Putu's Calling

A Story by Julia Rubin

Putu is a 12 year old boy who lives with his family in Bali. He is having a tooth filing ceremony in 2 days that he is scared about.

Putu wakes up bright and early with the sun. It’s his routine to watch the sun rise over the mountains. The orange ball reflects on the water of the rice paddies giving off a shimmer. He wipes sweat off of his brow as the sun peaks through over the dormant volcano, Mount Agung. It is already hot. He watches the peak wearily. In order to ensure that it doesn’t erupt again, his village, Budakling, situated in Bali, brings offerings once a month to the crater and throws them in.

He hears the sound of roosters and villagers moving about in the early morn. Men and women are walking across the paddies, carrying babies on their backs and toothbrushes in hand heading to the waterfall. A man is fixing his ox to cultivate the rice paddies. He gets them started with a whack from his stick. The white oxen move slowly as he guides them back and forth through the paddies. Putu hears women yelling “Ha ha!” as they go through the rice scaring off the birds and bad spirits. Roosters and chickens also amble through the fields. Ducks play in the rice paddy water, clucking at one another. Palm trees are in the distance. The dry season is coming. He shakes himself out of his stupor and goes back inside. He can’t be late for school.

He wakes his younger sister Made. She is in easy slumber but wakes easily.

“Come on Made, we have school.”

“Okay, okay,” she says exasperated.

Their father, Ketut, is already at work. He is a taxi driver, shuffling tourists around all day and acting as their own personal tour guide. Their mother, Wayan, is making the offerings for the gods. She swiftly, yet carefully folds and weaves the palm leaf into a basket. Her long fingers weave with grace. She places three flowers in the middle, flowers she picked that morning in the garden. She then sets a little bit of that morning’s rice on top of the flowers. She situates the offering on their small front porch. Wayan then goes out back to the family temple and rests a bit of rice on a palm leaf beneath the statue of Ganesh, the elephant god. She also places some rice next to the ancestral shrine. She does this while carrying the baby sister, Nyoman, on her back.

The two children, aged 12, and the younger, 6, eat hurriedly. They make their way quickly out the door and across the rice paddies.

“Wait!” Yells Made as she runs to catch up. “I forgot Anah.”

Anah is Made’s palm leaf doll.

“Ah Made!” Says Putu, exasperated. “Go, go get her.”

Made runs back through the path. Anah, is a rather ugly doll, thinks Putu. She is made of palm leaves and the face is painted with beetle nut juice.

Made comes up the path, running with her doll clutched in her arms. “Come along Made, we’ll be late,” says Putu. They hurry along the rice paddy path. “Sing me the ABC’s Made,” he says encouragingly. Made starts singing and then Putu joins in, correcting any slip or mispronunciation. This is what they do as they walk to school each day, singing the ABC’s or a new American tune they heard on their father’s car radio.

As they walk through the rice paddy fields, Putu sees some of his friends working in the field. He waves to them with a big, toothy smile and yells, “Hello!” across the paddy. They look up and wave. As Putu and Made continue on their journey, Putu thinks of his friends in the field who are not in school. Their parents don’t have the money to send them. He thinks of how lucky he is that he is in school and getting an education, especially how lucky his sister is to go as well.

Putu and Made make it to their school with some minutes to spare. They go their separate ways to find their friends. The school is a small 5-classroom building made of wood and a thatched roof. It could use some repair. The school name is the Conggu School for Children.

Putu is skinny, yet tall for his age. He stands taller than his classmates. He has golden brown skin. Though he wears the same two sets of cloths each day, they always appear clean. He has a contagious smile.

Putu finds his friends Komang, Kadek, and Gede. Their back is to him. “Boo!” He bellows and grabs Kadek by the shoulders. Kadek lets out a shriek. He turns around. “Putu!” He exclaims. They all laugh. “Always the jokester,” says Komang and gives Gede a playful punch in the arm.

Just then Putu’s teacher, Ni Luh, came out of the schoolhouse. “Children, come inside,” she says in English. The children scurry inside. While his friends find seats in the back, Putu sits front and center. “Okay class, please take out your English books. We will start where we left off last class.” A few hours later the school bell rings. Putu says goodbye to his friends and meets Made outside the schoolhouse. They make their way back through the rice paddy path singing Bob Marley’s “Every Little Thing is Gonna be Alright.”

