TV Berwarna Itu Sangat Hebat

Si Unyil

Serial Si Unyil

Masa kecilku, kurasa sama seperti jutaan anak-anak lainnya yang hidup di akhir tahun 80an dan awal 90-an. Karena game online baru akan ada puluhan tahun di masa depan, kami bermain lompat karet bersama teman-teman di lapangan, bermain petak umpet, galasin, congklak, dan selusin permainan tradisional lain. Kami juga punya acara favorit Si Unyil yang tayang di stasiun TVRI. Satu-satunya stasiun televisi waktu itu.

Pada saat itu kondisi keluargaku miskin tapi aku tak terlalu memusingkan keadaan tersebut. Mungkin karena masih anak-anak dan berada di lingkungan yang kurang lebih sama kadar keuangannya. Bagi kami sekeluarga adalah hal biasa memakan sepiring nasi yang dicampur dengan air hangat dan garam. Aku tak pernah merasa menderita. Mungkin juga itu disebabkan oleh ayahku yang selalu tersenyum saat tiba di rumah dari pekerjaannya menambal ban seharian.

Umurku sekitar tujuh tahun, jadi kurang lebih aku mengerti kalau ayahku capek dan sangat lapar. Tapi entah bagaimana caranya, dia membagi nasi yang tinggal sedikit di dandang dengan aku dan adik perempuanku. Raut wajahnya tampak tenang dan menyiratkan bahwa nasi yang sedikit itu cukup untuk memuaskan rasa laparnya. Kami pun makan dalam diam, sesekali ayahku bertanya tapi itu hanya pertanyaan rutunitasnya saja. Kadang-kadang aku tidak ikut makan, adik perempuanku yang lebih sering lapar daripada diriku. Dia langsung melompat dari tempat tidur kalau ayahku datang dan mengintilinya sampai ke dapur. Adikku akan memperhatikan ayah makan sambil cengar-cengir dan akhirnya ayah akan bertanya: ”Ade mau makan?” dia mengangguk dengan semangat. Melihat mereka makan dengan lahap nasi, air, dan garam itu, aku sudah senang. Mata adikku berbinar-binar bila bisa duduk menyuap nasi kemulutnya bersama ayahku, dan bagiku duduk menyaksikan mereka saja rasanya sudah cukup.

Soal menyoal kebutuhan pokok saja sudah menjadi tantangan untuk keluarga kami. Apalagi mengikuti tren yang sedang muncul saat itu, yaitu tv berwarna. Sebenarnya sih, tidak memiliki tv berwarna tak pernah membuatku gusar. Tak pernah, sampai pada suatu hari di hari Senin seorang teman sekelasku bertanya dengan riang di hadapan banyak orang.

”Ellen, apa kamu menonton Doraemon kemarin?” sontak aku tercenung. Aku bingung tak kepalang. Serius deh, Doraemon! Apa itu? Aku baru dengar.

Namun aku terpaksa mengangguk, karena semua temanku ada di situ. Dan aku merasa seperti terpojok jika tidak berbohong. Ternyata Doraemon adalah program acara yang dihadirkan di sebuah stasiun televisi baru yang cuma ada di TV berwarna. Semua teman-temanku berkerubung dan saling bercerita tentang si Doraemon.

Pulang ke rumah, aku langsung melapor kepada ibuku, ”Kita harus punya TV berwarna, supaya bisa menonton Doraemon!”

old tvAkan tetapi tentu saja itu sebuah permintaan yang berlebihan mengingat situasi keuangan kami. Jadi aku harus menahan keinginanku itu entah untuk berapa lama. Karena merasa cerita-cerita teman-temanku tentang TV berwarna itu cukup hebat, semakin lama kulihat TV hitam putih kami, semakin jelek dan menyedihkanlah kondisinya di mataku. Televisi itu berukuran 14 inch terbungkus dengan kesatuan casing empat kaki dan terdapat pintu di kiri kanannya yang bisa ditarik seperti tirai untuk menutupi layar saat tidak dipakai.

