This Is a Story About a Girl Meets Friends. But You Should Know Upfront, This Is Not a Love Story.

“…I count the steps the distance to. The time when it was me and you is so far gone. Another face another friend. Another place another end but I'll hang on…”
-Best Days, Graham Colton

Well it is precisely right for us when we lose someone then we will know how much we care for them. When I was arrived in Jakarta and spent my last two years in one of an elementary school here, I met a girl named Gharini Abhirama. I forgot how we met each other at school but one thing that I always remember about, it took a lot of struggles for us to make friends. Now, after we have been separated for years, I know that I have to lose her in another year, and more.

Yea, I was a smart but also a bad one at my previous elementary school before. So the arrogance led me to be a fucking picky friend. No wonder, I was a little Brainy Bobby who liked to bully a new comer in class and persuade my friends to be bad at her. But considering of my rank at school, my friends bent down at me (evilsmirk). But still, it did not bordered me to have a lot of friends, because since I was a child, I only have one or two best friends but I tried to not be depended on them, so I could socialize with others. Believe it or not, in those ages, I already had a qualification of friends. At school, I have friends for joking and mocking each other every time we had a time break (the Willy & William Twins), a friend but enemy inside because we competed each other to reach the best rank (Faris), a friend that surely friend because she was the one who made me change and always warned me to be a good friend (Alviola), and et cetera.

In case the moving of my family at that time to follow my father in the capital city here, I had to leave all those friends and to adapt to the new environment, not only to study but also to make friends. So, I learned to be a good girl.

Then I met some new neighbor friends who were also my friends at school. We played together when the holidays came, we got to school everyday together, we went to canteen together, sat on the nearby chairs at class, watched Amigos X Siempre after school until we had the same group name as the movie with the boys, got to the mosque to Tarawih or Shubuh pray when the Ramadhan came, played fireworks and had a barbeque time together to celebrate the new year’s eve, all the things that could be done together. I felt like I was accepted, cared, and for some reasons I felt like I was in a comfort zone where I always could find what I wanted. And in the end, I realized it could be the things that I always wanted, but it was not I needed to be somehow.

The thing is, I need the challenging one.

Perhaps it could be called a karma or something like that, because of my bad attitude at the previous elementary school, so at the new elementary school, when I already found my friends, I could not separate myself with them, I was being depended on them. Maybe I was not a person that being bullied, but I could feel how hurt was that thing by learned how to be an empathy one.

Then, there was Gharini Abhirama, yea, the one who could be a person to share everything about, to hear anything what she talked about, to learn something bad then made us good, and all the things that I could improvise myself. We could not be together firstly, because we were on a “different track”. But it was not a problem for us because at that time, what I looked for was happiness, and happiness was not always brought by the togetherness. If you’re unhappy, isn’t it right for you to not have yourself stayed? So I cracked out, even though there will always good or bad impacts every time you make a decision. But as I decided, I took the risks and I paid the consequences.

Day by day, I did an “affair” (ha ha ha) with Gharin. The disgusting one, we had one book which I can still remember the color of this book, black-greenly, and this book could be the place for us to write everything. In a day that book lived at my house, I wrote at night. And in the tomorrow morning, I gave the book to her and that book lived at her house, she wrote something, on and on. One day when I and Gharin were in the nostalgic time, we just laughed at loud about it and thought how freak we were in a childhood time.

I have one belief that every secret will always be cracked whether by the third party or by itself one day. It happened with this “affair” between me and Gharin ha ha. So my used to be friends could not accept the fact that I was out of their controls at that time. But I had learned to say “No” anyway, and tried to explain to them that it was not the kind of way they were begging to me, there were another way of being respect to others though. With all our children’s tears, they freed me. It felt like so somos-libres! I had found what I needed though, a challenging happiness. I could be friends and did something crazy with others like Dean, Gita, Anjani, Lulu, Vita, and all people at school included how to learn about that elementary lovebird stuffs ha ha ha. The point is, it is nice of being crazy and bad with people you trust because at the end you know that you will learn something good and you do not have to understand about their personalities earlier then plan something to make it deal with it, just let it flow, because you can not know the person without being natural with them, moreover in the short time, so let’s chill and I like a quote from Mas Aghi Narottama, “Do not take too serious in life, nobody gets out alive anyway.” So I might probably say that find something challenging.

This is dedicated to you who considered yourself as a friend:
Gharin ever told me in that book, that she did not want to be at the same junior high school with us, this statement was not about loving or not loving, living in egoism or giving a treat, but this was about letting others to learn different things in this world, to understand about expanding dreams and the differences inside of world, the good and bad friends, the things that will lead you to come back home. So raise your dream where in the place you study now, Ghar. Then come back and make your home better.

