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I have been going back and forth, in the past few months, thinking about the meaning of 'budi' in the Malay culture. Drilling into the Malay literature, I often got drunk with the permutations of 'budi', ' tanam budi', 'terhutang budi' and 'terkenang budi' the way they are being strewn so easily in between lips in contemporary times.

I have somebody in mind but I don't have to spit his name. I just need to delve into the wealth of the pantun to get an intimate feel of how much we really know ourselves as a People who inherited a good culture.

My alma mater, USM, has put in some effort, at www.usm.my/pantun, preserving the profound legacy of pantun, the rhythmic quatrains that I particularly like over other variants. My teacher, Prof Dr Md Salleh Yaapar, has a piece on the link between the Malay pantun and the western pantoum. Read it. Pantun/pantoum is universal.

Here is sharing with you a collection of classic pantun on budi.

This one is about People's self-esteem vis-a-vis the higher realm of budi:

Tingkap papan kayu bersegi,
Sampan sakat di Pulau Angsa;
Indah tampan kerana budi,
Tinggi bangsa kerana bahasa.

This is about a piercing cut that's the deepest:

Buah berangan masaknya merah,
Kelekati dalam perahu;
Luka di tangan nampak berdarah,
Luka di hati siapa yang tahu.

This one is about how the old paradigm has regarded budi as something unrepayable:

Pisang emas dibawa belayar,
Masak sebiji di atas peti;
Hutang emas boleh dibayar,
Hutang budi dibawa mati.

This is how materialism and the animal instinct of greed have blinded many a good man:

Puas sudah kutanam padi,
Nenas juga ditanam orang;
Puas sudah kutanam budi,
Emas juga dipandang orang.

This one is about a platonic act of revere not by merely kissing one's hands:

Dari mana punai melayang,
Dari paya turun ke padi;
Dari mana datangnya sayang,
Dari mata turun ke hati.

These two are about indebtedness that can't be easily moved or removed from one's inner fathoms:

Pucuk pauh delima batu,
Anak sembilang di tapak tangan;
Tuan jauh di negeri satu,
Hilang di mata di hati jangan.

Kalau tuan jalan ke hulu,
Carikan saya bunga kemboja;
Kalau tuan mati dahulu,
Nantikan saya di pintu syurga.

This one, grimly, is about doing good while you can as the vast Emptiness awaits you at the end of impermanency:

Halia ini tanam-tanaman,
Ke barat juga akan condongnya;
Dunia ini pinjam-pinjaman,
Akhirat juga akan sungguhnya.

And this one I give it a twist, not about a finite gathering of people on the move, but about realpolitik that may have layered Malaya in the last 49 years and Malaysia in the last 43, and a torn social fabric is imminent if we were not careful:

Malam ini merendang jagung,
Malam esok merendang serai;
Malam ini kita berkampung,
Malam esok kita bercerai.

Pantun is so subtle, supple, refined and everly beautiful. I think I will revisit it more often.

[ No doubt, my 1991 copy of Kumpulan Pantun Melayu (ISBN 983-62-1988-9; Compiled by Zainal Abidin Bakar; Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka;1983) has turned yellowish, hopelessly yellowish. ]