Tekan tombol untuk:
Puppet Show
Purwanti Kusumaningtyas adalah pengajar di Jurusan S1 Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Bahasa dan Seni, Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana, Salatiga, Jawa Tengah. Dia memperoleh gelar master dan doktor dari Jurusan Pengkajian Amerika, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta.
Dia tertarik pada banyak hal, termasuk naik gunung dan menjelajah, penulisan puisi dan cerita pendek. Dia telah menerbitkan puisi dan cerita pendek, antara lain dalam buku kumpulan puisi “Furtive Notions” (DeePublish 2022) dan kumpulan cerita pendek “They Are Here” (DeePublish 2023). Beberapa puisinya telah dibuat musik dan ditampilkan dalam berbagai acara nirlaba dan kemanusiaan, termasuk dalam acara LETSS Talk, lembaga pejuang kesetaraan perempuan yang terpercaya di Indonesia serta Festival Musik Rumah (FMR).
Dia sudah bekerja dengan Dalang Publishing sejak 2013, yaitu sejak dia mengenal penerbit yang memiliki semangat yang sama untuk melestarikan dan memperkenalkan keragaman Indonesia pada dunia.
Purwanti dapat dihubungi melalui: purwanti.kusumaningtyas@uksw.edu
*****
Puppet Show
Noisy roosters announced the morning in Dusun Beji, Central Java. Columns of white smoke spiraling upward signaled that villagers were busy inside, cooking breakfast and lunch to take to the fields.
Suntre sat in the kitchen with Sasandewi, his sister.
“Mbak, are we making kupat lepet again?” Suntre asked in astonishment. Lately, he and his sister had repeatedly made the sticky rice cake.
Sasandewi nodded. “Yes, and later, you have to teach the children in Dusun Beji how to cook it.”
“Why me, Mbak?” Suntre raised his eyebrows. “Why not you?”
“Because you are Bapak‘s only son, and he is the village elder here. Who will succeed Father if it’s not you?” The lepet-making matters had been Sasandewi’s responsibility for all of Suntre’s sixteen years. He stared at his sister’s deft fingers weaving janur, turning the young coconut leaves into tight rice-cake wrappers.
“But …” Suntre pouted. “Oh, all right, I’ll keep folding these janur so we can have plenty of kupat.” Reluctantly, he returned to his task; consequently, his wrappers came out sloppy and loose.
Kupat lepet, a traditional food of Dusun Beji was prepared when the rice crop was ready to be cut, marking the beginning of the feast of harvesting time. Fresh, fragrant young coconut leaves were chosen, not simply for enclosing the sticky rice into tight bundles, but also because of the symbolic purity and blessings carried in the prayers of each green leaflet. Like their ancestors, the villagers believed that eating kupat lepet together and chanting the harvest prayer with the village elder led to a plentiful rice harvest. Kupat lepet symbolized the villagers’ respect for nature, as well as expressed their gratefulness to God the Almighty, who had cared for the soil and allowed every single grain of rice in the field to grow.
To make lepet, a mixture of sticky rice, grated coconut, fragrant pandan leaves, and salt was poured into the janur wrappers and boiled. Lepet was always served with the savory sura curry: Quail eggs and chicken eggs were soft-boiled and peeled, then simmered with chicken or beef in spiced coconut milk. Sauteed spices and herbs — turmeric, ginger, galangal, bay leaves, lemongrass — gave the curry its strong aroma and complementary taste. Lepet served with this special curry turned the meal into a symbol of thanksgiving for the harvest.
Taking a deep breath and exhaling his annoyance, Suntre said, “God, please grant me the ability to fly, so I will be capable to walk in my father’s footsteps.”
Sasandewi patted her brother’s shoulder. “I’m certain you will handle it well and responsibly.”
***
Secretly, Suntre didn’t want to succeed his father as village elder. There were a lot of things he had to learn, including some things that didn’t make sense. A few days ago, for instance, dark clouds had suddenly appeared, which, to Suntre, just meant a storm was coming. But his father had quickly gathered some onion, garlic, shrimp paste, and chilies from the kitchen, grabbed a whiskbroom, and went out into the yard. With the rain just beginning to fall, he stuck the broom’s handle into the ground, at the place where they usually sun-dried the unhulled rice grains. Then, his father speared and smeared the kitchen items to the tips of the broom’s bristles. His father explained that these were offerings to make nature happy, with the hope that the thunderstorm would not cause too much damage.
“Bapak, are you trying to stop the rain?” Suntre had pointed in disbelief at the whiskbroom and its adorned brush. “How could you possibly stop the rain this way?”
