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It is an annual custom that in Ramadhan people began to intensively make calls (now SMS’s) to their families and (old) friends to maintain and strengthen their social bonds –silaturrahmi as they would call it. I always feel the notion ‘annual’ is ridiculous. I think you should constantly keep in touch with your friends instead of annually catching up. If it happens that you loose contact, then it’s your lost. If I find it impossible (or hard) in keeping contact (be it because our impossible schedules or the impossibly crazy phone bills), the least I can do is keeping track of what is going on with them. And spies are available everywhere for this purpose. If one day, not April 1st,to my surprise a friend’s wedding invitation arrives on my doorstep, I’ll know that I’ve neglected him/her.
It has not been difficult for me to maintain friendships, I think. The simple reason is because I think I don’t have that many of friends. Among them, there are two persons who magically disappeared: Fer and Nar. As Ramadhan –whether I like it or not– reminds me of the notion silaturrahmi, it also reminds me of them.
Losing Fer
I didn’t have any friend when I was in kindergarten. I thought school was the place where you can have all the fun for yourself, so I always played alone. On my first day of elementary school, a boy came to my seat, asking if I would share the seat with him (I said yes). On recess, he offered me to play with him. That –being asked to play with– was a novel experience for me. We became good friends ever since. His name was Fer. We were both six years old then.
Fer was the one who got me interested in drawing. He used to have a special notebook in which he drew numerous amazing pictures. His pictures always had great endless stories. He used to spread open a book, and started to work with his magic fingers and at the same time narrating the storylines and dialogues of the characters outloud. It usually took him long to finish his pictures, not because he was slow, but because he was very patient with each of his characters. He made funny noises indicating sadness, excitement, to make things more dramatic. He even composed his own soundtrack songs. Boys as we were, the stories always revolved around superheroes rescuing the helpless (no damsel in distress, I’m afraid. We know nothing of girls at the time), sometimes fighting supervillains (one of whom we named after our grouchy teacher).
Fer was a super storyteller, but not much of an artist. We found out later that I was a lot better at it. Soon after, we did the picture projects together. While he’s building up a story, I made the pictures and sometimes played opposite characters to make the dialogues more alive. I also began to familiarize myself with the songs, and sang along at the right moments. Everyday we worked on a story, and when school ended we sadly let it go, and picked it up where we left off on the next day. We did it every single day.
It was not the top of my social career. It was funny that after one friend-less year in kindergarten, what I got for a friend was another geek. But I wouldn’t t trade Fer for anything in the world. When holiday came, we lost contact for one month. We both didn’t have telephones. I had to wait for second grade to come. It was to my disappoinment that Fer moved out to another city. No teacher knew his new address. I knew I just lost a magic friend. Now, everytime I picked up a pencil, I remember the idea of Fer (I have no memory left of what he looked like).
Losing Nar
I continued to be an aloner. On my third grade, Nar saved me. Nar was way different than Fer –he was a music person. He used to sing every single minute: when waiting for the morning bell, when waiting for the class to start, when doing assignments –literally all the time. He said it was The Beatles. I was curious and he lent me one of his tapes. My first The Beatles exposure was an album called Rubber Soul. I'm Looking Through You instantly hypnotized me and I thought it kicked ass (I still do).
Nar used to tell me stories behind every Beatles’ song. It amazed me how he knew everything about them. He said his father told him everything. I was transformed into a Beatles freak myself, and started hunting for every single record available in records stores. Back then, they only costed Rp. 1250 each. The word only doesn’t imply that I could lightly buy them. I had to completely save my allowances for several weeks to afford one record. I could not afford to buy food in the cafetaria. Back then, there was an illogical social status for kid who didn’t buy foods at the cafetaria: a geek. Congratulation, I was a geek again.
In our national history, I remember there was a guy by the name of Bob Geldof came to Indonesia. News said that he went ballistic finding out that ALL records sold in Indonesia was products of piracy. He ratted our national music industries to one of international music associatons and made recommendation to boycott us. Thanks to him, our national music industry learned their first lessons on copyrights. Several months later, all record prices hiked up to Rp.4500. No thanks to Bob Geldof, that was my early years of collecting The Beatles. I grumbled to Nar: Who does he think he is, anyway? Surprise. Nar had the answer. He told me everything about Mr. Geldof. Of course, Nar was practically relaying the information he had from his dad, but that didn’t make it felt less surprising. The next day, Nar brought me one of Geldof’s records. I fell in love with Mr. Geldof as well. That was when my music engine started. Afterward, I listened to almost any music exposed to me.
Nar was a funny looking boy. He was what I called ‘The Thin Man’ (like the Wizard of Oz’s Tin Man). His posture was thin (and tall and arched), his voice is thin (and weak, and soft –enough to always put me to sleep). Even his handwriting perfectly represented himself: thin and tall (every letter would touch the base and top lines). He had appealingly big round eyeballs, but only half open (and full closed when he laughed). Everytime we were singing The Beatles tune together, I couldn’t help but noticing him making funny faces.
On the first day of my sixth grade, I found out that Nar moved to another city. I didn’t get any heads-up on this, either. Again, no teacher knew his new address. I lost my second magic friend.
