Rudyard Kipling dan puisi “If” yang tersohor

Tahun 1995 waktu tinggal di London, saya ikuti jajak pendapat penduduk Inggris Raya untuk memilih puisi yang terfavorit. Jajak pendapat ini dilakukan melalui Radio BBC. Puisi berjudul “If” karya Rudyard Kipling terpilih sebagai puisi paling favorit. Sejak waktu itu masuklah ke dalam benakku informasi bahwa Rudyard Kipling adalah penyair yang pusinya ditulis dengan bahasa yang sederhana dan mudah dimengerti. Tidak seperti banyak penyair Indonesia yang cenderung mengaburkan puisinya sehingga tak ada orang lain yang mengerti kecuali penyair itu sendiri.

Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) terkenal di seluruh dunia dengan rumus 5 W + 1H (Who, What, Where, When, Why, dan How) bagi wartawan untuk menulis berita dan bagi polisi dalam melakukan investigasi dan menulis berita acara pemeriksaan.

Rumus 5W + 1 H membuatnya dikenang sampai sekarang. Ia memasukkannya ke dalam bukunya “Just So Stories” (1902). Dalam buku itu, ia mengawali cerita tentang “The Elephant’s Child” (“Anak Gajah’) dengan puisi berikut ini:

Saya pertahankan enam pelayan setia

(Mereka mengajariku semua yang saya tahu);

Namanya adalah What dan Why dan When

Dan How dan Where dan Who.

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

Rudyard Kipling adalah seorang pengarang Inggris, lahir di Bombay (sekarang Mumbay), India, dan dididik di Inggris. Ia kembali ke India pada tahun 1882 dan bekerja sebagai editor pada sebuah suratkabar Lahore (sekarang di Pakistan). Puisi-puisi awalnya diterbitkan pada tahun 1886 dan 1892. Cerpen-cerpen awalnya diterbitkan tahun 1888. Tahun 1889 ia kembali ke London dan tahun 1890 menerbitkan novel The Light That Failed. Cerita dan puisinya yang menjadi masterpiece menggambarkan perasaan dan perjuangannya di India, termasuk perasaan bosannya.

Pada dasawarsa pertama abad ke-20, popularitasnya mencapai puncak. Pada tahun 1907 ia dianugrahi Hadiah Nobel Sastra sebagai pengakuan atas prestasinya dalam dua kumpulan puisi dan cerita yang berkaitan, yaitu Puck of Pook Hill dan Rewards and Fairies. Dalam kumpulan terakhir inilah puisinya yang berjudul “If” dimasukkan.

Rudyard Kipling, usia 60 tahun, pada kover Majalah Time, 27 September 1926

“If” adalah pusi yang ditulis tahun 1895 dan baru 15 tahun sesudahnya diterbitkan dalam kumpulan cerita dan puisinya tahun 1910. Betapa populernya puisi ini, terlihat dari sekian banyak puisi yang meniru gaya bahasanya dan tahun 1995 terpilih sebagai puisi paling favorit oleh warga Inggris dalam jajak pencapat BBC pada tahun 1995.

Kipling mengatakan bahwa puisi ini dicetak sebagai kartu yang dapat digantung di kantor-kantor dan kamar tidur. T.S.Eliot dalam esainya tentang karya Kipling melukiskan puisi Kipling ini sebagai “syair yang hebat” yang terkadang tak disengaja berubah menjadi puisi.

(Sumber: 90180.www.carbolicsmokeball)

Berikut ini disajikan terjemahan puisi “If” yang kini telah berusia 113 tahun.

JIKA

Oleh Rudyard Kipling

Jika kau bisa bersabar ketika semua orang sekitarmu

Hilang sabar dan mempersalahkanmu;

Jika kau bisa percaya diri ketika semua orang meragukanmu,

Namun berilah juga celah bagi keraguan mereka;

Jika kau bisa menunggu dan tak lelah menanti,

Atau, dibohongi, janganlah berdamai dengan kebohongan,

Atau, dibenci, janganlah balas membenci,

Namun janganlah kelihatan terlalu baik, atau berbicara terlalu bijaksana;

______________________________________________________

Jika kau dapat bermimpi – dan tidak membiarkan mimpi menguasaimu;

Jika kau dapat berpikir – dan tidak menjadikan pikiranmu sebagai tujuan;

