Seni Sebuah Penantian

Penantian perlukan seni, dan aku pelajarinya dengan cara yang payah.

Ah, mungkin akan aku digelakkan. Bodoh, jumud atau sebagainya. Ya panggillah. Aku sedia menerima kerana akan kupulangkan juga buah keras.

Aku pernah menanti - dan ia satu seni yang payah. Cuma percayalah, hasilnya memuaskan dan mendamaikan.

Kamu tahu sendi seni sebuah penantian? Ada banyak rangkanya - aku boleh ambil realisme yang kononnya tampak hidup tetapi kaku semata atau impressionisme yang laju menokak arus semasa, mempedulikan kata dan standard manusia. 

Hah, mungkin aku dikatakan dangkal. Tetapi aku tinggalkan semua, kerana seni penantianku bersendikan cinta - yang diletak kepada Pemilik Cinta.

Penantianku panjang, dan ya seperti yang kaukata penuh ranjau. Terkadang nafsu dan syahwat menceracak naik memulas iman dan taqwa kerana sungguh aku manusia teman! Tetapi syukur, Tuhan masih mengizinkan aku berlandaskan titah syariatnya kerana aku, bersama buah penantianku, kepinginkan cahaya di hujung landasan.

Cahaya cinta dan rahmah. Cahaya iman dan taqwa. Cahaya rasul dan wajah-Nya.

Aku insaf, manusia punya idea. Aku, malah kami, punya idea. Idea bersampul mimpi dan impian sebelum dicetak kepada perbuatan harus ditapis lembaga iman. Takut-takut kelak idea yang kita mimpikan itu mengheret ke neraka Tuhan yang abadi. Aku takut itu teman. Takut sekali.

Kerana itu, aku memilih penantian berseni - ya, seni. Ketekunanku, kesabaranku dan ketabahanku semua diambil kira. Sebelum catan itu dicalitkan ke kanvas kehidupan terkadang aku sangsi, tetapi itu satu proses seni. Warna indah terpilih terkadang aku muak membenci, tetapi gabungan dan lakarnya kelak aku yakin, walaupun aku tidak tahu, akan membuah hasil. Kalau comot, segera akan aku sedar, aku tidak mahu hasilnya begini. Cepat aku perbetul, tidak mahu ia terheret melanggar perspesi membejat hasil seni.

Nah, kini seni penantianku terhasil kepada sebuah lakaran kehidupan. Syurga dunia yang terkadang goyah - tetapi aku berdoa akan kembali dinaung bahagia kerana asasnya ditampung inginnya pada syurga abadi. 

Sudah kubilang, penantian itu berseni. Mahukah kamu luangkan masa kini untuk pelajari dan alaminya?

Ibu Berkisah.

Cerita ini Ibu kisahkan, tidak lama dahulu - mungkin sebelum terlepas terbang ke bumi penuh peluang ini. Atau mungkin lagi awal.

Kata Ibu, kisah ini berlaku sewaktu saat dia dan Ayah mentah dalam membina keluarga di ibu kota.

(Ingatan itu mula berambal-ambal datang kini) Saya ingat sewaktu itu, saya sedang memandu dan ibu di sebelah - jauh dia memandang ke permandangan luar yang dihiris-hiris titis-titis hujan tropikal.

Ibu bercerita, waktu itu adik saya yang pertama (saya anak sulung, jadi kami baru berdua) baharu dilahirkan. Ibu, Ayah, adik perempuan saya dan saya yang kedua-duanya masih lumpuh mengenal dunia - saya mungkin  baru mencecah dua tahun, dan adik perempuan saya kemungkinan baru berbulan mendiami dunia - pulang daripada Hospital mengambil suntikan imunisasi.

Waktu itu, Ayah, mungkin belum mampu atau belum punya lesen, tidak mempunyai kereta. Berharapkan sebuah motor kapcai Yamaha ke hulu ke hilir melaksanakan tugas seorang ayah. Saya masih ingat, saya suka membonceng motor bersama Ayah dan antara tabiat saya ialah melepaskan selipar sewaktu ayah menderu dengan motornya. Ayah akan membuat pusingan lalu mengambil selipar saya yang tergeletak di atas jalan raya, bukan sekali, kadang-kadang berkali-kali - dan Ayah akan terus melayan. Terima kasih Ayah.

Tetapi bukan itu yang ibu ceritakan. (kisah bersambung) Menurut ibu, waktu itu, dalam perjalanan pulang hujan lebat kota raya deras menimpa kami. Ibu, Ayah, saya yang berusia dua tahun, dan adik yang berbulan. Kami berempat beranak terus meredah jalanan kota dengan sebuah motor sehinggalah bantuan Tuhan melalui insan yang penuh belas tiba.

Ini yang saya mahu kongsikan. Ibu berkisah, ada sepasang suami isteri (mereka menaiki van) mempelawa ibu dan adik saya untuk menaiki van mereka - dan menurut Ibu, beliau dan adik dihantar sampai ke rumah.

