M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – In a party held to celebrate his 80th birthday at the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) building Indonesia's most credible candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, displayed a trait that was in sharp contrast with his customary nature.
"I have done all that I wanted to do and I am already in possession of all that I always wanted to have. I want to spend my old age in peace," the normally defiant Pramoedya told hundreds of his admirers who packed one of TIM's galleries.
Such a sense of complacency would be out of place if put alongside Pramoedya's usual habit of voicing his displeasure of the socio-political conditions around him. As he has grown older, Pramoedya has never lost his appetite for criticizing each ruling regime and the feebleness of every generation that faces the powers that be.
The birthday statement, however, seemed justified considering all that he has gone through during his life.
Silenced by almost every regime for his work, which often detailed the plights of marginalized subjects such as petty criminals, sex workers or street vendors, Pramoedya has experienced the worst kind of oppression, from being banished to a prison island where he lived under a gulag-like conditions, to receiving corporal punishment that has left an everlasting impact on his health.
"I am amazed how I have been given such a long life, considering the fact that I was born premature and have always had a variety of health problems," he said with a chuckle.
Pram, as he is often called, then spoke at length about the panacea for all his health problems, the onion, and advised the audience about the condiment's use.
And by his 80th birthday, his longing for a peaceful old age, it could be said, has been fulfilled.
In a sharp contrast with his earlier hardships, the revered Pram now lives the quiet life in a house on the outskirts of Jakarta with the company of his wife Maemunah Thamrin, the niece of national hero M.H. Thamrin, with occasional visits from his 16 grandchildren.
His 34 books and essays, a continuing inspiration to the country's youth, have now been translated into 37 languages including English, French, Dutch and even Catalan.
Pram now barely writes, apart from signing his pay receipts from the growing sale of books he penned during his productive years, and he says his only current literary activity is collecting information for an encyclopedia on Indonesian geography.
"Youth these days don't know much about their own land. This is why such an encyclopedia is of great importance," he said, before launching into an extended commentary about the failure of younger generations to produce a leader of the caliber of the country's first president, Soekarno.
Pram was born in February 6, 1925 in Blora, a barren and destitute small town in the northern part of Central Java as the eldest son of M. Toer, the headmaster of the nationalist school, Instituut Boedi Oetomo (IBO). His father was also an activist with the Nationalist Indonesian Party (PNI), a political group that worked for Indonesia's independence, which was founded by Soekarno in the late 1920s.
It was his father who gave him a perspective on political affairs, in the same way as his mother tutored him about life principles. "It is my mother who always taught me to count on myself and not ask for God's help in my daily affairs. Praying to God only displays our frailty as human beings," Pram said.
This self-reliance made Pram an individualist – and a great writer. Pram wrote the 1962 Gadis Pantai (A Girl from the Beach) to pay homage to his mother.
Taking 10 years to complete the seven-year elementary school course at the IBO, graduating in 1939, Pram for the next year did not go to school because his father did not approve the study.
With the money he collected from trading rice with his mother in 1940 he went to Surabaya to continue his schooling and graduated from the Radiovakschool (Radio Vocational School) at the end of 1941. Thereafter, he was conscripted into the radio telegraph section of the Stadswacht (City Civil Defense).
For the first four months of the Japanese occupation, together with a younger sibling, he looked after his family until his mother's death, whereupon they moved to Jakarta.
It was during the Japanese occupation, he joined Pemuda paramilitary organization, and then entered an army unit of the Indonesian Military's Siliwangi Division's Regiment 6, which operated in East Jakarta.
While Pramoedya was a second lieutenant in the division, he was first imprisoned in Bukit Duri jail from 1948 to 1949 by the Dutch for his anti-colonial beliefs. It was there that he wrote the short story collection Percikan Revolusi (the Spark of Revolution) and the novel Perburuan (the Hunting), which won First Prize from state publishing house Balai Pustaka.
In 1953, Pram moved to the Netherlands along with his family at the invitation of the Dutch-Indonesian Institute for Cultural Cooperation, Sticusa. There he wrote Korupsi (Corruption) and Midah si Manis Bergigi Emas (Midah, Sweetheart with Gold Teeth).
Upon his return to the country in 1958, he gained the membership of Lembaga Kesenian Rakyat (People's Art Agency) or Lekra, an organization affiliated with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).
From 1962 to 1965, he served as editor for Lentera, the cultural supplement of the PKI's Bintang Timur daily newspaper.
Pram's involvement with communist groups meant he was imprisoned again in the anticommunist purge by the militaristic Suharto regime when the general took over from Soekarno.
After being transferred from prison to prison in Java, he was finally locked away on the remote island of Buru, offshore of Maluku. There, Pram produced the works considered to be his masterpiece, the Buru Quartet, consisting of the Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps, and House of Glass.
The works only reached the public after they were smuggled out of the prison.
Pram has been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize for Literature on the merit of the quartet alone.
Asked whether he thought the quartet represented the pinnacle of his efforts Pram said: "All my works are equal in quality. I can't say that one is better than the others.