Kandi And Armein

”Stop laughing! when your laughter run out, youll cry to death; for you have no more rightful laughter left! ” Dadas round face; my grandfather in his mustache and peasant turban like a shining Buddha head statue; haunted my head, with the words echoing in the background.

Like a spinning wheel, our hearts destiny spins up and down; sometimes happy sometimes sad. Don be afraid to continue to languish, because you will find your happiness at any time… but you also can be happy all the time, later you will be helplessly unhappy because you have run out of your share of happiness, then die. Its Dada, my grandfather; who put those words in my head since childhood. Thats what he used as an excuse to punish me if he found me still laughing late at night, or saw how my grandmother and I continued to joke around from preparing food, cooking, to sitting at the dining table.

Until I was a teenager, I was forced to limit my own happiness; feared of suddenly dying if I was too happy, or having too much fun, or if I laughed too long. I became worried that suddenly something would happen that would make me cry sadly.

Actually, it wasn as difficult as Grandpa thought; because I stayed with my grandparents since early childhood, turning jokes into tears was very easy for me. I just went into my room and took photos of my parents and sister from the suitcase. The thought of the three of them being happy without me in the city can already make me forget all the reasons I laugh and smile. I would cry immediately, endlessly, until I fell asleep.

After 5 years of not living at the same home with Dada and Nana as well as with my parents and sister, the dream of my grandfathers head with his echoing words still visiting my nights, and it is unavoidable. Sometimes I even purposely summon that shadow before going to sleep. A kind of headache remedy; my way of relaxing after a hectic day of show or recording all day. The painkillers and sleeping pills Simon gave me weren enough to relieve my anxiety. And as my manager, Simon always blamed my stress for it.

Am I stressed; or I don understand myself? May be. My singing career didn come with a silver spoon, I climbed every rocky steep step without complaining one bit. I burn my own windpipe with dozens of hours of singing practice every single day, just to make sure my singing is not just a musical work of art, but each and every note can touch the hearts of my listeners. Its not easy at all. I tortured my own body too seriously to do everything. If I hadn been so serious, I probably wouldn have had so many bedtime headaches like this, nor the intimidating shadow of my Dada.

If I hadn been so serious, I probably wouldn have been as successful and famous as I am today. There won be 3 smart phones of mine to take care of every day. One of them is a cellphone containing an endless work schedule—seems without any pause; serious messages I can afford to ignore for a second, coming from Simon. He will ask if I have taken vitamins before bed, eye packs, put on a face mask, vitamins, what do I want to eat tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, he will also determine which brand of clothes and what color I should wear tomorrow morning, which of course he just prepared it in my dressing room, complete with a schedule of where Ill be tomorrow and what to do or whom I meet with. Thats my mighty red phone.

Then there was the family phone, which I only used for close family: Papa, Mama, and Carra, and only my close friends—like maybe 3 persons in that status, and someone whos not just close friend, nor a blood bound family member, but much more than that; Binar. A singer my age, who Simon thinks should be my biggest rival, but we
e actually very…very close friend. If thats what friendship is.

I prefer to carry this blue cell phone with me everywhere, sort of my personal virtual space for ”happy hours, ” of course not as happy as I would like it, because Simon can also contact me on the blue cell phone—that evil dominator. The last one is a yellow cell phone, which I call my tiny weeny money machine. It contains social media communications and is completely fan service thingis only.

In this crazy overloaded information era; when everyone can pay with their internet quota just to peek at what Im wearing under my ripped jacket or jeans; even a photo of the color of my panties can make money. So, this yellow cell phone is a work phone. Simon will send brand X rice boxes and Z brand energy drinks for me to enjoy while greeting my fans online. Thirty minutes on the network would result in a bill for both brands. Simon would give me a thumbs up and ask what special food he could send me right away for me to relax. Certainly not brand X or brand Z.

What do I do with this yellow phone? Its my celebrity masks—my work desk. How I worked so hard to retain a perfect image with all the imperfections Simon engineered in the heads of my fans. Phones that sometimes make me feel very tired in taking care of. Exhausted from exerting all power and energy to become a perfect figure in the eyes of the world. Because of that, I put up a picture of an old wagon wheel and my grandfathers initials, TH, on it. Every time I feel lazy to open it, I look at the picture of the wheel, imagine Dadas advice about happiness at the cost of suffering, and again devote all my energy to my millions of fans to it. This yellow phone shouts ”no free meal, Armein! No free meal! ” Every second I feel tired of it.

Replying to their messages, simply liking their comments about my appearance, or once a week I turn on LIVE Video to be able to directly answer their questions—just a few of the most logics. This is my toughest struggle, because they—people who don really know the real me—see all these fabricated works as their reality about me. The look on my face, the look in my eyes, where the corners of my lips turn when I laugh, or what accessories I wear. Everything in my body and face that shows up on my fans mobile screens is so important during those 75 minutes of my toughest job. Anything as small as a pimple on the tip of my chin could affect my career and the digits in my and Simons accounts. Talking about selling yourself out.

