I have no idea what it's like to be 40, but if it's anything like being Ananda Sukarlan then my quitting smoking to actually live that long will have been worth it. I mean "goodness me!" I know there are lots of people out there, often somewhere above us, who make us wonder if they ever sleep or something, but with this guy the wondering seems to have become a conclusion. The only other reason he could be so productive is because he must possess time manipulation abilities, like freezing or slowing time down. How else would he have time to compose both pieces for his own artistic whim as well as commissioned works, learn and practice new compositions by others as well as himself, travel around the world to perform them, be a good father, watch his favorite movie 1000 times, and even blog?! Or maybe it's like the transported man trick in the movie, The Prestige, and there's actually an identical twin brother involved that no one knows about doing much of the work with him. (Sorry for these allegations Ananda but it's your fault for being phenomenal!)

Born right here in Jakarta, in 1968, he would be 'kicked' out of a local music school for allegedly being insufficiently talented, experience scholarship problems midway through his undergraduate studies for ridiculous reasons such as intergovernmental tension between the funding countries, and play the Beatles in Dutch pubs to make ends meet before he was able to win enough major competitions and 'wow' enough people to start and solidify a career as a concert pianist of international renown, eliciting praise from even the toughest of music critics. I first heard of him when I was still in high school and already he seemed to have reached an almost mythical stature. I almost couldn't believe my ears when one night, much later on, we sort of ran into each other at the Jakarta conservatory which he co-founded, and he asked me something like whether he could still take the bus-way at that hour.

"How un-piano-superstar-like of him," I foolishly thought to myself.

You see, that's the other thing about Ananda Sukarlan. Everybody has got some dirt on them. Typically, I would find comfort in jesting about how someone may be a super achiever but is either insanely conceited, merely a lucky airhead, just passing through an overly celebrated 15 minutes of fame, or is too busy achieving to enjoy life. Yet Ananda is one of the most down to earth, intelligent, enduring and vivacious people I know. He is also the only Indonesian to be listed in the book "2000 Outstanding Musicians of the 20th century" and the International Who's Who in Music, published by the International Biographical Centre of Cambridge.