Lapidin
(Adapted from Ki Lapidin by Aan Ikhsan Gumelar)
Once upon a time, under the shade of Baobab tree, sat back a strong and solid man. Lapidin, was his name. He traveled a lot and came to Subang at the Dutch colonial time in which the people were asked to do a hardwork for the Dutch government without payment.
When Lapidin continued his travel, he heard the sound of a whip. Blare! Blare! Lapidin approached the sound and surprisingly found a weak and old man lay down the ground helplessly.
“Hei, Mandor! Had you gone insane to whip a helpless man?” Lapidin shouted.
“Who are you? Mind your own business!” Mandor shouted back to Lapidin. Blare! Mandor tried to whip Lapidin. Quickly Lapidin dodged to the left. Grabbed the tip of the whip. Pulled it. Kneed Mandor’s chest. Hit his neck. Bump! Mandor fell down.
Lapidin walked an old man home to his door and met his daughter.
“Thank you…” she said and drew a smiley face to Lapidin.
Fortunately an old man asked Lapidin to stay with them. Soon, Lapidin fell in love with the old man’s daughter. They fell in love with each other. Not long after that, they got married. Hearing the news, a man stood jealously.
One day, Lapidin went to the fields to harvest the rice. As the daylight faded away, he got back home through the woods. Suddenly at the side of Rawabadak village.
“Lapidin, Stop there!”
Looked back.
Sarkawi and the gang.
Suddenly a machete flashed. Lapidin, a master of Pencak Silat, dodged to the right. He grabbed the enemy’s wrist. Pulled it. Hit it. The machete thrown off. Lapidin’s right hand hit him in the chest. Bump!
Sarkawi attacked Lapidin all of a sudden.
Lapidin parried the blow by his machete. Sarkawi lost four of his left fingers.
“Aww…!” Sarkawi shouted. He and his gang ran off helter skelter.
Arrived home, Lapidin heard baby’s crying. Bursting with joy, Lapidin got into the house and saw a baby in an old midwife’s hand.
“A baby boy. But….,” she said speechlessly.
Baby’s mother lied in a dead faint. Lapidin embraced her beloved wife tenderly. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He mourned for his beloved wife.
To solace his sadness, sometimes Lapidin jointed a group of traditional dancing such as Ronggeng, Ketuk Tilu, Penca, Doger Kontrak, Tayuban, etc. He danced and sang his favourite traditional song: Kembang Gadung. He became a famous star in his village and surrounding. Women adored him. It made Sarkawi got jealous.
One summer night, after dancing Ronggeng, Lapidin and the dancing group walked home at dawn. Suddenly his eyes caught a stealthy movement at the edge of the wood. He chased after three men covering their face with black masks.
Lapidin attacked the three men. He kicked and hit them one by one. One of the men pulled out his machete and tried to kill Lapidin. Lapidin, a master of Pencak Silat, parried the blow by his machete. The man fought hard to defeat Lapidin. Lapidin defeated him and uncovered the man’s mask by his machete. To his surprise, he was Sarkawi. Sarkawi ran away after handing over his gang stolen goods to Lapidin. Lapidin made Sarkawi promise that he would not steal again.
In the morning, word-of-mouth news spread over village people. Some of them got a bulk of money, some of them got golden jewellery hid in the kitchen. Everybody in the village felt happy. Since that day, Subang city was safe from the robbery.
One day, at dawn, some colonial government offices had been robbed. Peter Willem Hofland, as a chief of colonial farm in Subang Regency worried of the situation. He asked Demang to hire Lapidin as a security chief. Lapidin refused it.
One summer night, there was a party for colonial staffs in Societet Hall. They were dancing, drinking whiskey, playing billiards, etc.
Not far from the Societet Hall, Lapidin and Sarkawi crept to get inside the house, hardly making any noise. They robbed the house successfully. When they left the house by jumping over the fence, accidentally Sarkawi’s sarong for keeping the stolen goods got caught the fence.
“What a greedy creature you are!” shouted Lapidin to see the bulks of money and golden jewellery spilled out from Sarkawi’s sarong. Differed from Sarkawi, Lapidin stole treasures from rich people and gave them to the poor.
Peter Willem Hofland got angry when he found that someone had robbed his house. He lost a lot of his treasures. He asked Demang to catch the robbers.
The next day, Demang’s house was also robbed and he lost a lot of his treasures too. Demang promised a hundred grams of gold to whoever could catch the robbers.
Hearing a good news from Demang and taking a revenge to Lapidin, Sarkawi told Demang that he knew who the robber was.
Sarkawi and Demang planned a strategy carefully to catch Lapidin. They arranged a tactic. They took Lapidin’s only son as a hostage and put him in Demang’s house, hoping that Lapidin would come to picked his son and surrendered himself to Demang. Not long after that, Lapidin’s son got sick. Demang sent him back to his grandfather.
Hearing that his son was taken as a hostage and got sick, Lapidin finally came to the village to bring his son to the medicine man. Unfortunately, he was attacked by Sarkawi and the gangs. Lapidin fought hard to defeat them. Lapidin could defeat them one by one. Feeling exhausted, he hugged his son gently. His son’s back was bleeding because of the Sarkawi’s machete stroke.
Lapidin mourned for the second time. He buried his son beside his mother’s grave in Salahaur cemetery.
When Lapidin mourned for his beloved son in the cemetery, the police troop besieged him and brought him to the jail.
In the jail, Lapidin was tortured by the police and Inspector. He could not fight back because his hands were tied up by the rope and were hang to the ceiling. His face got green and blood was dripping through his mouth. He stood helplessly.
In the gloomy afternoon at the terrace of the Societet Hall, Lapidin’s head was covered by a black cloth mask. His neck was tied by a rope which was hanged up on the ‘mimusops elengi’ tree. He asked to listen to the song ‘Kembang Gadung’ before being sentenced to hang. He prayed calmly. The executioner removed the support from beneath Lapidin’s feet.
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| Aan Ikhsan Gumelar, the writer of Ki Lapidin |
(The story was written and adapted by Leni Lesnawati from the origin story of Ki Lapidin by Aan Ikhsan Gumelar. This story was taken part in the story telling competition conducted by SEAMEO Qitep in Language)
