From Pram's Room

From Pram's Room
Written by Darju Prasetya
FROM the first time I read your writings, it was as if I was immersed
in and swept away by the thrilling currents of universal humanism.
Your writing has shaken the world. How come? You have been imprisoned
for decades, but it did not prevent you from continuing to produce your
great works from behind the bars. Maybe physically you can be caged
but no one can imprison your mind.
“I salute you, Pak Pram!” I said when I entered the empty room. In the
past, every time Pram visited Blora until the end of his life, he
always slept in that room. As if there was a large magnet in the room,
that had once been the bed of a great Indonesian author. In that room,
The pram had laid down his body and perhaps also wrote down his big
thoughts from the top of a very simple divan. Now the sling looks so
lonely, and you can see a mattress folded over a curved pillow, bedsheet and floors that look dusty. Next to the room were rows of old
books covered in blurry paper. Some books are still scattered on the
floor.
“I came to study, Pak Pram!” I said, and I seemed to see a man who
looked strong with glasses and a hat was busy writing a string of
words while looking at the window overlooking the street. Outside the
window, it looked like flowers with green leaves creeping up and
dividing the road and the house that Pram's parents had left. What was
so special about that simple room that had now become lonely?
“I can hear the vibrations of Pram's mind!” I said, looking around the
room which was about four by four meters wide. You can see that the
walls of the room are white. There is a cupboard made of teak. There
was also a wooden hanger which I thought was used from a glass holder.
“From this room, maybe big ideas were born from Pram's imagination and
thoughts!” I muttered. I asked Pram's brother-in-law a lot that
morning when I visited, so I could see the former private room of the
top Indonesian writer.
“Is it true that work must be born out of silence and anxiety? Is it
true that to be able to produce masterpieces, one has to experience
oppression first?” I asked myself. I saw as if there was silence
talking and living its fate. The silence of restlessness that existed
in the mind of the great author. Especially at that time in this
country in the grip of a power that was terrifying because of
repression and authoritarianism. There is a term used as a ghost to
silence a critical voice.
This nation has long fallen into the hole of the ruler's irrationalism
and cruelty. People are like people who have had to submit to despotic
rulers for more than thirty years. The fascist rulers have turned into
a communist ghost to silence the people so as not to fight the
injustices they are experiencing. So you know that many Indonesians
suffer from mental illness because there is a ghost of the word
communism as a way for the authorities to silence critical voices.
“You know, Pram in his writings always defends people who are
oppressed? But why were his books burned by the fascist ruler? So who
is sane and who is not? Who is right and who is not right? You can
read for yourself now. Because in the end history will side with the
right! ”[]