Madurese couple find happines in a cave

Alpha Savitri, Contributor, Surabaya

When they decided to move from one of their cozy houses to a cave on Madura island, the Radjabs were called the "weirdest family of the millennium".

A wealthy business family living in a cave? R. Eddy Radjab, 45, and his wife RA. Imaniar, 43, meant it. They left behind over a dozen houses in Madura and moved into their new home.

In Sumenep, a large town on Madura, Eddy Radjab is quite famous not only as a member of the Pamekasan nobility, but also as a successful distributor of salt. His customers come from Madura, Java and Bali. He also exports salt.

The father of two started his business in the mid-1970s in a traditional market in Madura.

The riches the nobleman earned from his hard work with Imaniar, however, did not stop the family from deciding two years ago to live in seclusion in a cave, away from hectic daily life.

Radjab is aware people see his decision as "weird".

"But everybody is free to decide what's best for themselves, right?"

Despite his withdrawal to a cave, the businessman is not totally cut off from the world. He continues to direct his business, which remains robust.

The cave that the Radjabs live in lies near a Chinese cemetery in Pemolokan village, Sumenep. It is beneath a barren hill, with passageways branching out in all directions. From the nearby roads, the cave is not visible.

Radjab built a stairway near the cave's entrance leading to a room that serves as a porch for guests.

Two other jagged holes in the room connect the porch with other areas of the cave, which has been turned from scary darkness into congenial comfort. Jagged cave walls are painted white, green, blue and other colors, and the floor has been tiled. Power reaches the cave from the nearest village, so there are lights. And water is available from a natural source.

The cave has a fully furnished living room and the bedroom is equipped with spring beds and a wardrobe. Currently under construction is a worship room, a swimming pool, a garden and a place for meditation.

The cave is very special. It is probably the largest cave in Sumenep, maybe even Madura, as claimed by foreign researchers who visited it recently.

Radjab says he has explored some of the passageways but has been unable to trace all of them because there are too many. Seven kilometers to the south is Astatinggi, the tomb of the Sumenep kings, three kilometers to the north is the lower part of Sumenep regency, and a dozen kilometers to the west is the sea.

Explaining the reason he moved to the cave, Radjab recalls that until 1997, he and his wife could not live peacefully in spite of their abundant wealth. "Something seemed to be lacking in our lives."

One night in the middle of 1997, he saw a 100-year-old woman in his dream. Looking very unkempt, she invited him to take a walk and showed him a cave to live in. The Madurese traditionally believe that such dreams mean imminent death.

Apprehensive, Radjab avoided meals and had sleepless nights. "I was so afraid of death. I had small children and wondered who would support them," he says.

This prompted him to perform more religious duties and apologize to everybody he met.

"I left my business to my wife to handle," says Radjab, adding that he also drew up a will. Yet he did not die. Two months later, his wife had the same dream.

"We thought we would die together," he says. But when nothing happened, they forgot the dreams.

When they went on an outing with their two children in 1997 to Payudan Cave in Sumenep, the couple saw an old woman whom they believed was the woman from their dreams. They began to think that the cave the woman had shown them really existed.

"We still remembered what it looked like so we began looking for it," says Radjab.

They visited different caves in Madura but none resembled the one from their dreams. "We were in despair. Nothing was found in three years. But strangely, the urge to live in a cave grew stronger."

One day, their youngest child, Hendri Wijayanti Sugama Putri, 15, who attended a junior high school in Pamolokan, told them about a cave near her school that could not be seen from the outside. Imaniar and her daughter found it covered by garbage and shrubs.

Imaniar tried to make her way through the bushes but was warned by a garbageman that there were snakes in the cave. She ignored the warning and cleared the cave entrance with her foot. When the cave was lit up by the sun, she saw that it was the one from the dream.

The next morning, Imaniar and Radjab went into the cave, carrying flashlights. "It's hard to believe that this cave is indeed what the woman meant," said Imaniar.

Radjab was able to buy a hectare of land where the cave is located from two local residents in 2000.

"We feel at home here. Our children are in Sumenep. We're peaceful now, only the two of us here. It's like a honeymoon every day," Radjab says.