Jika kau dapat meraih kemenangan dan menderita musibah kekalahan

Dan memperlakukan sama kedua tipuan semu itu;

Jika kau rela mendengarkan kebenaran yang kau ucapkan

Yang tersandra oleh para penipu yang membuat perangkap bagi orang bodoh,

Atau menyaksikan hancurluluhnya segala yang kau pertaruhkan untuk hidupmu,

Dan membungkuklah dan bangunlah puing-puing itu dengan peralatan rusak yang tersisa;

______________________________________________________

Jika kau dapat mempertaruhkan semua kemenanganmu

Dan mengambil risiko untuk satu giliran ’lempar-dan-tangkap’,

Dan ternyata kalah, dan harus mulai lagi dari awal

Dan janganlah pernah mengeluhkan kekalahanmu sepatah kata pun;

Jika kau bisa memaksa jantung dan saraf dan ototmu

Untuk melakukan giliran pukulan service-mu lama setelah semua kekalahanmu,

Dan ya bertahanlah bila tiada lagi apa pun dalam dirimu

Kecuali Kemauan yang berujar kepada mereka: ”Tunggu”.

__________________________________________________

Jika kau dapat berbicara kepada rakyat jelata dan mempertahankan kebajikanmu,

Atau berjalan dengan raja-raja – tanpa kehilangan hubungan dengan rakyat biasa;

Jika tiada musuh atau teman tercinta dapat melukaimu;

Jika semua orang menghargaimu, tapi tak berlebihan;

Jika kau bisa mengisi menit yang menentukan

Dengan menempuh jarak lari enam puluh detik yang tak ternilai –

Bumi dan segala isinya akan menjadi milikmu,

Dan – yang lebih penting – kau akan menjadi Seseorang anakku!

(Terjemahan S.Belen)

City of Joy (3.blogger)

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

Betapa populer puisi ini hingga ada yang malah menulis punggungnya (Poetry_tattoo­.www.tattooblog.org)

Sumber:

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, en.wikipedia.org

twinklingdreamz.blogspot

www.knowledgerush

Life without love is like a star without light

(My niece and her child in Adonara, Flores, Indonesia)

Yesterday, when I told this saying to a friend who has just arrived from London, immediately she added her version, “Life without friends is like a garden without flowers.” This saying was written on a board in a remote and quiet village of England countryside and she never forgets these wise words.

Love is a word mostly spoken, written, thought and experienced by everyone. Love experience has been stimulating and inspiring novelists, poets, music composers, sculptors, drama writers and many other professions. Even, philosophers! Fortunately, we keep having benefit from their works.

Herewith, please read a gift from my friend. If you want to read the text in powerpoint designed with pictures and animation, please click here! love

Love

From a friend

There are times when we are timid and shy about expressing the love we feel. For fear of embarrassing the other person, or yourselves, we hesitate to say the actual words “I love you”

So we try to communicate the idea in other words. We say ‘take care’ or ‘don’t drive too fast’ or ‘be good’. But really, these are just other ways of saying ‘I love you’, ‘you are important to me’, ‘I care what happens to you’, ‘I don’t want you to get hurt’.

We are sometimes very strange people. The only thing we want to say, and the one thing that we should say, is the one thing we don’t say.

And yet, because the feeling is so real, and the need to say it is so strong, we are driven to use other words and sign to say what we really mean.

And many times the meaning never gets communicated at all and the other person is left feeling unloved and unwanted.

Therefore, we have to LISTEN FOR LOVE in the other words that people are saying to us. Sometimes the explicit words are necessary, but more often, the manner of saying things is even more important. A joyous insult carries the affection and love within the sentiments that are expressed insincerely.

An impulsive hug says I LOVE YOU even though the words might be saying very different. Any expression of a person’s concern for another says I love you. Sometimes the expression is clumsy, sometimes even cruel.

Sometimes we must look and listen very intently for the love that contains. But it is often there, beneath the surface.

A mother may nag her daughter constantly about his grades or cleaning his room. The daughter may hear only the nagging, but if she listens carefully, she will hear the love underneath the nagging. Her mother wants him to do well, to be successful. Her concern and love for her daughter unfortunately emerge in her nagging. But it is love all the same.

A son comes home late, way past curfew, and his father confronts him with angry words. The son may hear only the anger, but if he listens carefully, he will hear the love under the anger. “I was worried about you,” the father is saying. “Because I care about you and I love you. You are important to me.”

