A freak and Bhisma.

Mahabharata is something that would never be overrated for me. Unfortunately others didn't think so (oh yeah, as if they even know Mahabharata exist.) One of the finest work of literature originated from Religious Hindu epic of India, adapted and modified by ancient Javanese (called "Carangan" ,with Punakawan character, and some other heros such as Gatot Kaca, Wisanggeni, etc ^^, which eventually served as a side story but with significant role to the whole plots), Mahabharata is one of the most complex, intriguing, long story with intricate plots involving all of life's significants aspect - politics, love, power, karma, war, money, etc and full of wisdom and lesson of life itself. It is bigger than merely a war epic. Almost all wayang (shadow leather puppet) shows use one of the piece taken from one of Mahabharata scene. Not only stopped into the so-called traditional way, in late 1960's and 1970's during the booming of Indonesian comic, Mahabharata was one of the most popular story which had its comic verse..but unfortunately it stopped there. My generation generally knows almost nothing about Mahabharata.. Some of us might still recognize that Arjuna's a real Cassanova, Bima is the strongest of the Pandawa Lima, and that's it. (I was even surprised that some people didn't confuse the Pandawa in Mahabharata epic with Pandawa Lima s the album title of one of the famous Indonesian Band). Well, for some reason, my generation doesn't watch wayang anymore, and most of (97%) comic here comes from Japan. We might be more familiar with the summer fest (a.k.a Bon Odori) in Japan more than our very own tradition. (no offense, i am a big anime fans too :P). I see almost zero attachment to our own root, our culture, our own local wisdom. When the topic of 'back to local wisdom' is elevated into the surface lately by some media, i doubt that my genration evemn knows what does it mean and what does it contain..

My very favorite character from Mahabharata epic didn't come from the kingdom of 'hero' side (well, if we try to draw a line between black and white, hero and villain, which actually we can't do in interpreting Mahabharata, since it's not a Hollywood kinda war story of hero vs villain) but came from the kingdom of 'kurawa' (they are the sinister character here), named Bhisma. I've ever written a short one-page story about him as my english class paper..Bhisma is known for his great sacrifice (he sacrifice his throne, his chance to live as a king and marry a girl, and even swore to sacrifice his life, for the sake of his beloved father King Sentanu). This noble sacrifice is t eventually earned him a gift from Gods, the gift of deciding his own death. He was a very sharp minded,loyal politician, a Resi (priest) and strong knight/hero (Ksatria) who loved his country (yeah, since he was there even before Pandawa and Kurawa born) so much and would sacrifice his best for his country.

Talking about Bhisma would costs me more than one post, so let me just wrapped it!The first person at my age I've ever known (besides my Dad) who know about Bhisma is Chris, a friend who turned out to be a young writer of Wayang story, with one of his book entitled "Bhisma". I remember my first conversation with this debater friend , a few years ago. We were heading back from the Jogja Debating Forum session, when we started to run out of topic. Then I asked him a standard question - what kind of book he likes. It turn out to be a 3 hours conversation about Mahabharata and the book he was working on that time, 'Bhisma' .

" Wini, you're one of the very rare freaks I've met in my life.."
" A freak? ME?"
" Yeah..Wonder how people would stared at us if only they know why we spent three hours here AND what we're talking about. In this Hollywood global culture?Oh yeah, we're two freak who's talking about how cool Bhisma is instead of any other populist topic.."
" ..."

Oh yeah..In the realm culture where attachment towards our own root and culture become an anti paradox, we two were a freak aliens who talk about thing that almost none from our age would get..I guess that's a sacrifice I have to make to get at least someone to talk about Mahabharata and its lesson to. And to get closer to Bhisma...

Test (and lil bit glance on UAN#1)

This post suppose to be a test post...my very first post on the blog. Well, naturally people like to test new thing, to ensure that it works well (at least at the first time we use it) and to ensure its reliability and accountability. The decent test should be held not only once or twice at the beginning, but it should be held regularly as the check and balance mechanism and as evaluation towards this 'thing'. whatever it is.

The word 'test' remind me to the Indonesian education system with its famous cumbersome, full of critic, contradicting and rather immature test (or, exam) mechanism called UAN (Ujian Akhir Nasional ; National Final Examination) or which lately has been changed (name-wise) into UN or National Exam. The only ultimate parameter of graduating from high school, which score the three basic subjects of math, english and bahasa Indonesia in three days test, and neglecting the other subjects and parameters.

This test is considered immature since it is conduct nationally, applying the same national standard without regards to the very diverse and big disparity of educational quality and facility amongst provinces. It is true that this can motivate and urge government, both central and local, and the other stakeholder to improve education qualities and facilities in each region to meet national standard. But it seems as a long run practice, while the government suddenly apply this UAN without any further effort on improving the quality of education and reducing education quality gap among provinces and regions before this UAN was officially held. Imagine the gap between a fancy state high school 8 (which by the way, the very prestigious and well-facilitated high school) in jakarta and a high school in remote area somewhere in papua or kalimantan, or even in a distant village in java, which generally less equipped with facilities and qualified teacher (knock knock mr.ministry of education, remember our problem of lack of qualified teacher and its fair distribution??) and often have no library or the up-to-date book. With this gap, would it be fair to implement the same national standard scoring and test? Well, it would be fair if the government assure the (at least the minimum) standard quality of high school - its teacher, its facilities, etc.

In further implication, the practice of UAN is also full of flaws .but i think cheating (both by student AND the teacher, in many possible slick ways ) can happen in ANY kind of tests. UAN might just put more burden and stress on some people thus it motivates them more (and gives them more incentives) to cheat.

I was a bit shocked when last year i heard that a sister of a friend failed the UAN (which mean she cant graduate from high school) - since she's a national physic olympic participant - and even more shocked to hear that many of the student which got direct merit admission for some prestigious university due to their high school academic excellence also failed this UAN and lost their chance. One of this failed student even got the scholarship to a university in Germany.Hmm..no wonder that after the 2006's UAN, The civil law suit done by students who felt that their right is being immensely violated. This case is eventually granted by the judge of central jakarta state court...Now THAT's a real test for the government.

^^well...so far..this is it for the test post ^^