In 2021, families held takbiran (the night of chanting) over Zoom. The call to prayer echoed through empty streets. Hospitals in Surabaya and Bandung were overwhelmed. Oxygen tanks became black-market gold. Social media was a horror show of people begging for cylinders for their gasping parents. Yet, in the villages of Central Java, a quiet rebellion occurred. Some villagers blocked roads with bamboo barricades to keep outsiders out—a modern, desperate echo of the ancient ruwatan ritual, which cleanses a village of evil. They saw the virus not as a biological entity but as a tuyul (ghost) or gendruwo (evil spirit), something to be warded off with tradition.
The year had tried to drown it, burn it, divide it, and silence it. But 2021 taught Indonesia a hard, clear truth: survival was not a policy. It was a daily, desperate, collective art. And that art, for better or worse, was still being painted. ceweksmusmamesumbugiltelanjang13jpg 2021