Dalam redahan hujan sewaktu ibu mengisahkan kisah ini - sempat saya mendoakan pasangan yang ikhlas menolong kami waktu. Dan waktu hujan, mustajab bukan? insyaAllah.

Manusia, kebaikannya kadang tidak tersangka!

My Artistic Journey

I have always been into art.  I started to draw as early as I started to read, probably around three year old-ish. No, I don't remember.

Still, the main point is I quite have an artsy bitsy finger I told you. I love to draw, sometimes paint. But most of the times I just let my drawings uncolored - because I am suck at it.

Yeah, my works were always half done. I drew magnificently (allow me to use a parabolic expression here) in all its grandeur and majesty then when it starts to coloring, I would erase my pencil drawing here and there since it was just too much, or too complicated to be colored.

I was so into comic and anime, maybe from my third grade, and it lasted until my third former I guess. My major influence at that time was GEMPAK and its branches mags like UTOPIA and stuffs. I would draw everywhere, in my notes, on my desk, on the chalkboard, on the exam paper when I didn't know what else to do - doodling had really become my routine.

I tried, to draw and made it my forte. I self-taught myself by internet and the tutorials in the GEMPAK, and also do some imitations either a re-draw or a mere trace of the illustration. I even bought special inks and pens for me to draw which in that time costs several days of my pocket allowance. But I don't mind - to see a complete drawing of mine - along with some approvals from my mates, satisfied me.

But the long days of idling after PMR has introduced me into a new world - the other side of art. I have been engrossed with the visuals, now the words that dance around forming a vivid imagination of the world that the book invites me in - captured me and my attention. Don't get me wrong, I always love to read. But before this, reading is a channel for me acquiring knowledge that is not accessible for me in the formal classes. Now, reading has provided a value - inevitable value that moves smoothly and rather dramatically in the fold of history in humanity.

Words, be it in speech activity or writing has redefined my new interest. Not to say my participation of debate and orating, but that really teaches me something about the power of words, the ideas conveyor and how efficient it is, at least for me, to be struck in awe. To be honest, it was not really the first time I dived into the colorful world of words. My first attempt, I guess that incorporated both my interests in words and drawings was when I was in standard six. I wrote a few chapters of a fiction novel, and drew by myself of the world that I imagined it to be. Some friends praised my work, but well, the work is never done.

Thanks to prolific and distinguished writer like Faisal Tehrani and later Anwar Ridhwan, I started to write. Now it's not just factual essays of arguments and corollary -it goes beyond that, in fact it encompasses that. I found confidence in conveying my ideas through a chain of narratives, or sometimes just for sake of creativity and challenge.

I just wrote during my fourth and fifth form, from skits of lives of my friends (and some but rarely are mine) and make it into a new story. Apparently, I still do that in many of my narratives. Some are just description of events, or some ineffable feeling that I had in myself while some are careful, with a mix of freestyle writing that even I don't know the ending - only a particular plot and a particular message. Usually the writings are the blend of those elements aforementioned.

Yet, I am not always so good in writing creative narrative in English, partly because I used to write in debates and partly because I don't know, maybe I was trying to hard. My attempt to write a narrative was in  my mid-year exam when I was in form Five (back in 2008). I wrote an essay from the single-word essay question, ADULT. That, I extended my creativity writing about an infant view of the adult world - the responsibility, wars and stuffs only to get quite a negative remark from my teachers. The grammar was all messed up and according to my English teacher, "light-headed" (seriously, until now I don't even know what's that supposed to mean. My moral had been crushed so bad I did not mind to ask I guess).

Until one time, as a practice for my essay I wrote a narrative out of question in an exercise book (I don't know where I got the book, probably I borrowed it from someone else). It was a narrative, and it was about an experience of a kidnapped girl who turned out to be Nurin Jazlin Jazimin (this story was written before her body was found being treated horribly by an unscrupulous man. Al Fatihah). The stories of kidnapped girl was so hot that times and the narrative seems relevant. I submitted it to my English teacher, and it was a yay. That really has escalated me.

Long story short (I know it's already long, pardon me), I somehow really have confidence in my writing - especially those of creativity. I intend to write a novel, but the problem is, I want it to be distinguished. I resisted to be contributor of the flooding love-story cliches out there. I want it to be philosophical and intellectual in its whole worldliness. A journey of struggled soul in this world of uncertainties.A recorder of ideas.

Sounds big huh? Maybe I should start little :/ But I was really inspired by Faisal Tehrani and Buya Hamka who has and had brought literary values to  a new level. Maybe not so new, since philosophers of post modernist like Nietzsche and many more have really conveyed their ideas through a series of narratives. Not to say that my piece will be of that level - but I should aim high right?

Pray for me :)

Syahadah

"Kauingat, saat kali pertama mengungkap syahadah? Apa rasanya?"

Rasa yang khali mungkin, dan mustahil itu yang kauluahkan. Kau hanya mendiamkan diri, membiarkan soalan itu hilang dalam deru laju kereta.



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Kauingat? Saat kali pertama kaumengungkap syahadah?