I learned the Arabic alphabets before I did any other. I started learning it even before I attended primary school, and unlike most other kids my age at the time I skipped the sekolah makan TADIKA (kindergarten). Instead I attended mengaji at night and during class, I’d recite the Quran using a copy that was available at the surau.
Our family did not have a copy of the Quran at home until some time in the 1980s. The first Quran that my parents brought home was a brand new copy that they’d gotten for free from the village masjid, if memory serves me right. But it was not the family’s first book.
I can vaguely remember that around puberty I usually spent the afternoons sprawled on the couch reading HAMKA. It was one of my father’s few books. Some time later I found all of his books scattered under their bed at home while … I can’t really recall why I was looking there. But a couple of the authors’ that I can still remember were HAMKA and Agus Salim, both of whom were Indonesian [Minangkabau] progressive thinkers in the first half of the 20th century. Father read those books while he was still in the army for goodness knows why. Agus Salim’s book was written in two languages – Indonesian and Dutch. I don’t remember much else about those books, but there was a line in HAMKA’s that stayed with me for awhile. It was the part where he thought that something beautiful could never be sinful.
So puberty was a time when I actively looked for books. It was around this curious time that I got hold of a sibling’s book, THE READER'S DIGEST BOOK OF THE HUMAN BODY, which somebody said years later was a seminal book on sex, hippie-style (because it contains drawings of unshaven men and women!).
I can’t recall the first book that I bought with my own money. But I can remember very well the most recent book that I bought_a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. I’d read his novels before but when I was at the bookstore suddenly it occurred to me that I needed to have a copy at home. Come to think of it right now maybe it’s time I stop buying books and save the money for something else.
Something beautiful can never be sinful
Our family did not have a copy of the Quran at home until some time in the 1980s. The first Quran that my parents brought home was a brand new copy that they’d gotten for free from the village masjid, if memory serves me right. But it was not the family’s first book.
I can vaguely remember that around puberty I usually spent the afternoons sprawled on the couch reading HAMKA. It was one of my father’s few books. Some time later I found all of his books scattered under their bed at home while … I can’t really recall why I was looking there. But a couple of the authors’ that I can still remember were HAMKA and Agus Salim, both of whom were Indonesian [Minangkabau] progressive thinkers in the first half of the 20th century. Father read those books while he was still in the army for goodness knows why. Agus Salim’s book was written in two languages – Indonesian and Dutch. I don’t remember much else about those books, but there was a line in HAMKA’s that stayed with me for awhile. It was the part where he thought that something beautiful could never be sinful.
So puberty was a time when I actively looked for books. It was around this curious time that I got hold of a sibling’s book, THE READER'S DIGEST BOOK OF THE HUMAN BODY, which somebody said years later was a seminal book on sex, hippie-style (because it contains drawings of unshaven men and women!).
I can’t recall the first book that I bought with my own money. But I can remember very well the most recent book that I bought_a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. I’d read his novels before but when I was at the bookstore suddenly it occurred to me that I needed to have a copy at home. Come to think of it right now maybe it’s time I stop buying books and save the money for something else.
Something beautiful can never be sinful