Semakin hari tentu saja, aku tak sanggup lagi melewati hari minggu lain tanpa menonton Doraemon. Siapa sih Doraemon itu? Seperti apa rupanya? Aku sungguh terobsesi ingin melihatnya. Tapi tak berani menggali lebih dalam pada teman-temanku karena rasa malu yang tak tertahankan tidak memiliki sebuah TV berwarna. Hal itu semakin menjadi-jadi saat hampir semua tetangga-tetanggaku satu  per satu membeli TV berwarna. Hanya aku seorang dirilah yang harus puas dengan TV hitam putih, dengan acara-acara yang kalah modern. Rasanya semakin hari semakin sedih, karena aku tahu kenapa ayahku tidak membelikan kami sebuah tv berwarna—dia benar-benar tidak punya uang.

Hari demi hari berlalu, kehidupan berjalan seperti biasa sampai suatu sore ayahku membawa sebuah kotak besar. Kotak itu berisi TV berwarna! Aku dan adik-adikku melompat-lompat girang. Aku akan segera menonton Doraemon! Tetangga-tetangga ikut berkerumun, maklumlah, rumah kontrakan kami saling berdempetan. Dalam beberapa hari TV berwarna itu sungguh terlihat menakjubkan! Benar-benar tak pernah terbayangkan di kepalaku. Bagaimana bisa orang mewarnai gambar-gambar bergerak itu, pikirku sangat keras suatu hari. Pokoknya saking terkagum-kagumnya, TV berwarna itu jadi begitu keras kerjanya, selalu menyala sampai larut.

”Wah…TV barunya Yeyen (panggilan kecilku) disetel non stop sampai siaran habis, pagi-pagi siaran baru dimulai sudah disetel, malamnya sampai siaran habis baru dimatikan. Senang banget ya punya tv baru,” komentar ibu tetangga samping rumahku suatu hari. Ibu itu tersenyum tapi aku tidak suka kata-katanya. Kata-kata itu seperti punya arti yang buruk dipendengaranku. Segera saja kuadukan pada ibuku. Sejak kejadian itu, hilanglah euforia TV berwarna di rumah kami dan kami harus menonton dengan volume yang sangat kecil.

Doraemon 1

Serial Doraemon. (Suneo, Nobita, Doraemon, Giant (dari kiri ke kanan))

Tak sabar menunggu Doraemon pertama kalinya, Aku dan adik-adikku sudah duduk rapi jauh sebelum programnya dimulai. Kemudian muncullah Doraemon. Ternyata dia adalah sebuah robot gendut yang lucu dengan suara serak sekaligus cempreng. Kami menonton Doraemon dengan serius seperti sedang memperhatikan guru yang mengajar sambil memegang penggaris kayu.

Besoknya, di sekolah tentu saja aku adalah orang yang paling vokal dalam menceritakan soal menyoal Doraemon. Sampai hari ini aku masih menyukai Doraemon. Doraemon menemani masa kecilku yang miskin. Dengan menontonnya, entah mengapa aku jadi merasa tidak miskin lagi.

Ellen-

 

That Awesome Color TV

(This is an excerpt from Rainbow in My Childhood)

My childhood, perhaps, was the same as what other children in Indonesia experienced, especially those living in the period of 1980-1990ish. Facebook and onlines games had not yet existed. We enjoyed how fun it was playing jump-rope with friends in the yard, or playing hide-and-seek, congklak, engklek, and dozens of other traditional plays and games that we decided. Our favorite TV program was Si Unyil, which was aired every Sunday in TVRI, the only TV station in Indoneia at that time.

Our family economy was below sufficient in those years, but I didn’t think much of that. Maybe because we lived among a society with similar social-economic status. For us in the family, common meal was rice with warm water and salt. My mother could not provide more. I never felt sad, never complained, maybe because I always saw my father coming home with a smile on his face everyday. He worked fixing damaged tyres in a street-side not far from where we lived.

I was 7 years old, but I understood already that my father must have been exhausted and starving. I remember, when we have dinner together,  father managed to share a small amount of rice in the pan with me and my little sister Erni, while two of my younger brothers, Thamrin and Andrian were sleeping. His face looked calm, as if he wanted to show us that the food was enough for all of us and he was happy. We ate silently. Sometimes he asked us about our daily activities. Father was a quiet person, he never talked much, very rare we heard him sounding his words.