---
I never know where they are now, and I have been looking for them for years. It’s hard to find Fer as I don’t remember his full name nor his face. But I do remember Nar’s so well, so when Friendster culture arrived, I thought there was a new hope to find Nar. I found (at the time) around 1500 Indonesian males by the same name. I patiently looked them up one by one, but none of them were my Nar. It crossed my mind that people’s face changes across ages, but Nar’s wouldn’t change too far from how I remember –that I’m very sure. I would recognize that weird eyes at any age.
And so the thought of Fer and Nar come across my head almost every Ramadhan.
It has not been difficult for me to maintain friendships, I think. The simple reason is because I think I don’t have that many of friends. Among them, there are two persons who magically disappeared: Fer and Nar. As Ramadhan –whether I like it or not– reminds me of the notion silaturrahmi, it also reminds me of them.
Losing Fer
I didn’t have any friend when I was in kindergarten. I thought school was the place where you can have all the fun for yourself, so I always played alone. On my first day of elementary school, a boy came to my seat, asking if I would share the seat with him (I said yes). On recess, he offered me to play with him. That –being asked to play with– was a novel experience for me. We became good friends ever since. His name was Fer. We were both six years old then.
Fer was the one who got me interested in drawing. He used to have a special notebook in which he drew numerous amazing pictures. His pictures always had great endless stories. He used to spread open a book, and started to work with his magic fingers and at the same time narrating the storylines and dialogues of the characters outloud. It usually took him long to finish his pictures, not because he was slow, but because he was very patient with each of his characters. He made funny noises indicating sadness, excitement, to make things more dramatic. He even composed his own soundtrack songs. Boys as we were, the stories always revolved around superheroes rescuing the helpless (no damsel in distress, I’m afraid. We know nothing of girls at the time), sometimes fighting supervillains (one of whom we named after our grouchy teacher).
Fer was a super storyteller, but not much of an artist. We found out later that I was a lot better at it. Soon after, we did the picture projects together. While he’s building up a story, I made the pictures and sometimes played opposite characters to make the dialogues more alive. I also began to familiarize myself with the songs, and sang along at the right moments. Everyday we worked on a story, and when school ended we sadly let it go, and picked it up where we left off on the next day. We did it every single day.
It was not the top of my social career. It was funny that after one friend-less year in kindergarten, what I got for a friend was another geek. But I wouldn’t t trade Fer for anything in the world. When holiday came, we lost contact for one month. We both didn’t have telephones. I had to wait for second grade to come. It was to my disappoinment that Fer moved out to another city. No teacher knew his new address. I knew I just lost a magic friend. Now, everytime I picked up a pencil, I remember the idea of Fer (I have no memory left of what he looked like).
Losing Nar
I continued to be an aloner. On my third grade, Nar saved me. Nar was way different than Fer –he was a music person. He used to sing every single minute: when waiting for the morning bell, when waiting for the class to start, when doing assignments –literally all the time. He said it was The Beatles. I was curious and he lent me one of his tapes. My first The Beatles exposure was an album called Rubber Soul. I'm Looking Through You instantly hypnotized me and I thought it kicked ass (I still do).
Nar used to tell me stories behind every Beatles’ song. It amazed me how he knew everything about them. He said his father told him everything. I was transformed into a Beatles freak myself, and started hunting for every single record available in records stores. Back then, they only costed Rp. 1250 each. The word only doesn’t imply that I could lightly buy them. I had to completely save my allowances for several weeks to afford one record. I could not afford to buy food in the cafetaria. Back then, there was an illogical social status for kid who didn’t buy foods at the cafetaria: a geek. Congratulation, I was a geek again.
In our national history, I remember there was a guy by the name of Bob Geldof came to Indonesia. News said that he went ballistic finding out that ALL records sold in Indonesia was products of piracy. He ratted our national music industries to one of international music associatons and made recommendation to boycott us. Thanks to him, our national music industry learned their first lessons on copyrights. Several months later, all record prices hiked up to Rp.4500. No thanks to Bob Geldof, that was my early years of collecting The Beatles. I grumbled to Nar: Who does he think he is, anyway? Surprise. Nar had the answer. He told me everything about Mr. Geldof. Of course, Nar was practically relaying the information he had from his dad, but that didn’t make it felt less surprising. The next day, Nar brought me one of Geldof’s records. I fell in love with Mr. Geldof as well. That was when my music engine started. Afterward, I listened to almost any music exposed to me.
Nar was a funny looking boy. He was what I called ‘The Thin Man’ (like the Wizard of Oz’s Tin Man). His posture was thin (and tall and arched), his voice is thin (and weak, and soft –enough to always put me to sleep). Even his handwriting perfectly represented himself: thin and tall (every letter would touch the base and top lines). He had appealingly big round eyeballs, but only half open (and full closed when he laughed). Everytime we were singing The Beatles tune together, I couldn’t help but noticing him making funny faces.
On the first day of my sixth grade, I found out that Nar moved to another city. I didn’t get any heads-up on this, either. Again, no teacher knew his new address. I lost my second magic friend.
---
I never know where they are now, and I have been looking for them for years. It’s hard to find Fer as I don’t remember his full name nor his face. But I do remember Nar’s so well, so when Friendster culture arrived, I thought there was a new hope to find Nar. I found (at the time) around 1500 Indonesian males by the same name. I patiently looked them up one by one, but none of them were my Nar. It crossed my mind that people’s face changes across ages, but Nar’s wouldn’t change too far from how I remember –that I’m very sure. I would recognize that weird eyes at any age.
And so the thought of Fer and Nar come across my head almost every Ramadhan.
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