They pass an old man just as they are heading home. Putu stops singing. He looks at the man’s face. The old man gives a red toothy smile. He has been chewing the beetle nut and the juice is foaming red around the teeth. The old man looks at Putu, spits, and waves. Putu and Made continue walking. Seeing the man’s teeth triggers something for Putu that he has been dreading thinking about. He has a Mesangih in two days, a tooth filing ceremony. He is apprehensive about it. He slowly outlines his upper incisors and canines with his tongue. They will be filed down flat. Why does he need a tooth filing ceromony? He knows why of course. He is coming of age. But does he need to file his teeth to validate that? He thinks about this as they walk. What if he doesn’t do it? What if he refuses?

He then thinks of the tradition and the meaning behind the ceremony. If he doesn’t do it he fears, he will be denied entrance to the spirit world. He will look like a raksasa, a demon, the long canines of whom stick out through the cheeks like a wild boar’s. But the American and European tourists that his dad drives around don’t file their teeth. Will they not be thought of as beasts? They don’t do it and they are fine with it. And it will hurt, dreads Putu. The thought of it sends shivers down his spine.

Putu and Made reach their house. The sun is setting. The silhouettes of palm trees sets off a beautiful contrast with the rose pink sky. Birds are flying home, and villagers are making their way back across the rice paddy. It is very quiet, except for the soothing din of insects.

The Alit family has a quiet dinner. They have small talk asking about each other’s day. Ketut drove a very nice American family around that day. The husband and wife were recently retired teachers, traveling with their fun 18-year-old daughter. Ketut says proudly, “They asked to be taken around the northern part of the island for the next few days.” This meant a lot to the family, for they will have steady money for a while. Wayan took the baby to the waterfall and made offerings with the village temple for the upcoming ceremony. Made chatters about school. Putu doesn’t talk much. He asks to be excused, kisses his family members on the forehead and goes to bed.

The next day he cannot go to school. He watches his sister leave after eating the morning’s rice. He must stay indoors for the day. It will keep the bad spirits from harming him before the tooth filing ceremony. Putu ambles around the house humming to himself. After a while he decides to sleep. He doesn’t want to keep worrying about tomorrow and would rather feel nothing in slumber. Sleep brings little peace though. He dreams his teeth are like tiger talons. No matter how hard they file they will not file down. People start screaming. “Raksasa! Raksasa!” Demon. He opens his mouth wide and this makes his teeth fall out in his hands.

Putu wakes with a start. He checks his teeth. Yes, they’re still there. He goes to the window and looks out. It is getting dark. The stars are coming out. This is his last night of being a child; tomorrow he will become an adult. He thinks of this as he sets his nice traditional clothes out for tomorrow, a white button down shirt and a green sarong. He goes to sleep, feeling ill at ease about the next day.

The morning brought with it more anxiety. His mother comes in and helps him into his traditional clothes. He doesn’t share his hesitation about going through with the ceremony. His mother smiles at him, “You know how proud I am of you,” she says. Putu tries to smile. Wayan, seeing her son’s apprehension tries to console him. “It only hurts a bit,” she says. Putu nods. “Come,” she says and leads him outside. Women are walking down the path with fruit piled high, balanced on their heads. These are the offerings. He looks up and sees the Sangging, the tooth filer. His stomach does a somersault. More and more people come and sit in the family temple. They are all in Balinese dress, both men and women wearing sarongs.

The ceremony begins. There is soft music being played by gamelan instruments. The Sangging washes the file in holy water. Putu holds his hands tight to stop from shaking. The tooth filer gently opens Putu’s mouth. He puts cloves on his gums. This mildly numbs the gums. He then starts filing. It is a strange sensation, Putu thinks. The filer vibrates his teeth. It does not hurt at first, but as it goes on the clove begins to wear off and he can feel it. Just let it be over, thinks Putu. Every few minutes the Sangging stops and Putu spits the filings into a small yellow coconut adorned with palm leaf fan and flowers. Finally it’s done. The tooth filer holds up a mirror for Putu. He looks into it and sees his filed flat upper teeth. He looks up into the crowd and his village starts clapping. He is an adult now. He smiles his new smile and takes the coconut with his filings and holds it up for all to see. Putu is a man today and in spite of himself and his earlier dread, he is proud.