Anak Bajang Menggiring Angin

Dewi Sukesi put the string of flowers around Kumbakarna’s breast. The universe turns towards the past. Unabashedly. The cry of distress become a song of joy. The shepherds children play on the shore when death lies in wait for pry. The waves wash them away but they dive in life with the ship of death. It’s raining flower everywhere and Dewi Sukesi finds out that suffering is so beautiful. Sukesi takes flight to her past, to the courtyard of ylang ylang. She discovered that she failed to keep Sastra Jendra because she couldn’t bear the suffering. She yearns for the happiness she has yet to have, and the yearning made her abandon her most precious possession, her suffering. The suffering reigns in Kumbakarna. Since it war first published, the book gained acceptance among readers. For literary observes, this is an epic story with literary values. Inspired by the epic of Ramayana, this is not just another rendition of the Javanese epic. Symbolism, lyricism and philosophy have made this book a recreation of Ramayana in the realm of literary. The book is a story with an impossibility, something unfamiliar to our encounters, an empty reveries for our reality. The power of literary lies within its ways in retelling the reveries in intertwining human tales that capture the them as the dreams that men yearn for. Who can tell if reality is a dream or if a dream is reality? Literary pays a high price for men’s dreams.¹

1. Gramedia International ↩