Well I think...

Indonesia is fair like Kartini, has the charisma of Soekarno, and courage from Bung Tomo.

  

None of them belong to me, I just have the need to share them somehow.

I have internet, I'm free to share anything to the world, I'm posting for someone who can't

Quais de Seine

I was basically just reading through a movie catalogue and accidentally countered a page explaining about the movie "Paris Je T'aime" (2006). Curiosity lead me to youtube and found some unexplainable beautiful works by several famous directors from around the world. "Paris Je T'Aime" is a movie consisting of about 20 short movies and each of them lasted for about 5 minutes.

But this one below is my most favourite of them all.

A segment about love and respect entitled "Quais de Seine." A really beautiful story, it's sad though it's not for one whole movie.

"Quais de Seine" was made by the director of "Bend it Like Beckham" and "Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging," Gurinder Chadha. The British director seems to have a lot to say about love, race, faith, and gender relations today.

"Paris Je T'Aime" isn't all about lovey dovey couple sighting over the scenery of Eiffel tower. Love can be found in many forms, many unexpected places, and many could ended up sad or maybe happily ever after. Or maybe even a bit confusing.

Dadah

Nibras Sakkir

Atas Nama Kenangan

Berawalan dari penulis buku Travellous, Andrei Budiman, aku jadi terinspirasi untuk menulis ini di blog-ku sendiri. Walaupun bukan modal nekat mengikuti perjalanan ini, sepertinya setiap perjalanan memang berkesan bagi para pengelananya dengan caranya sendiri. Jadi...

-oOo-

Sekitar 5 bulan yang lalu waktu liburan kenaikan kelas, aku barus aja sampai dari sebuah perjalanan yang menurutku life-changing.

Mungkin ini karena aku tipe orang yang selalu bertopang dagu dan terkadang melamunkan mimpiku sendiri, bukannya malah berfikir bahwa mimpi itu 10% dan 90% apa yang akan kita lakukan terhadap mimpi itu. Ditambah orangtua pun telah berperan banyak agar aku berkesempatan untuk menginjakkan kakiku di sebuah tempat dimana urbanisasi terjadi, tetapi bukti-bukti sejarahnya masih tersebar dimana-mana.

Tak tahu apa banyak orang yang mungkin seumuran aku akan berpikiran seperti ini jika melewatinya, atau mungkin mereka hanya menganggapnya sebagai sebuah liburan yang berkesan dan yang tak dapat semua orang bisa raih dalam hidupnya. 

Atau ternyata aku yang terlalu serius?

Intinya, 5 bulan yang lalu aku telah mencoba apa itu rasanya berkelana di tempat yang nun jauh dari rumah, dengan bantuan organisasi yang bernama EF (English First). Di sini kemandirian dan keberanianku diuji, Bahasa Inggrisku pun apa lagi. Tapi pasti mungkin banyak yang pernah dengar dengan kata student exchange atau mungkin home stay?

Destinasi yang waktu itu aku pilih adalah kota dengan nama Oxford.

Lelucon yang menarik untuk kota yang terkenal akan universitasnya yang prestigius

Memang kota itu terkenal dengan universitasnya yang prestigius dan kuno (kalau nggak salah Oxford telah melahirkan sekitar 26 perdana menteri Inggris), bangunan-bangunan yang juga terkenal sama kunonya juga berkumpulan di Oxford, terkadang ketika aku berjalan di sektiar jalan setapaknya aku juga merasa seperti sedang time-traveling. Ok ironis.

Untuk pengalamanku ini, aku ditempati di rumah nenek-nenek asing yang paling gaul yang pernah aku temui, umurnya 70 tahun dan penggila olahraga, terutama bola. Kebetulan waktu itu sedang musim-musim Euro cup jadi di rumah ribut soal bola itu non-stop.

Namanya Kathleen Smith. Walaupun gaul,  Kath wataknya juga tegas (korban pernah dimarahin sama Kath karena pulang terlambat dan nggak ngasih kabar apa-apa ke dia) dan selalu bisa menjadi nenek yang tepat bagi siapa saja. 

Tempat souvenir pun menjadi tempat penjual atribut untuk Euro 2012

Restauran yang juga memasang bendera-bendera untuk Euro 2012

Ngomong-ngomong di dalam rumah nenek-nenek gaul ini nggak cuma aku doang yang dirawat dia selama 2 minggu tinggal di Oxford, rumahnya juga ditempati salah satu temanku yang berasal dari Indonesia, lalu ada 2 orang yang satu berasal dari Italia dan yang satu lagi dari Spanyol.

Oke, kombinasi yang pas karena kedua teman asingku itu dari negara yang terkenal dengan tim-tim bolanya yang kuat, ditambah lagi pengetahuan mereka tentang bola yang nggak sedangkal punyaku, lalu teman Indonesiaku ini juga gila bola, sepertinya aku doang ya yang gila anggar #ApaPula

Sarah (Kiri), teman serumahku yang dari Indonesia

Tapi di balik semua itu kita juga berhadapan dengan namanya perbedaan budaya, dan satu-satunya cara menghadapinya adalah dengan toleransi dan respek.

Teman Italiaku ini adalah seorang ateis, teman Indonesiaku ini yang kebetulan berasal dari Bali adalah seorang nasrani, Kath juga. Tetapi aku kurang tahu untuk teman Spanyolku, dan sepertinya itu semua menjadikan aku satu-satunya anak yang beragama Islam di rumah Kath.

