poems in this collection, To My Friends on
Legian Beach and The Beach describe the happiness that Sitor
cherishes as a free man. He has been born again, a new man with
full realization of his own existence.

The poems in this collection differ from most of his poems
in Indonesian in that here the poems are made up of lines
containing only a few syllables, generally ranging from two to
five syllables. The effect is that while his Indonesian poems
can be read melodiously because of longer syllables, his
originally English poems read like a prayer.

At first reading you will get the impression of monotony but
after some time you will realize the beauty of this monotony.
This repetition reminds you of the repetition that you observe
every day: birds in the morning, breathing, the moon at night,
the sun at daybreak -- everything is repeated in this universe.
They come and go.

It is this monotony that finally gives you a feeling of
peacefulness and it is here that Sitor has successfully captured
the essence of existence.