For your information, when I made it, my eyes opened. Previously, I have one belief that it is a bull when someone says; loving is not always has to own each other. For some reasons I could not believe that because of my experiences in this freaking love thing. I thought that I could not love someone without make him mine, anyway, now I still fall in love with him even though he’s not mine (: After all, it is just a matter of time, someday you will accept the fact that it is right, I do not know how to explain, but I feel it now. There’s someone says “Being realized is easy, the important is how we can accept it.”

Whether it has been glued for a long time or not, but know what, I already accept it.

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Aksara Records Tutup!

Dikutip dari rollingstone.co.id


Kabar duka datang bagi mereka para penggemar musik-musik bagus dalam negeri. Label rekaman independen terkemuka asal Jakarta, Aksara Records, yang selama ini menjadi rumah bagi band-band andal seperti Efek Rumah Kaca, White Shoes & The Couples Company, The Brandals hingga SORE mulai akhir tahun 2009 ini akan resmi ditutup oleh pemiliknya.

Selama enam tahun beroperasi, Aksara Records hingga kini telah merilis sebanyak 32 album milik artis indie lokal dan internasional.

“Owner sudah menyatakan tidak akan melanjutkan lagi terjun di bisnis ini,” ujar Aldo Sianturi, managing director Aksara Records, via telepon.

Menurut Aldo, sejak awal 2009 Aksara Records sebenarnya sudah bangkrut dan ketika ia dipercaya untuk mengambil alih kendali bisnis di sana pada pertengahan tahun ini kondisinya sudah tidak dapat diselamatkan lagi.

Aldo menjelaskan seluruh urusan administrasi, royalti dan kontrak rekaman yang berhubungan dengan artis akan diselesaikan secara internal sedangkan hak kepemilikan master album rekaman akan diberikan kepada artis-artis yang berada di bawah roster Aksara Records.

Ketika Rolling Stone coba mengonfirmasi kabar tutupnya indie label bergengsi ini kepada Hanin Sidharta, salah seorang pemilik Aksara Records, ia tidak mengangkat ponselnya dan hanya mengirimkan pesan kalau ia tengah berada di Tokyo, Jepang. “No comments until further notice, Pak,” begitu tulisnya via sms.

Aksara Records yang didirikan Hanin Sidharta dan David Tarigan sejak tahun 2004 merupakan salah satu cabang bisnis yang dimiliki oleh Aksara Bookstores, salah satu chainstore buku terkemuka di ibukota. Rilisan mereka rata-rata fokus pada genre musik eklektik seperti indie pop, electropop, indie rock, jazz hingga triphop.

Rilisan pertama Aksara Records adalah CD kompilasi JKT:SKRG (2004) yang berisi 12 band indie lokal yang dikemudian hari sangat dikenal namanya di seluruh penjuru tanahair. Mereka adalah C’mon Lennon, SORE, The Brandals, The Upstairs, Seringai, The Adams, Zeke & The Popo, Teenage Death Star, Sajama Cut.

Sementara rilisan terakhir Aksara Records adalah album kedua Efek Rumah Kaca bertitel Kamar Gelap yang telah beredar sejak Desember 2008 lalu. Praktis sepanjang tahun 2009 ini tak ada satu pun rilisan lokal yang diluncurkan oleh Aksara Records.

Selain merilis katalog musik milik artis lokal, Aksara Records juga sempat merilis album-album milik artis-artis indie internasional di antaranya Arctic Monkeys, M.I.A.,Vampire Weekend, Thom Yorke, Basement Jaxx, Club 8 hingga The Whitest Boy Alive.

Aksara Records bahkan juga sempat merilis pula album soundtrack dari beberapa film blockbuster Indonesia seperti Janji Joni, Berbagi Suami dan Quickie Express.

Walau Aksara Records berhenti beroperasi namun sebagian karyawan indie label ini telah sepakat untuk meneruskan perjuangan mereka dengan membentuk sebuah label rekaman baru bernama Raksasa Records.

“Ini adalah sebuah label baru yang otomatis akan memiliki cerita baru nantinya. Tidak ada hubungannya sama sekali dengan Aksara Records,” tegas Aldo.

Aldo Sianturi, David Tarigan dan Dono Firman akan memulai operasional label rekaman baru mereka dengan merilis album terbaru milik White Shoes & The Couples Company pada Februari 2010.

“Hingga kini artis yang telah bergabung dengan Raksasa Records adalah White Shoes & The Couples Company dan SORE,” jelas Aldo yang akan memegang posisi yang sama dengan yang dijabatnya kini di Aksara Records.

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