People outside Dusun Beji, might regard these traditions as silly. But people in the hamlet had performed the ritual for longer than anyone could remember. It was one of their rooted beliefs, performed from generation to generation. Living in an unpredictable and uncontrollable world, people sought ways to appease nature’s power. By performing rituals like this, the villagers felt they had found ways to garner nature’s favors.
“Knowledge is wide, Son,” his father had said. “What we now know as tradition, habits, and culture is from our ancestors’ knowledge. We cannot waste it. Knowledge is not only obtained from schools; nature is a teacher, too.”
Suntre’s father always emphasized the importance of tradition, culture, nature, and ancestors.
***
The courtyard of Dusun Beji’s open hall grew merrier as the beginning of the shadow-puppet show neared. Villagers gathered with food and drinks to enjoy. Stagehands prepared the show’s set-up in the hall’s courtyard. A dalang for story-telling and a sinden to vocally accompany the gamelan music players had arrived with other performing artists from neighboring villages.
The shadow-puppet show that night was special. The gamelan music and the sinden’s chant signaled the opening of the long-awaited festival and expressed the villagers’ gratitude for their crops. Conducted by the dalang and Javanese singer, the celebration served as both social event and thanksgiving — another reminder to live in harmony with nature.
Sasandewi and Suntre had just finished cooking the kupat lepet and sura curry. “Mbak!” Suntre exclaimed, “I hear the gamelan and sinden already — let’s go!”
As lights illuminated the stage in the courtyard and the gamelan music began, everyone focused on the kelir. Behind the white curtain, the puppeteer’s agile hands brought the puppet characters to life for the spellbound spectators. The crowd’s cheerfulness filled the air. Some came with their families; some chose to enjoy the show alone. Some wore their best clothes; others dressed casually. Regardless, everyone gathered with the same enthusiasm to watch the long-awaited performance. Smiling, Sasandewi and Suntre sat side by side in front of the stage.
“I like our harvest thanksgiving event,” Sasandewi whispered to her brother while watching the puppets on the stage display their qualities and shortcomings. “This event is also an opportunity for villagers to socialize. It gives us the chance to mend fences.”
“Forgiveness is what the kupat lepet symbolizes, isn’t it?” Suntre asked, biting into the warm rice cake he had brought from home. The term “kupat” was often linked to the word “lepet,” which means wrong in the Javanese language, and the dish can be construed as a peace offering.
Sasandewi nodded. “You can see Ki Dalang Marta’s puppets, can’t you?” She pointed at the stage puppets and their shadows. “The puppeteer is manipulating the puppets so that they behave according to what he wants to show us. Perhaps, it’s the same for humans. We’re just God’s puppets.” The shadows come from the puppets, which symbolize human presence on God’s earth.”
“What about the sinden and the gamelan music? Do they mean something, too?” Suntre asked.
“Of course! The song lyrics the sinden sings have very deep meanings, as does the gamelan music. You should ask Bapak to explain everything. That way, you’ll know for sure.”
That night, Ki Dalang Marta performed the epic story of Sesaji Rajasuya, which examines the sacrifice of cosmic processes, human nature, and the virtues of true leadership. The performance had been modified to include some local Dusan Beji dialect. The puppets’ characters were enlivened in attractive and humorous ways. The antagonist king, Prabu Jarasanda, was depicted as a cruel yet compassionate figure. The protagonist king, Prabu Puntadewa, was portrayed as grand with inspiring inner strength. Between the scenes, Ki Dalang Marta tied the story into daily life in Dusun Beji and the local culture that emphasized noble virtues. The ethical messages were delivered in simple but meaningful language.
Sasandewi and Suntre enjoyed the story immensely, while their father sat with guests in the first row.
***
Before the early evening prayer call the next day, the children of Dusun Beji gathered under the old banyan tree. They did not gather to tell scary ghost stories, but to play with empty kupat lepet wrappers. The images of Ki Dalang Marta’s shadow puppet performance were still vivid in their minds and were now expressed in their games, as they turned the kupat containers into swords, daggers, spears, and puppets.
“This is Bima!” a curly-haired boy exclaimed, holding up a kupat lepet wrapper that he had re-formed to look like one of the puppet characters.
“Look! This is Arjuna!” A girl held up a container she had shaped like the puppet with his arrow. “He’s good at shooting arrows!”
The children’s loud laughter filled the early evening air, as they imitated the puppets’ actions and scenes they had watched the night before. The puppet images came to life again in their games, as the children used the simple kupat lepet cases to reimagine and re-enliven the puppets’ story. Each of them took delight in making up stories under Dusun Beji’s old banyan tree.
***
During the ten years after the village elder, Sasandewi and Suntre’s father, died Dusun Beji lost its spirit.
