December/January, 1998
No. 032/VI/97
cover story
Christians in
Paradise
How Christianity came
to Bali
Once Upon a
New Years Eve
MC-ing a New Year's
Eve party during a
blackout
bali focus:
nusa dua and
jimbaran
The Origin of
Nusa Dua
A fable
People of a
Fertile Sea
The fishers of
Jimbaran beach
Center Stage
Steve Charles revamps
the Candraloka
Amphitheatre
Nusa Dua Nights
How to survive them
The Sacred
Wilderness
Colonial encounters with
Bali's southern peninsula
arts and
culture
A.A.M. Djelantik's
recently launched
autobiography
Kulkul
new Fiction by Gde
Aryantha Soethama
The Rat Pack
Who are Bali's literati?
beyond
bali
An Eddy in The
Counter of Time
Kayaking off the west
coast of Lombok
Slick and Cool in
Sengigi
Round midnight at the
famed Lombok resort
regular
Fashion
Adventure
Into the blue
Food
Jewel of the southren rim
Jungle Drums
Bali Update
On the Road
Home Grown
Made Adi Putra
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On returning to the newly independent Indonesia after the war, Djelantik is posted to several remote areas where rampant disease, daily hardship and political instability provide plenty of tests of not only his professional skills but his courage and consciousness. One also has to admire the staunch Astri who accompanies her husband to far-flung provinces, suffering ill-health, danger and insecurity but managing to raise their children, create a comfortable home through ingenious adaptations of local resources and instigate the establishments of hospitals and clinics. A whole separate book is needed to understand this remarkable woman who independently organized relief aid from overseas in the aftermath of Mt. Agung's eruption in 1963, and pioneered birth control in the days when it was considered politically unacceptable.
In the late fifties, Djelantik somewhat became Chief Medical Officer of Bali. His reluctance to take on the job is understandable given that his predecessor had been brutally murdered and that he felt there were other more senior doctors better suited for the post. When he asked why he had been selected for the position received the following reply: "You are honest and everyone will listen to you." An accurate assessment indeed of this incorruptible and dedicated man.
One need not have an interest in either history or medicine to find this book enthralling. Djelantik writes in a simple but expressive style, seaming together anecdotes and reminiscences, juxtaposing the mundane with the serious, the personal with the political, the simply actual with the mysterious and spiritual to create a rich and moving text. Alongside the stories of his medical career, he intersperses character sketches of the many key figures he met, gives us touching details of family life, and describes his involvement in the preservation and development of many forms of Balinese art and culture. To designate Dr Djelantik as a renaissance man would perhaps be ill-fitting. It seems more appropriate to think of him as a latter day Laksamana, eschewing the limelight but playing a crucial role with courage, caution, modesty and above all humanity.
by Astuti Aswadi
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