The Faculty of Cultural Studies (FCS) of Universitas Brawijaya (UB) was honored to host a guest lecture by inviting a renowned Indonesian writer and academician, Dr. Seno Gumira Ajidarma, M.Hum. He is also known as an essayist, journalist, and theater worker. He has won many awards through his works, including the Dimny O’hearn Prize for Translation, the South East Asia Write Award, and the Chatulistiwa Literary Award. Some of his works have also been translated into English.
Located in Hall 7th Floor Building A FCS UB, this guest lecture was held on Monday (4/11/2024). Besides being attended by lecturers and students of FCS UB, the guest lecture was also attended by the general public.
The Dean of FCS UB, Hamamah, Ph.D., also welcomed Dr. Seno Gumira by expressing her welcome and gratitude for his willingness to share his insights with the audience.
“Today, we will listen to the results of Mr. Seno’s cultural studies. This study, from the title alone, will be fascinating. Of course, we are looking forward to his discussion. Hopefully, it will broaden our horizons and inspire us in literature, culture, and humanities studies,” said Hamamah.
FCS UB also gave Dr. Seno Gumira a souvenir in the form of a miniature wood carving of Topeng Malangan.
The guest lecture entitled “Togèlismus Urbaningrum” was a study by Dr. Seno Gumira on the phenomenon of togèl end number code divination in urban culture. Moderated by M. Fatoni Rahman, M.Pd., the guest lecture opened with an interesting discussion about this distinctive Indonesian gambling culture.
“Gambling has appeared in the great narratives of our literature. Of course, we are familiar with the epic narrative of Yudhistira’s defeat in a bet with Sengkuni in the Mahabharata. What was at stake was also half a kingdom. It seems that gambling has been symbolized as a bet that is not merely a game,” said Fatoni.
Togèl is also mentioned as one of the canon gambling in the culture of Malang people.
“Even in Malang society, there used to be a thing called ngramesi, Mr. Seno. Ngramesi interprets all the signs seen and then translates them into numbers. In addition, togèl-related terms have also permeated the community. For example, here there is something called the 02 satay; this is actually a togel term because 02 is a number that symbolizes snails,” he added.
Now, it was Dr. Seno Gumira’s turn to present the results of his study. He opened the lecture by displaying comic lines by Johnny Hidayat in the 2001 issue of Poskota Daily. In the dialog of the comic characters, numbers are printed in red as clues to the togèl end number code.
Gambling is prevalent throughout the world. However, unlike strategies for predicting gambling outcomes in other parts of the world that use probability theory and algorithms, Indonesians refer to dreams.
“There is a pattern in this way of foretelling. Relying on other people’s dreams. If someone themselves does not dream, they will ask their neighbor, ‘What did you dream about?’ ‘Is there any number?’ If he does not dream, the question is changed, ‘When were you born?’ ‘how old are you?’ The point is that it is baseless. But it has become a cultural pattern and lives on with numerous variations,” explains Dr. Seno.
If none of the dreams are revealed, this tendency to refer to dreams can be replaced with sheets of tail code. These sheets contain signs that will then be interpreted into the final numbers of the draw.
Dr. Seno sees these tail codes as cultural codes and compares them to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical theory of dreams.
“What we remember less clearly is the content of latent dreams, while the images we remember clearly are the content of manifest dreams. But the content of manifest dreams is also unclear because they have been contaminated with other cultural codes that also enter our minds,” he said.
In the context of “tail codes” or numerical codes to track togel numbers, this mechanism certainly differs from Freud’s approach to uncovering the subconscious mind system. However, the way the “tail code” is classified in numbered graphic literature suggests the existence of some cultural process that can be studied with a logical approach.
The audience’s excitement did not stop when Dr. Seno Gumira’s presentation was over. Lecturers and students again showed their enthusiasm by throwing questions at Dr. Seno Gumira, and they were greeted with equally passionate responses. [acl/dts/PR FCS]
