Multitalented Remy takes pick of artistic avenues

David Kennedy, Contributor, Jakarta, d_kenn@yahoo.com

Remy Sylado does not stay in one place for long -- that is, unless he is acting, writing or painting there. Depending on what he is doing, he divides his time between Bandung, Bogor and Jakarta.

Better known for his novels and essays and as an actor, the 58-year-old South Sulawesi-born artist recently displayed his paintings at an exhibition at a five-star hotel in Jakarta.

For those familiar with his novels like Cau Bau Kan (1991) and Kerudung Merah Kirmizi (Kirmizi Red Headscarf), which won him the 2002 Khatulistiwa literary award, the themes of his paintings come as little surprise.

Women tend to take center stage in Remy's work. The titles of his paintings -- Moulin Rouge, Biru di Boulevard de Clichy (Blue at Boulevard de Clichy) and Kasih Ibu (Mother's Love) -- as well as their female subjects -- holding children or caught in vulnerable poses, evoke the words of his award-winning novels dealing with the many roles women play in society, "mistress- woman-lady-wife-female-mother".

The number of words in Indonesian related to women is significant in his view.

"In the Indonesian language, the fact that there are so many terms used to describe women and associated with women is, I believe, a mark of respect," he said.

"We do not use the word 'Bapak' (father) in the same way as 'Ibu' (mother, woman). We do not say 'fatherland', we say 'motherland', our capital city is our Ibu Kota meaning 'mother city' and," he said, pointing at his thumb, "we call this Ibu Jari".

A religious aspect is apparent in Remy's paintings of mother and child, hardly surprising given that his father was a Baptist priest and his mother a theologian.

In fact, a career in the priesthood could have been in store for him as he studied theology in Semarang, Central Java, in the early 1960s, where he said he "learned how to preach".

At that time he traveled regularly to the Central Java town of Surakarta and followed courses in art and theater, incorporating the oratory and musical skills from theology school in his repertoire. At 18 years of age, he was active in drama groups, a musical band and had begun to write novels which he admits were not very good.

Following graduation, Remy went on to work as a reporter for Harian Tempo daily in Semarang and as editor for the music magazine Actual from 1972 to 1975, continuing to write novels. Today he estimates the number of books he has written at over 60, not counting plays.

While lesser writers would shudder at the thought of producing a story every five days, serializing books in daily newspapers is Remy's preferred approach to writing novels.

"Writing is like an obligation for me. I want to tell a lot so that's why I don't write short stories. With novels I can tell a lot about my thoughts, my philosophy," he said, adding that his current novel, called San Po Kong, serialized in a daily newspaper in Semarang, has run to over 1,000 pages.

However, when you see from where his inspiration comes you being to understand why his novels need to be long.

"I love to go to archive centers in Indonesia and abroad. This is how I do my research," he said.

The use of firsthand archival material gives Remy's novels a very thoroughly researched feel and it allows him to reveal new perspectives on the past.

His latest published novel, Parijs Van Java (the name the Dutch gave to Bandung), originally serialized by Koran Tempo daily, is set in Bandung in the 1920s and tells the story of Dutch colonialism through the lives of a fictional young Dutch couple.

"In the era of Dutch colonial rule, Jakarta was the seat of the Governor General but all the colonial departments were in Bandung, making it the second city with a big European community," he explained. "This led to the development of a major prostitute community. That's what I wanted to uncover and investigate and it proved very interesting."

An evil Dutch character in the novel wants to turn Bandung into a red-light city and many of the colonialists in the novel are decadent individuals, although by no means all of them. Some of the characters want to give Indonesia back to the Indonesians, and this is another aspect of history that Remy wanted to highlight with this novel -- that colonialism was not "black and white".

Nonetheless, the novel suggests the corruption inherent in colonial society played a key role in the subsequent development of the country.

"Formally the VOC (Dutch East Indies Company) was a trading company so why was it staffed by soldiers who worked as businessmen and governed the territory at the same time? This meant that corruption was inevitable," said Remy.

In his previous award-winning novel Kerudung Merah Kirmizi, set in the period immediately following the fall of president Soeharto's New Order government, Remy dealt with the chaos of Jakarta which he suggested had become almost ungovernable due to the gulf between the poor and the elites. It was, he said, a metro-kesetanan (a demonic city).

Remy delights in revealing unexpected historical anecdotes he has gleaned from the archives.

"Do you know why we call the mobile vendors kaki lima (five legs)?" he said with a grin.

While the popular explanation is that the stalls have three legs and the vendor two, he explained that in fact the real reason is because the colonial authorities authorized the dealers to sell their goods from five feet away from the shops.

"The kaki lima vendors paid a tax or retribusi to the local government so it was very difficult to move them on from the sidewalk," he said, adding that in the post-New Order period rules of this kind, if they were still applied at all, were no longer in effect leading him to conclude that Jakarta had become a metro-kesetanan instead of a metropolitan city.

Given that Remy has just finished acting in a film for television about drug abuse, is preparing another art exhibition later this month at the Theological Academy of Jakarta (where he also teaches) and is writing a new novel and preparing a musical play for the New Year, one wonders where he finds time any time to sleep.

When asked how he fits everything in he laughs.

"I sleep very little, from one to four in the morning," he said. "That's enough!"