Sound of giant gong anticipated by all
By Ahmad Solikhan
JAKARTA (JP): Although Trimanto Wiguna is not a detective novelist, he is just as apt at creating suspense.
The 70-year-old man from the Central Java ancient city of Surakarta has stirred quite a sensation with a gong he created. The big deal is its unusual size: almost six meters in diameter. It weighs 3,000 kilograms.
The giant brass musical instrument is now hanging in Jakarta's Ancol Dreamland and will be struck at midnight when we enter the third millennium. The suspense is about how the gong will sound because it has never been tested in public. Will it make the whole of Jakarta tremble because of its size? How big is the stick to beat it and who will strike it?
The gong is believed to be the world's largest and Jaya Suprana, owner of the Semarang-based Jamu Jago herbal medicine giant, wants to enter it in his Indonesian Records Museum, the local version of the Guinness Book of Records.
The brass used to make the gong was imported from Germany. It took 20 blacksmiths two months to make.
Trimanto, a father of eight, cannot tell how much it cost to make the huge gong.
He said the idea to make such a large gong came to him in the 1970s but he could not realize his dream until this year due to a lack of funds. The project started in September when PT Jaya Ancol in Jakarta placed an order for a big gong.
Trimanto accepted the order right away because what counted was the availability of the funds.
"My dream to create a giant gong has come true at last," he said, beaming with pride.
But he will not be content to hear only the sound of the gong when the clock strikes 12 on New Year's Eve. He also intends to feature another 15 bedug (drum) with sizes ranging from 40 cm to 200 cm in diameter. The gong and the drums will be played simultaneously.
Trimanto employed the help of 12 people who took one month to make the drums and arrange them in a sturdy wooden structure. He said he found it difficult to find oxen leather to make the drums.
"I spent about Rp 17.5 million to make all the bedug," said Trimanto, owner of CV Pradangga Yasa, a gamelan maker.
He said the sound of gong and drums at the turn of the millennium would symbolize the hope for a harmonious Indonesia. Indonesia can become a prosperous and democratic nation only if peace prevails, he said.
Trimanto, the third child of eight, decided to become a gamelan empu (specialist) when he was under heavy financial hardship.
His profession as a senior high school teacher from 1952 to 1976 in Yogyakarta was not financially rewarding enough to make a good living. He then entered the provincial bureaucracy in charge of arts before he became a teacher at the Indonesian Arts Institute in Yogyakarta in 1980.
But his fortune did not change for the better. To make ends meet, he moonlighted by making toy gamelan instruments which he hawked on Jl. Malioboro after office hours. He was surprised that the toys sold like hotcakes. Then he decided to make real gamelan instruments.
Trimanto is probably the most successful gamelan maker in Yogyakarta. Many of his works are collected by gamelan lovers in many countries.