Sumantri survives hard life by her own devices

By Indrawati

The nation celebrates Women's Day today. Far from heated debates over how much progress women have actually made toward equality, an elderly masseuse in the elite residential area of Menteng in Central Jakarta, tells how she has managed her life, most of it spent alone.

JAKARTA (JP): Ibu Sumantri, a traditional Javanese masseuse, has traveled a serendipitous path from her childhood village on the outskirts of Yogyakarta in Central Java to an inner-city suburb of Jakarta.

She looks about as strong as a sparrow, but Sumantri's tiny frame disguises an unexpectedly powerful masseuse. She makes her own lulur body scrub by blending orange peel, pandan leaves, a kind of tuber called bangkuang and uncooked glutinous rice grains (beras ketan).

Ask her how she became a masseuse, and she will ask in response whether you've got all day to listen. "It could fill the pages of a book," she smiles.

The book would have to include chapters on the single mother, dancer and singer that she was years ago.

"I've had a hard life," she adds, her smile disappearing.

She was born almost 70 years ago, one of eight children.

As a child, she would leave home at 5 a.m. to walk the 14 kilometers to her school, which started at 7 a.m. Later, she traveled by bicycle.

Her father married her off when she was 13 years old in the third grade of elementary school. Her betrothed was teaching grade four.

"I didn't complain," Ibu Sumantri says, "my mother gave birth to her first child at the age of 14."

Her wedding day was blissful. The young schoolgirl was allowed to dress up and wear makeup. People fussed over her and she was bestowed with gifts and money.

"My husband's family handed my parents a dowry of beautiful things -- fine cloth, gold bracelets and sparkling gems," she remembered.

After the ceremony, she stayed with her parents and continued her schooling.

As Ibu Sumantri's father was a railway station chief, earning a relatively high salary, she attended the Hollandisch-Inlandsche School (HIS).

"You could go to HIS if your family's salary was over about Rp 40,000 a month, or if you had an aristocratic (ningrat) title", Sumantri said.

When HIS was changed to the Rakyat Sampoerna school during the Japanese occupation from 1942-1945, Sumantri learned to speak a little Japanese in addition to her native Javanese and schoolgirl Dutch.

"While I studied in my parents' home, my husband became impatient. He took a new wife," Ibu Sumantri continued.

At 20, she moved in with her husband and his second wife. Although she worked as a nurse, she was unhappy.

Escape

She became pregnant and the first child was followed by four more.

Ibu Sumantri separated from her husband when she turned 30.

Ten years later, they were reconciled for a short time, before he took a third wife. This time, she left for good.

After the divorce, Sumantri moved to Jakarta to work and, she says, to escape the hurt of her failed marriage. It was not unusual for women to work separately from their families.

"It all happened a long time ago, but it's still painful for me to think about my marriage."

Her children stayed with her older unmarried brother in Kebumen, Central Java.

"To this day, they are closer to their uncle than to me or their father," Sumantri said.

Sumantri is different from many people, especially in the communal society here, in that she is happiest being left alone.

"I look after myself. I used to get good tips working as a nurse in Jakarta's Cipto hospital and I'd send it to the village. Now, if I earn money from my massage clients, I send it to my grandchildren," she revealed.

Her children all moved from Kebumen to Jakarta, Lombok and Bali. In any case, she doesn't like to rely on her children for help. She believes life is harder these days than when she was young.

"When I was little," she says, "you could live off five coins (ketip) a day. Just yesterday, my daughter's husband, an electrician, was fired from a company in Jakarta. Now, the family has to struggle with three children and no income."

Her perspectives on issues such as the ongoing furor over abortion are tempered by her many experiences.

"I was scared of abortion in those days. People said it was a sin. And many women bled to death. The medicine man (dukun) would mix a potion using ingredients like unripe pineapple, or do a special abdominal massage."

It all comes down to money today, she said.

"Abortions still happen a lot, but only poor people go to the dukun. People who can afford it go to trained professionals. Ten years ago, the cost of an abortion was about Rp 60,000, but today it can be more than Rp 600,000."

Singer

Before Ibu Sumantri studied the art of lulur at the school run by Mustika Ratu, a cosmetics company, she used to perform as a dancer and singer (pesinden) in the Wayang Orang theater in Jakarta.

She has always loved to dance.

"I remember as a child I danced the Javanese bondan dance performed on top of kendi earthenware water pots in the town square to celebrate the wedding of Holland's Princess Juliana.

Although she still chooses to keep a distance from her family, she will never pass up an invitation to a wayang celebration.

"If I get invited to a family gathering, I'll put it off. Sometimes I arrive late, after the party is over," she said.

"But if you invite me to a wayang performance, I'll never say no," she added.

There is seemingly no end to her enthusiasm. "If I'm not content with sitting at the back, I move to the front, and if I'm still not satisfied, I sit with the gamelan players, and if I'm still not happy, I get up and dance myself," Sumantri said.

But she sometimes downplays her youthful spirit with an irreverent wit.

When asked recently to greet guests at a Wayang Bharata performance at Jakarta's Taman Marzuki Ismail, she told the organizers: "You need pretty young women, not an old woman with one foot in the grave".