The fruitful life of Ramadhan K.H.

Lie Hua, Contributor, Jakarta

Ramadhan K.H. Tiga Perempat Abad (Ramadhan K.H.: Seventy Five Years); Ajip Rosidi, Ahmad Rivai, Hawe Setiawan; Pustaka Jaya, Jakarta, 2002; 279 pp.

While poet, novelist and biographer Ramadhan K.H. may not be as famous as his son Gilang Ramadhan, who is one of Indonesia's best drummers today, he has written works that, though lacking the shining luster of popularity usually associated with famous books, remains important to those who love Indonesian literature.

As a poet, the poems in his collection, Priangan the Beautiful have earned him heaps of praise. They are considered some of the most lyrical poems in Indonesian literature, comparable to the poems of Sitor Situmorang or Sapardi Djoko Damono.

With simple words, he successfully describes the beauty of West Java and its pretty girls in the way Lorca wrote his inspiring ballads of Spanish life (Ramadhan has translated Lorca's poems and admits he has been much influenced by Lorca's lyrical ballads). This collection has been translated into English, French, German, Russian and Japanese.

Ramadhan has also written several novels, all depicting the bitterness and hypocrisy of life. He once said that the events he described in his novels, such as Post-Revolution Ailment, Permi nus Field and The Permanas, were real with changes only in the names of the characters. As he used to work for Antara News Agency, his novels reveal an eye for detail, which he developed as a reporter, graphically depicting how collusion and corruption take place in our country.

Another literary genre that Ramadhan has dealt with is the biography. He has written biographies of Soekarno's first wife, Ibu Inggit, Soeharto, Soemitro, Ali Sadikin, Agus Sudono, Gobel and Kemal Idris. With his literary competence, he has written the life history of important people in such a way that they are like novels, making these biographies interesting to read. There is a literary touch to the biographies that he has written.

As he is well-versed in French, Spanish, English, German and Dutch, Ramadhan has also translated quite a few literary works from these languages into Indonesian and vice versa.

Ramadhan is also known as a good journalist. He worked for 13 years at Antara's Bandung office. In 1952, out of journalistic curiosity, he went to see the Olympics in Helsinki and came home with a book titled Bola Keranjang (Basket Ball), his first attempt at writing a book.

There was bitterness, though, in his period as a journalist (1958 - 1971). Shortly after the Sept. 30, 1965 bloody tragedy, which the New Order regime blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), he and the late Dajat Hardjakusumah, the father of the famous Bimbo group, were accused of being involved with the PKI and were detained for 16 days before they were finally re leased due to lack of evidence. Unfortunately, the names of the two have never been cleared, although the case against them was shelved.

This book, published in conjunction with Ramadhan's 75th birthday on March 16 contains articles and poems by 21 people, 19 Indonesians -- many of them noted writers like AA Navis, Abrar Yusra, Saini KM, Sitor Situmorang and famous journalists like Rosihan Anwar, Priyo Sanyoto, Soebagijo IN -- and two foreigners, namely Berthold Damshauser of Germany and Etienne Naveau of France.

Writing about Ramadhan's personality and works as they know them, these people share a common conclusion, that Ramadhan is a polite person with a quiet life but his work has been a major contribution to Indonesian literature. Even if he criticizes something, his criticism is usually veiled and conveyed in the way that a Sundanese nobleman would behave.

Apart from these articles from people acquainted with him, the book also contains some of Ramadhan's journalistic and literary works. Two of the stories included in the book, Enclave and Victory are quite interesting.

The first is about how land clearance for a construction project cheats the locals through collusion between the capitalist developer and his local underlings. The other story shows someone who dies unrecognized as an Indonesian citizen, because his citizenship has been revoked in connection with the 1965 bloody tragedy.

Even in death, he still causes problems to the living. How he is buried becomes a big issue because many fear being implicated in the bloody tragedy. Finally, however, the deceased are buried properly because the living manage to overcome their fear and consider the dead person a human being without any labeling. Though veiled, his criticism hits home: Even in a faraway land one can still feel gripped by fear from the ghost of the 1965 tragedy.

One of the sketches included in this book is quite moving as it deals with the last day of his wife, Tines, his true life companion. This sketch is moving because Ramadhan writes here about how his wife faced death. He reveals his regret that he was not cheerful to her when she asked him out, perhaps for the last time, wanting everything to be happy and merry as she realized her days were numbered. This, for honest and modest Ramadhan, has become a life-long regret.

This book is worth reading because, while one can learn more about Ramadhan from what other people write about him, you just have to read some of his work to find that what has been said about him is correct and can be corroborated in his works.