The rice fields didn’t produce abundant harvests anymore; they had been turned into housing. The sunset sliding behind Mount Sumbing vanished; its orange spectrum was now blocked by tall buildings. The aroma of boiling janur leaves never filled the air. Children no longer made daggers, balls, or puppets from rice cake cases. And, the unpredictable seasons completed the current suffering. The local wisdom of Dusun Beji had eroded.
***
Near Dusun Beji, a coffee shop was known to be a warm and friendly place, completed by customers as they enjoyed the aromatic coffee.
In a corner of the shop, Endarwati and Jaka sat chatting. The two cousins had grown up in Dusun Beji, and had agreed to meet that Saturday night to catch up after not having seen each other since the last family gathering several months ago.
Endarwati slowly sipped her coffee. “Nice coffee.” She smiled. “It reminds me of my last visit to Eyang Sasandewi’s house.” Her dimples deepened. “But at Grandma’s house, the coffee was a little sweeter!”
Jaka told her about his move from their quiet home village to the noisy, busy city. Their conversation took Endarwati back to the days when they grew up together in Dusun Beji.
“In the village, people often have to stay up late to work at volunteer projects,” Jaka said, referring to gugur gunung, a traditional Indonesian philosophy that promotes community-driven initiatives and volunteerism. “According to Eyang Suntre, coffee functions as kanca melek, a stimulant, and is a part of gugur gunung. People who host a celebration serve snacks and drinks to the villagers who volunteer to work through the night in order to have a successful event. It is also customary for the volunteers to attend the party on the next day.”
“Volunteers? Do you mean for free?” Endarwati looked curious. “Aren’t those activities arranged by an event organizer? In the city, we just hire an EO and everything is taken care of. Does everyone in the village volunteer to support the event?”
“That’s what gugur gunung is about,” Jaka explained. “Everyone feels handarbeni, they participate and belong.”
“Listening to your stories, especially those from your grandfather, it might be better to live in a village,” Endarwati said. “The city noises of screeching cars and honking horns hurt my ears every morning,”
“Maybe yes, maybe no. Sawang-sinawang. The grass is always greener on the other side. What might appear attractive to an outsider, might evoke an opposite reaction from the person actually living the situation.”
Endarwati raised her eyebrows and smiled lightly. She was enthralled by the colloquial language Jaka was using, especially since she had fallen into the craze of internet-inspired vernacular.
“From your perspective, you think it’s good, but other people may view it the opposite,” Jaka continued. “Who knows how many more villagers think that living in the city, like we do, is even better?” Jaka’s voice carried a tinge of bitterness, as if he wanted to convince Endarwati of the importance to live in balance with nature and their childhood village’s traditions.
Endarwati’s hand cupped her now cold coffee. “Unlike in earlier times, human relationships today are based on economics. Warmth and love have faded. Most people have lost their personalities.” She looked out of the window and watched the traffic.
“True, there’s something missing,” Jaka agreed, “including the Javanese traits that set us apart as Javanese. Politeness, for example, is one of the expressions of such wisdom.”
Jaka stared at the entrance of the shop. He sounded calm, but his face betrayed his bitterness. “We should not regret what’s lost,” he said, seemingly trying to convince himself as, earlier, he had tried to convince Endarwati when he brought up sawang-sinawang as a contrast to life in the city.
“What do you mean?” Endarwati peered at Jaka, trying to figure out the meaning of his words.
Jaka straightened and said slowly, “Our personalities as Javanese — as “Easterners” — might have kept us from developing the same way as the people we refer to as Westerners.”
“Do you think fried chicken, hamburger, and pizza are more suitable dishes for us to eat than our ayam ingkung, whole roasted chicken, arem-arem, filled rice cakes, and sengkulun, sweet sticky rice cake?” Endarwati asked, intentionally provoking Jaka to elaborate on his feelings about the Western lifestyle she had become enamored with. Without waiting for his response, she added, “It shouldn’t be a problem, if that’s what today’s Indonesians like.”
Their second order of coffee arrived, interrupting their conversation.
It was getting late, but Endarwati had more questions for Jaka. Yet the more intense she became, the less engaged he was. He kept looking away as if trying to see the world behind the shop’s walls. Saturday night should have been a peaceful time to catch up, but not that evening. The empty coffee cups and snack plates became symbols of their separation.
Jaka quickly said good-bye and left, convinced that he wanted to hold on to his elders’ values instead of adopt the Western lifestyle Endarwati had fallen for.
Endarwati sighed and looked out of the window, convinced that time moved on and it was difficult to keep the old ways. But she also knew that no matter how far away young people strayed, their village would always have its own ways of calling them home.
Dusun Beji’s stories must continue to be told to preserve their ancestors’ heritage and thus become a pathfinder for its people. Endarwati smiled. She was certain that every story would find its way back.
*****