Tapi aku sudah merasa mereka semua sebagai keluarga, awalnya sulit untuk membayangkan hanya dalam jangka waktu 2 minggu, dengan perbedaan-perbedaan yang bisa dibilang berbeda 180˚, kita semua sudah merasa seperti mengenal satu sama lain dengan dekat.

Nuria (kanan) & Kath

Temanku yang seorang Italia, bernama Nuria (eh ritmenya jadi keren tiba-tiba #plak) pernah bilang sesuatu yang kira-kira seperti ini bunyinya,

"Nini (panggilan sayangku #eh) , hurry up. You must pray first and after that go get to sleep!"

Dan disini semua memori tentang kelalaianku terhadap sholat-sholatku sejenak berkumpul.

Lalu berfikir, perbedaan itu sesuatu yang sangat indah ya... 

Dadah

Nibras Sakkir

-oOo-

Di atas langit Rusia/Ukraina aku merenung, apa ini mimpi? 

Di atas Kota London

Bagi para "Potterhead" sepertinya Oxford adalah destinasi yang tepat

Bloody Surabaya

Obviously I'm not trying to curse like a British by using the word "bloody," but tomorrow Indonesians will be celebrating what we call "Hari Pahlawan," or the National Heroes Day.

Here's a brief story about what happened on 10 November.

-oOo-

It all started in the time where we were struggling to protect our identity, the identity of a free country. In 1945, about 3 months after the declaration of independence by Pak Soekarno and Pak Hatta in Jakarta, the Japanese surrendered and the Dutch came again with help from the Allies. Britain arrived in Jakarta & Surabaya in order to get control over the Japanese weapons and freeing Japanese prisoners and bringing them back to Japan, but nonetheless Britain also brought a mission to bring Indonesia back to be the Dutch East Indies again.

Meanwhile in Surabaya, On 27 October 1945 Britain arrived and gave the people of Surabaya an ultimatum to surrender their weapons. On 28 October, not only the infantries but the people of Surabaya itself attacked the British troops. The men were marching forward to fight the British no matter who they are, children and women are ordered to stay back and went to a safe place. What most memorable from this battle was a speech that caused the fiery spirits of the Surabaya people, by one of the most famous national hero in Indonesia by the name of Bung Tomo.

Bung Tomo itself read the speech furiously, saying that the Surabaya people will never be afraid of anything, not the Allies, not the Dutch, and not for the fact that they were lacking weaponries too.

People mainly used left-behind Japanese weapons, but since that time Indonesia was so little of weaponries, people even fought in battles using bamboos with sharp ends to be able to stab the enemies.

Surabaya men or "arek-arek Suroboyo" then known for their heroic spirits despite all the obstacles that they faced, at the end they got through it. Losing about 200.000 men while the Allies side losing about 2000 men.

That time, the word "merdeka" brought a lot of miracles for everyone.
With this one word, an unforgettable phrase was born, "Merdeka atau mati." "Freedom or death."

Though we are not in the era where we struggled to gain our real identity, "merdeka atau mati" is a really common phrase, especially when we celebrate our country's national day (17 August). Sad our generations these days even forgot about it too sometimes.

And so, many of them forgot about what happened on 10 November.

Dadah

Nibras Sakkir


















(Image belongs to its rightful owner)

"Life Goes On... Get Real."

It's fantastic, it's realistic, it's real.  

It's a bit rare to find a manga with the theme of disability, in fact, this is the first manga I've ever read that's involving disability. 

REAL ( リアル Riaru) is mainly focusing on wheelchair basketball, the main characters are consisting of three young lads with different stories but, the three of them have the same desires, which is playing basketball. First is Nomiya Tomomi who is haunted with guilt after having an accident involving a girl that later on become disabled because of the accident and Nomiya felt that he is the one who must take responsibility because of what happened.

Then Nomiya's life changed when he met Kiyoharu Togawa, a former sprinter in his school years but then stopped because he diagnosed osteosarcoma (bone tumor) and ended up amputated his leg to avoid the disease to spread through his body. In this manga, the wheelchair basketball scenes are mainly involving Kiyo-chan and his wheelchair basketball team called the the Tigers.

The last one is Nomiya's former basketball mate named Hisanobu Takahashi, I guess he's some kind of a person who always judges others by 'ranking' them. He ranked himself as an A rank I suppose because he considered himself as a student who receives top grades in everything and popular and so on and so on. 

In short, he has a really high ego. 

But then his life changed after an accident that caused several of his spinal chords to be damaged.

And he discovered some things that has been missing from his past.

Kiyoharu (left), Nomiya (middle), and Hisanobu

I would say that this manga only has a little part for the basketball and wheelchair basketball, I guess it's more of a slice of life manga. Then Inoue-san also doing a really great job in the characters development, he's just found a whole new way of storytelling (claps for Inoue-san). Don't forget the detailed line art which really makes this manga so realistic.

Based on this article, Inoue-san said: “Every one of us has drama. Any character can be a strong character once you shed light on them. Once you let the characters create their own drama, it will always lead to an interesting story,”

 -oOo-

So... it is left with only Vagabond that I haven't read yet. I'm not particularly interested in Samurai stories though (yes, although I'm a fencer who really is obsessed with swordsmanship and all those stuffs) but I bet Vagabond is also one of Inoue-san's great works too, I mean this is after all a story that involves the legendary sword-saint, Miyamoto Musashi. 

Because

 is simply one fo the most favourable mangaka of all time.

Let's just give applaud (again) for Inoue-san. 

Dadah

Nibras Sakkir


-oOo-