Kadek - Portrait of a Legend

Words and Drawing by Rohit Rao

The old saying goes, a place is only as good as the people in it. Never has this been a more demonstrable truism, in my mind, than the case of my friend Kadek and his family, owners of Sedap Malam at the small beach village of Lovina, North Bali.

When I was first introduced to Kadek by his gregarious wife Andrea, he was sawing two narrow beams of wood with a vigorous ferocity. Sunken, piercing eyes, a narrow angular face with high cheekbones and a chiselled jawline, he cut a lean, sinewy figure, squatting there on the ground hacking at the wood, cigarette between his lips. He shook his rough, calloused hands with ours, and immediately proceeded to make us coffee and dishes of coconut milk and palm sugar. He followed this by whacking a large fruit the size of a bowling ball off a tree, gave us his two cents about the best ways to travel from Lovina to Denpasar cheaply, and promptly went back to sawing.

Perhaps it was my laughable attempt at speaking Bahasa Indonesia, or the fact that I was the same age as his daughter, or my aimless demeanour that suggested a distinct lack of knowledge and financial security, that caused Kadek to welcome me into his family with open arms.

Every morning, I would be presented with a delicious plate of pisang goreng (fried banana) with chocolate, a steaming pot of Balinese coffee, and a lengthy conversation. Kadek loves to chat and would talk about everything from his young working days as a lawyer in Java, to his indominable schemes to make his homestay a more functional, aesthetic, and homely place. He came across as an active man with an industrious spirit, full of vigour and wonder at the world- incessantly building or fixing things or jumping on the back of his scooter and blitzing it on some random chore. Often, this was a quest to the nearest shop to buy a pack of cigarettes.

Kadek adores cooking and introduced me to a variety of local Balinese meals, better than I had had at any Warong. Delicious buttery soups, steamed leaves and lemon grass, coconut curries with fried tofu and tempe, grilled chicken over an open fire. He is a perfectionist when it comes to ingredients and the cooking process. One time, he took me to five different roadside shops along the same road to get some greens for a dish- only to resort to foraging for them in the shrubbery behind his house. Another time, he enlisted me to grind up a whole heap of onion, garlic and chilly while he wreaked havoc and fury on a chicken with a butcher’s knife. Kadek made sure that every single part of the bird was cooked; chucked in the pot with veggies, spices, and coconut cream to make his ultimate favourite dish Batutu. “That bit’s mine” he told me with relish, pointing to the two chicken legs bubbling away.

Kadek brought me to his plot of land in Lovina, speckled with plantains, tall grasses, and long swaying coconut trees. He hopped off his bike, went shirtless, stripped into his boardies, and jumped straight into watering his plants. Then, in a flaunting of his athleticism, he ran up a coconut tree; his large palms gripping, and the soles of his feet pressing along the long rough trunk. As I looked on in awe, he reached the very top, a dot against the blue of the sky, extended out, and shook the leaves spiritedly. Coconuts rained from the sky like gifts from the heavens.

When Kadek’s old aunt died, I was invited to her cremation ceremony. Garbed in his mosaic- patterned sarong and vibrant headgear, the quintessential Balinese attire, I accompanied him to her towering, stone-cut house, almost out of a Garcia Marquez novel, where her body lay packed in ice. I watched as a crowd of men, all dressed the same, swapped stories and chanted in unison, as the family solemnly raised burning incense sticks and scented flowers in respect to the dead. I dined with everyone, sweets and treats, packed meals of Nasi Campur, hot pots of coffee; and there was an almost lively atmosphere as we attempted to make conversation in Bahasa Indonesia amidst cackles of laughter. Kadek, his son Andi, and others in his sizeable extended family had to take turns staying close to the still old lady that night. As a story in this part of Bali goes, this is to prevent skulking cats from jumping over the body, for that would cause the dead to awaken in a foggy, memoryless state of undead delirium.

Kadek has big aspirations. He dreams of building a small house on his plot of land, where he can rest and meditate amidst the trees. He dreams of expanding his fledgling boat tourism business, of becoming Kapten (Captain) Kadek of Lovina. He took me on his small motorboat, moored in the calm backwaters behind his plot, and I swum and snorkelled with the vivid marine occupants of those waters. Kadek relaxed in the shade of the mast; his grey felt cap on backwards. He watched me with those piercing eyes of his, eyes full of laughter, full of energy and dreams.

At night, after dinner and a substantial amount of arak, Kadek sprawls on a stool and strums on his guitar. He is learning the acoustic version of his favourite song ‘Damai Bersamamu’, a soulful proclamation of the magnificence of nature. He plays the song constantly, practicing determinedly, the ever-present cigarette between his lips. It is a song that I have come to associate with the man, with his kind nature and energetic charisma. It is a song I now play incessantly, manifesting the feeling of being in Lovina and learning, cooking meals, and climbing coconut trees with my mate Kadek.

Rohit Rao is a young writer, artist, and journalist based in Canberra, Australia. He is interested in understanding the world, in all its tangled complexity, and telling stories that explore the myriad ideas and people in it. He goes by @sketchin_stories on Instagram and @ro_rohitrao on Twitter.