Folkore : Panji Semirang

Sometimes I do ask myself, why the older generation loved to use metaphoric words to show their feeling. Maybe because they didn’t like straightforward things and try to express it in an implicit manner so that it won’t hurt one’s feeling. 

“From poetry, there are words of wisdom in it.”

Because of that, the poetry existed. I myself when I was younger, I love poetry a lot. Well, though literature was not my strong point, I did love reading fantasy like story that used definitely kind of hard-to-understandphrase. But as I grew older, I forgot the beauty of reading this kind of thing. Hah!

  My so-called poem. Nice first try!

 

I still remember when I was 10, I read a fairy-tale like story about Panji Semirang. That book was supposedly the high school literature textbook, written in Malay language. Well, it’s for high school student. But as an elementary school student, I read it and I thought that the story was interesting. It’s a very thick book and quite weird to be read at my age. I myself feel weird that I liked that kind of book. To other child, that kind of book seemed to be boring and not fit in. I tried to share it with some of my friends, but none showed interest. Basically, when I read it, the plot was just simple though the language was quite classical and indirect.

 It’s about a beautiful princess named Galoh Cendera Kirana who became an orphan after losing his mother that have been poisoned by one of the king’s concubine named Paduka Liku who later became the queen. Yeah, I don’t remember the name of the country and other characters. Cendera Kirana actually was engaged to some-country prince charming, Raden Inu. Cendera Kirana had a step sister, named Galoh Adjeng and she is the typical step sister in Cinderella movie. So as the step mother, the later Queen, Paduka Liku. Well, after the former Queen, Cenedera Kirana’s mother passed away, she has a hard life in the palace, and being bullied by the Queen and half sister, Galoh Adjeng. Even the King had change because the Queen put spells on the King. Then, Cendera Kirana was punished in all sort of punishment and lastly she ran away from the palace. Well, that’s when the real story began where she traveled and there was one time where she disguised herself as a man, and entered a musical group who traveled across the country. In a group, she met a guy but never aware that the guy was her fiance. Both of them didn’t know each other and the guy never knew that Cendera Kirana was actually a girl. Some sorts of feeling developed....well, it’s kinda similar to Hong sister’s You’re Beautiful, right? This is daebak! To make it shorter, the story continues and the Prince disappeared and was forced to marry Galoh Adjeng but his heart remained for Cendera Kirana. Okay, I already forgot how the story ended, but I’m pretty sure it’s a happy ending where finally after disguise and all, Cendera Kirana went back to her country and rule the kingdom, married with the love of her life, Raden Inu. The King regained his mind and the bad people received what they suppose to get. On the end, they finally live happily ever after.

Well, quite typical isn’t? However, what makes this beautiful is not just the plot but also the use of phrase of old Malay phrase. No one will actually use that kind of phrase anymore, nowadays. Looking back, I thought it will be good if the drama production make this into a serial drama. It’ll be great. Malay drama lacks of this kind of fantasy -fusion- historical movie, maybe because lacks of good writer since it needs a lot of imagination and creativity. Plut, lots of money! ( sarcastically) Most of the modern drama in the local tv nowadays are just nonsense and not realistic to what a real person supposed to act. Whenever I watched tv, I’d always came out with, 

“ Why the characters are so lousy and idiots?”

 And it bounced telling me in a sarcastic way, 

“ You’re the idiots, you know there’re bunch of idiots in it, why did you insisted om watching it?” 

Hahah..that was so true and I just can  put on smile on my face realizing that how silly I was.  But I didn’t mean to say that all the dramas are bad, some are good but the majority really....really sucks. I don’t know. That’s why I gave up on local drama and turned my interest in Korean drama, for example...yep, sadly. 

 

I tried to find the book when I went home, but I found none, I guess my mom already disposed it since there was a time when termites attacked our house and some of good books just became the termites meal and disappeared without a trace! Guys, have you ever read this book? It'll be awesome if we could share the same interests and criticism about this folkore story. Haha..this turned out to be a long ramblings anyway..and I think I should stop now. Till then, good bye!