Story Teller (Tukang Satua)
I Ketut Kaprut Kaliput has not been to the palm toddy warung for a long time. That’s why it is a bit strange that he is a bit early there. He always comes late but leaves earlier than his friends because he wants his friends to pay.
But today he takes out five 100 hundred thousand Rupiah notes from his pocket. After some sips of palm toddy, he starts talking:
“Today, education system only emphasizes on development of your right brain, and ignore development of your left brain,” says I Ketut Kaprut Kaliput.
“I’m sad to see that nobody tells our children good stories anymore. Their parents are too busy with their jobs.”
Everybody seems agree with Ketut. It is the first time for them to hear him talking like that.
“I agree with you Ketut. Besides too busy, we the parents do not really know how to tell stories to our children. Even we do, we only know a few stories, like Siap Selem ajak Men Kuuk (Black Chicken and Mother Civet), I Belog (The Stupid Boy). And we aren’t even able to tell the whole story. Besides, our children often interrupt when we tell them a story and according to them that most of the stories do not make sense,” says I Made Milu-Milu Tuung.
“That’s because of our mistake as parents. We never learn. So don’t blame our children if they become bad people in future. As we are not rich we can not really provide what they need. That’s why we can only tell them good stories so that in future they will become good people. Like me and my wife. We always tell our children about tantri (fable) stories. Even the tantri tells us about animals only, it’s a good thing that we can learn from them.
Ketut keeps talking, but nobody seems to listen, only I Made Milu-Milu Tuung does.
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Taken from ‘Bungklang Bungkling’, ‘Tukang Satua’, a column by Yanasadu, as published in Bali Post, Sunday, 28th February 2010. Translated by Putu Semiada
