Land and sky

Sri Mulyanti Goenawan

He never meant to be a bitter man; it was just the circumstances of his life that made him so in the eyes of so many that knew him. His circumstances, unfortunately, were not happy ones, or rather they became unhappy.

His family was sufficiently well off to be able to accommodate him with a good sized area of land to farm. It was to be his inheritance. The rich red soil of the land was fertile and when he came of age to become its owner and manager, it was with pride that he took on the challenge of working the land.

It gave him pride to be able to say that he was a farmer. For him this was a good and honest job. The working day was long and hard, but by the end of each working day a farming man knew that he had done a good day's work.

His farm was productive, too. He managed it well and the years passed quickly and he saw his responsibilities grow from the land to having a wife, on to a first child and then a second and a third. But although pride in the honor of being a farmer kept him busy, he knew that the hard labor of farming could not go on indefinitely.

He knew that it was only right for him to plan ahead for his family to take over the land. He would take a "backseat" role, overseeing things and offering his advice where appropriate. In his mind he began to figure out how he would pass on the great duty of care and honor of the land to his son.

But then circumstances overtook him and soon the cloud of bitterness would settle over him and become so very hard to clear away.

His land, you see, was close to the airport; the ever growing airport. Years ago, nobody would have really thought of this land as being important to the capital city -- it seemed so far away from the center. But expansion makes demands and soon it reached out to him.

The airport was growing. More, bigger planes would need to be accommodated. It meant that more land was needed and soon enough the authorities were visiting him to tell him what must happen.

That was the truth of his situation and it was "what must happen"; he had no choice in the matter. The authorities had made their decision and it was to be his land that they would claim. They gave him compensation but it did him no good. It was his land and they were taking it away from him. He could not deny them, they were too powerful.

The money from the compensation went in two directions. He set up a new business -- a grocery store -- and his children were guaranteed an education, perhaps better than they could have expected before. But this seemed to be no compensation for him. For he expected his children to take over the land from him and continue his farming tradition, but now that dream was lost.

The business of running a store failed to bring him the satisfaction he had previously known. The feeling of a good day's work done became a fading memory. He still worked long hours but he was only selling someone else's produce. He felt like some shuffling middle-man in comparison to the proud land owner of before.

His store was located not too far from what once was his farmland but now was consumed by the barren no-man's land of the airport's massive land grab. The planes flew in and out, the noise of their immense engines filling his head with anger and bitterness.

Sometimes people at his store would not be able to hear each other talk as the giant engines roared above. But people did not need to hear what he was saying at these times. They knew only too well that he was cursing the planes, the skies and the airport that had all come to take his land.

While he suffered because of the airport, his son benefited. The compensation saw him through high school and college, and his technical skill and knowledge guaranteed that he would seek a career beyond the confines of the village or the store that his father ran.

But when his choice of career became clear it fostered even greater embitterment to his father and to the family. To become an airline pilot seemed a great opportunity to him, but to his father it was a terrible, insensitive irony. As a father he tried to keep his misgivings and grievances to himself when it came to thinking of his son. He wanted opportunities for his son despite his bitterness.

With what was bitter resignation for him, as a good father he accepted his son's wishes. He knew that he could not blame his son for what had happened and that his son's choice would mean better things for him than he could now offer as his father.

He saw his duty to be supportive of his son. He also knew that he was from a different generation to his, and the way they viewed the land. His son's generation wanted to "take to the skies", to see the world and to look upon different lands from different skies.

His resignation to accept what his son wanted and indeed went on to achieve was a lasting testimony to his strength and depth of character. He refused to let his own bitterness get in the way of his future. But his bitterness over the loss of his land is what took him to an early grave.

Thousands upon thousands of people fly to and from the airport these days. His son is one of them, flying over what once was his father's land. Few of those thousands of people will ever know of a small but proud farmer whose land was consumed by the sprawling airport, but one proud pilot always remembers.

He carries with him a faded, grainy photograph of a strong and proud man standing with his farm laborers in his fields. He remembers the land but looks to the skies for his living and the future of his children. For time, the land and the skies move on.