Monday 9 March 2009

The Rocky Story - Epilogue

'Jawa Pos full page article sayang. Saya hantar ya...' (Full page article in the Jawa Post, darling. I send to you ya...) That was the text message I recieved from Rocky.A few days later I received this in the mail. Oh my goodness....my whole life in print - more or less. As a memorabilia of my visit to Surabaya and reunion with a yoga buddy, I appreciate his charming efforts...

Rather than hog the limelight, I refer to other tabloid reports on the fatwa (Islamic edict) on yoga in Indonesia. Before this there was a dearth of images of yoga practice in Muslim countries. Now it is well documented.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/26/indonesia-bans-muslims-yoga


http://treasure.1x1y.com.cn/useracticles/20090130/20090130090814803.html

Excerpt taken from the above article:-

"Issuing a fatwa is not the way to settle a controversy — if there really is one," says Sita Resmi, a yoga student and observant Muslim. "If something endangers the public, then I understand, but this doesn't, so it doesn't make much sense to me."

On the lighter side, at the yoga class in Atlas Gym in Surabaya I recall being thoroughly amused by the Yogini's intructions...."tolak tulang belakang ke arah pantat" = push your spine in the direction of your buttocks, which is a perfectly acceptable yoga instruction in Bahasa Indonesia.

The problem lies in the varying manner in which words are used in Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia. The word for buttocks in Malaysia is punggung (polite) or buntut (less polite); pantat according to the dictionary (kamus) means arse or worse! So you can see the divide. In Bahasa Indonesia the word pantat is used freely and has a less pungent meaning.
Anyway to distract you from that image, feast your eyes on these peaceful moments in paradise.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

wow. you're famous. can't read the article as the print is too small...

cath :-)