Letter writer Gandhi Sukardi wins award

Letter writer Gandhi Sukardi wins award

JAKARTA (JP): How does one feel on entering the record books
of the Indonesian Museum of Records (MURI), and having the well-
known Jaya Suprana ceremoniously hand an award plaque to you in
front of your proud family, close friends and a media contingent?

"Appreciated and very grateful," said Gandhi Sukardi, the
happy honoree, during a ceremony on Aug. 22 at the Grand Mahakam
Hotel in Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta.

Sukardi, the inveterate letter writer to The Jakarta Post,
clocked up 180 published letters in two years and eight months.
His letters ranged as wide as the ocean in topic and were as
diverse as the colors of the rainbow. Hardly anything topical
eluded Sukardi's attention and pen. Yet the letter Sukardi deems
the most important is also the most significant in the symbolic
sense: his first.

Titled Press freedom, it was published almost three years ago
to the day on Aug. 21, 1997. It appeared shortly after The
Jakarta Post was taken to task for publishing an article
describing a crash involving an aircraft produced by IPTN
(Nusantara Aircraft Industry), which is now called Indonesian
Aerospace. In short, the paper was sued by the powerful
manufacturer.

Sukardi was outraged and expressed his anger in his letter. He
launched a daring attack on those responsible for the lawsuit,
and appealed to the management of this paper not to capitulate.
Most controversial of all, he ended his letter by saying that for
the sake of the growth of a "free and responsible press", he was
willing to personally serve any jail sentence ordered by the
court.

If anyone at IPTN became hot under the collar after reading
this letter it was never revealed. And knowing Gandhi Sukardi,
neither would he have cared.

Sukardi has always liked challenge in his life. When working
for Antara, the national news agency, he was called and
reprimanded by his superiors a number of times, but nothing
dampened his spirit. He still spoke out in the face of what he
saw as injustice and inequity.

"At Antara, because of my English language proficiency, I soon
became the head of the English department," Sukardi recalled.

He inherited his love of writing from his father, Didi
Sukardi. The elder Sukardi, a nationalist activist, founded in
1926 the newspaper Utusan Indonesia in Yogyakarta.

As for nationalistic fervor, Sukardi claims one of his sons,
former Cabinet minister Laksamana Sukardi, inherited this trait
from his grandfather.

"Laks and I are very different in temperament. He is very
measured, I am impulsive. While Laks considers carefully before
saying anything, I shoot from the hip. I like to incite and
provoke. If I make mistakes, I am happy to apologize. People say
I am more of an entertainer."

He was in fact quite entertaining in his speech, publicly
thanking the gathering and drawing as much laughter as Jaya
Suprana. His now famous letters, while serious in content, have a
lot of humor in them. He has a stable of regular readers, one of
whom, according to the Post's editor in chief, is no less than
U.S. Ambassador Robert Gelbart.

Sukardi's flair for words is even evident in the names he gave
his children. He named his first son Samudera (ocean), so that he
would have a mind as broad as the ocean. When a second son was
born, he and his wife wanted to make sure the two children would
play well together, so he named him Laksamana (admiral). The
third son was born in Vienna (or Wina -- as Indonesians call it),
so he was named Wina Armada, still very much naval.

Only when the fourth son arrived did he look up from the ocean
toward the sky, naming the child Cakrawala (horizon). By the time
the fifth son was born, Sukardi's was thinking of time slipping
past so quickly, so the baby was named Pancawaktu. After that the
couple finally got a daughter. Sukardi's romantic flair, combined
with his propensity to look at the universe, led him to name his
daughter Pelangi (rainbow).

Sadly, Pelangi only lived for three and a half years. Some
friends believed it was all in the name -- rainbows are beautiful
but never stay very long.

When Sukardi and his wife were blessed with another son, his
sight had returned to earth, so he called him Marcapada (Earth).

Sukardi is now retired, but only from his job. Nothing can
suppress the writer in him. Apart from the letters to the Post,
which he fully intends to continue producing, Sukardi also writes
a regular column for an economic magazine, Capital. Here his
writing is much more serious in content.

"Now that I am an award-winning writer," he joked, "I have
asked the editor of the magazine to increase my honorarium." The
last part was no joke, because he did get a promise of a raise.
(Dewi Anggraeni)