Usually, I didn’t eat. Erni felt hungry more often than me. She would directly jumped out of the bed when father arrived and followed him to the kitchen. She, then, would look at father when he was eating, until father asked: ”Ade, do you want to eat?” My sister would nod her head enthusiastically. Seeing them both eating rice and warm water and salt joyfully, I felt happy. That memory still lights in the corners of my mind: Erni’s bright eyes, father’s little talks, and a simple feeling of happines in my heart.

But things changed when Color TV existed in the beginning of 1990ish.

A Color TV! First, I was unaware of its existence. To make ends meet was difficult enough for our family, how could we think about having a Color TV? In fact, not having a Color TV at home was okay for me. No problem at all. But, one day, my classmate asked me cheerfully in front of the ohers: ”Ellen, did you watch Doraemon yesterday?”

Doraemon?I was silenced, confused, not knowing what to answer such question. Seriously, Doraemon! What was that? I just heard about it..

I forced myself to nod, because many of my classmates were around and seemed to wait for my answer. I felt I would be ashamed if I didn’t lie. Later, I found out that Doraemon was a Japanese cartoon, broadcasted by a new TV Station (RCTI). This station could only be accessed if your TV is Color TV!  My classmates often gathered and talked about this wonderful Doraemon. At home, I talked to my mother, ”Mom, we have to have a color TV, so that I can watch Doraemon!”

Of course, that was kind of absurd for my family. I asked too much. So, I kept the desire of watching Doraemon on Color TV for quite a long time. But, the stories shared by my classmates about what they saw on Color TV sounded so great, I began to dislike our black-and-white TV! That TV looked ugly to me. Our TV was only 14-inch, it had four legs and the screen was covered by a kind of folding door. The folding door must be opened first before you turned on the TV. It must be closed after the TV was turned off. It was very out-of-dated technology, it couldn’t catch the broadcast of RCTI.

The days following the incident with my classmates were getting harder for me to bear. I couldn’t stand to not watching Doraemon on a Sunday, prior to meeting with my classmates at school on Monday. Who was Doraemon? What did it look like? I was obsessed by him, but I didn’t have the courage to ask about it to my friends, because I would be ashamed of admitting that, in fact, I didn’t have Color TV. The situation was more unbearable when one by one our neighbor started to buy the Color TV. Our family remained the ones in the neighborhood that didn’t have Color TV. We must be satisfied with the black-and-white screen and boring programs. I became more sad realizing that my father didn’t have money to buy us a color TV.

For the first time in my childhood life, I realized that we were poor.

One late afternoon, my father arrived home bringing a big box. I and my sister approached it curiously. It was a Color TV! We jumped up and down, feeling hillarious. We would be able to see Doraemon! Finally. Some of our neighbors also came to see that we had a new Color TV. We lived in a rented house, very small, and there was hardly a gap between houses. The Color TV looked awesome to me. I admired it a lot. To express our joy, we turned on the TV till very late at night, and in a high volume (very loudly).

We were almost impatient to watch Doraemon for the first time. I and my younger sister and two other younger brothers sat obediently and nicely in front of the new TV, far beyond the airing time of Doraemon. And then, there it was … Doraemon. Wow, it turned out to be a robotic cat, fat and funny. Its voice was raspy. We watched Doraemon seriously, as if we listened to our teacher teaching and waiving a diciplinary stick.

The next day at school, of course, I became the loudest in sharing stories aout Doraemon. It felt good that finally I knew what I was talking about.

”Wow … your new TV … you turn it on nonstop until the end of broadcast late at night, and early morning you turn it on again. You must be so happy with your new TV,” said a neighbor one day. She talked and smiled, but I didn’t like her cynical commentary. I reported it to my mother. Since then, the euphoria of having a new Color TV disappeared from our home. We changed our habit, we turned down the volume.

Until today, I still like Doraemon. The chance of watching Doraemon was one of precious gifts my father gave me. Doraemon filled my childhood, a period of limitation. By watching Doraemon, I felt we were not poor at all.