”Wooaaaah! They
e glad you let your mustache grow 3 mm, Arm! Give it couple days, after that, youll shave it off again, okay! ” Simon could suddenly yell at me like this, like he was yelling at SIRI or Cortana. And from the business perspective, I can hardly complain about that command.

Simon and his team will watch the LIVE run like an army of wardens watch over their most dangerous captive. As if everything I did was a matter of their life and death.

”Get out of the car, take off that yellow jacket, Arm! There are a lot of your fans who criticize you for wearing that animal torment designer product! Don wear those red glasses anymore, they don match your hairstyle today! Oh yeah, don forget to give that 3-finger gesture as proof of your concern for todays Human Rights Day, Arm! ”

Of course, there was Simon on all three phones. Hes just liked my shadow. But hes pretty good, he always cheers me on, sends short messages with pictures of hearts or flowers and compliments my hard work. Sometimes all his special attention to me seems a bit too much to some extent. But for me, the amount of what he did for me was a conversion of the amount of income he earned from taking care of me. I just hope its pretty fair for both of us.

So, when Simon gets angry or lowers the level of his treatment in pampering me, I immediately call a meeting to discuss the causes and solutions for my reducing income. Simon is that bright to me. Of course, he also always said yes to all my shopping wishes. I just say what I want to buy, he will buy it, I just wait for the goods to arrive in my room. When I was in the mood to choose what I wanted to buy myself, Simon would work harder to disguise my appearance, come to the store with Simons bodyguard, and pretend I wasn myself. Or he and his team will pay more just to have the shop or boutique I want to go to open at a certain time just for me.

And he wasn going to let all those extra expenses go for nothing. Simon set up the cameras to record everything. Sometimes without my consent.

Those who watched all this through a video broadcast made by Simons men will see it as the daily excitement of my celebrity life. They wanted it so much that they didn mind paying for a video of me shopping for jogging pants for 15 minutes. At first, I enjoyed it all too—selling my daily life for a few extra digits in my account, until one day three years ago…

I wanted to see for myself how one famous mooncake were made by an old woman who had lost her sight. Its viral. Simon made my wish as my video content. He looks even more excited than me. Simon prepared my disguise to come there and paid to witness the whole process of making it. The concept is, they record the reactions of people I meet without knowing who I am. Once it was done and done, I took the cake home to the studio, making a new video of how I tasted the famous mooncake. The audience who saw me in disguise will be very surprised to see the show, Simon said.

A few days after the video went viral, the bakers son told my grandmother Nana about that sort of reality show. Nana came to my apartment crying, blaming me for not greeting the baker who turned out to be the same woman who helped Nana raise me when I was a child; Grandma Karsih. Damn me.

Her son showed a television show of me being disguised to their place and then eating their mooncakes while praising their deliciousness. They regretted my disguise, otherwise, Nek Karsihs family would still have recognized me. While I don recognize them at all.

Nana was troubled. ”Has being a famous celebrity made you forget the smell of that nice woman? She was the one who helped me take turns carrying you on our backs as a baby. We took you in our arms to the woods and gardens. You inhaled the scent of affection from our bodies for years until you entered school. How could you forget it? ”

I don know how to answer Nanas protest. Shes so right, I was wrong. I was too busy obscuring my identity when I came to Grandma Karsihs workshop, so I didn have time to see the knick-knacks around her, which were all part of my childhood. I was too busy thinking about all of Simons scripts and instructions for tv content, that I didn have time to breathe in the important scent of my childhood in that place.

Nana was so disappointed in me that it hurt me too. Even though I later bought a new shop and kitchen for Nek Karsih and her grandchildren so they have a better shop. At first Nana sounded happy to hear that news, so I was very happy to hear her voice.

”Did you hug him, Mein? ” she asked with her soothing smiling voice. I replied that it was Simons employees who handed over the keys, and completed the paperwork, etc., because I had to go to America at that time. Then Nana replied,

”Oh… ” no smiling voice this time.

One word that conveyed a dark air of disappointment that confined me wherever I was for days.

One particular syllable alone made me unable to concentrate on everything since. Nana who used to nag at length at me while ruffling my hair, or squeezing my cheeks; is my heaven on earth. And one word ”Oh… ” from her, with that chest-piercing disappointed tone, feels like the door to the hell of my world.

When you
e at the peak of your glorious career, and everyone says I can buy and ask for anything I want, they
e so wrong. I feel like the oh… from Nanas mouth is a sign of the biggest mistake Ive made in my entire life, because after that heart crusher remark from her, and I didn know how to respond to her, Nana went to the hospital. I feel like I can ever forgive myself.