We say I love you in many ways – with birthday gifts, and little notes, with smiles and sometimes with tears. Sometimes we show our love by just keeping quiet and not saying a word, at other times by speaking out, even brusquely.

We show our love sometimes by impulsiveness. Many times we have to show our love by forgiving someone who has not listened to the love we have tried to express.

The problem in listening for love is that we don’t always understand the language of love with which the other person is using.

A girl may use tears or emotions to say what she wants to say, and her boyfriend may not understand her because he expects her to be talking his language. Thus, we have to force ourselves to really listen for love.

The problem with our world is that people rarely listen to each other. They hear the words, but they don’t listen to the actions that accompany the words or the expression on the face. Or people listen only for rejection or misunderstanding. They do not see the love that is there just beneath the surface, even if the words are angry.

We have to listen for love in those around us. If we listen intently we will discover that we are a lot more loved than we realize.

Listen for love and we will find that the world is a very loving place.

After all ………….

LOVE is a happy thing

It makes us laugh.

It makes us sing.

It makes us sad

It makes us cry

It makes us seek the reason why

It makes us take

It makes us give

Above all else ……………

It makes us LIVE

My friend’s reflection about his only child

I have a new friend. He looks great since we have met this month. He gives me his personal writing as a reflection of a snaphot of his life. The writing reminds me to a conversation in London in 1992 with a friend from The People’s Republic of China. She said, China is the only country which has most caesars (kings) and queens in the world. Due to the government’s one child policy, if a family has a boy then the boy automatically becomes a caesar in the family. If a family has a girl then the girl becomes a queen. Whatever expensive a gift demanded by the child, parents will try their best to buy.

As a consequence of one child policy, an opportunity of a child to socialize with his/her sibling(s) is blocked. Therefore, immediately I can understand my friend’s question about the development process of his boy.

Herewith, please read my friend’s personal writing which he permits me to publish in this blog since I promise not to mention his name. He says that an idea which he delivers is more important than himself. It is an example that all prophets do. A prophet’s teaching is much more important than the prophet himself.

Worry not, my son

On my visit to a friend’s house, I came across a boy and a girl playing around someone’s house just across the street. From their face, built and complexion, I could easily tell that they were siblings. Knocking on my friend’s house, I heard my phone ringing. He (my friend) rang me to tell that he was on the way home and asked me to wait. I decided to sit across the yard where they boy and the girl were playing. On a vacant wooden bench in the shade of banyan tree, I enjoyed the breeze accompanied by Paulo Coelho’s The Zahir.

I barely finished the first few pages of the novel, when I was disturbed by the sound of somebody crying. The girl was sitting on the green grass in the yard, covering her face with her two tiny but fat hands. Her brother was not far away, watching from a distance but pretending to be busy with himself. From a moment, I felt, there was a moment of silence between the two that made me somehow keep my eyes on the scene. Later on, the boy approached her. As he was stepping closer, the girl seemed somewhat alert and looked at him. Tears were seen running down her chubby cheeks, but there was no sign of resistance when he sat on her side. The boy said something to his sister while gently patting her back. A minute later, they began talking to each other. And not long after, the two were out playing again chasing one another as if nothing had happened. Cheers and laughter immediately filled the air, and everybody was happy, including me.

I returned to my book but could not get my mind off the recent snapshot of life I had just witnessed. I was being reminded how grateful I should be to be born in a family of eight. I remembered that I always had someone to chat with, someone to play with, someone to tease, someone to fight with, someone who stood p for me when I fought with a friend, someone to share tears and laughter with. It was there that I actually learned the importance of a family in life. All the chats taught me how to socialize with others. All the fights taught me how to stand up for something I believed and the value of forgiving. Good Lord, I lived like this thanks to my brothers and sisters (and of course, my parents).

I was still thinking about all the lessons of life I had learned from them in the afternoon on my way back home – only this time, with slightly different subject. I thought about it but with Ito, my 14 month old only son in it.

“Being an only child, how is he going to learn how to relate with others with no brother nor sister around? How is he going to learn the value of forgiving or the need to stand up for he believes without someone to fight with? How is he going to learn what I learned from my brothers and sisters without a brother nor a sister?” All of those questions remained unanswered ………………………….until yesterday.

Ito will have someone to play with, to fight with, to tease, to share laughter, and better … someone who is genetically almost identical – for his Mum is expecting. Cheer up Ito.