Takbiran

Takbiran

celebrating the end of a Ramadan

"Every struggle that we have done always leads us to great things in the end"

It's the same thing with this tradition. After fasting during the day for a month period, finally it comes to the end; celebration. 

Takbiran in Indonesia refers to a night of celebration on welcoming the Eid al-Fitr or Eid al-Adha which you will not find in other countries. The activity could be a lantern parade on a street and sometimes it will also use obor (torch) and bedug (drum) to lighten up the event. Every region they have its own style of celebrating takbiran, in my city we have a lantern parade and it consists of approximately 30 groups showing their best lantern as they possibly can. 

On this night, most people usually stay up late as they are excited to welcome a big day the next day. For this year's theme, they came up with the idea of "tempo doeloe" which refers to an old era. The whole event represented the old era of Jogjakarta and it was very interesting to me and especially to Tori; my friend from Canada. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that this year I'm not going here by myself but I am accompanied by my friend Tori.

This is Tori, look at her face she looked a bit nervous, but I know deep down she was so happy and excited as she enjoyed the event.

And here are some photos that I got from the parade.

I say "Hey look at me here" and suddenly she smiled beautifully at the dress that she wore. What a great costume! Such a Camp idea!

I love how they made their costume using paper and Jarik (Javanese traditional fabric)

This mascot is directly inspired by Gunungan in Wayang (Indonesian Puppets) which symbolizes high philosophical teaching or wisdom

No matter who it is, everybody seems happy 

During Takbiran, Tori was so excited as she recorded the whole event with my phone and nodded her head since the instrument that they played harmonized beautifully. I am glad that Tori had so much fun and that is what makes me happy the most, finally, I can share one of my cultures with my foreign friend and also I can write this down for you :).

Rumor says that government will ban this event in Jakarta since the government suggests that this event has nothing to do with Muslim beliefs. Not only that but also there is no benefit being obtained as the local government argued Takbiran is an excuse for people to get drunk or make a mess.

But in my opinion, banning the event isn't going to solve the problem itself.  I believe that Takbiran will always be here forever. In addition, I as a younger generation would like to introduce this event worldwide and let them know that this tradition needs acknowledgment due to its own complexity and indeed one of many wonderful inheritances that Indonesia has.

THE END