They stirred the potion seven times counterclockwise, facing Mount Merapi. The liquid shimmered, not golden, but the color of sunset over Laweyan batik.
Her hands, once steady as a kris blade, now trembled over the mortar. Her eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, grew milky with age. She had no children, no disciples. And the recipe — a secret woven from moonlight, kencur root, and a drop of rain caught on a Tuesday night — was locked in her memory alone.
One evening, a young woman named Dewi knocked on Simda’s door. Dewi worked at the local puskesmas (community health clinic) but secretly believed that modern pills couldn’t cure the sadness that had crept into Solo’s youth — the gela , the restless despair of a generation losing touch with their roots.
But Simda was dying.
And so the Banyu Murca Dewa survived — not as medicine, but as memory. In the alleys of Surakarta, people began to say: “ Wis ngombe Simda BMD durung? ” — “Have you drunk Simda’s BMD yet?” It came to mean: Have you remembered who you are?
The people of Surakarta spoke of BMD in hushed, reverent tones. One sip could cool the hottest fever; a full cup could mend a broken spirit. For decades, nobles from the Kasunanan Palace and farmers from the banks of Bengawan Solo River would line up at Simda’s wooden shack, clutching silver coins or baskets of salak fruit in exchange for her amber-colored elixir.
Dewi closed her eyes and wept, for she had forgotten all those things. simda bmd surakarta
“The last ingredient,” Simda said, pouring water from a clay kendhi that had belonged to her great-grandmother, “is nguwongke wong — treating others as truly human. Not as patients. Not as problems. As souls.”
“The second is narima — acceptance. You cannot heal what you refuse to understand. You must accept the pain of the world as your own, but not let it drown you.”
In the shadow of the ancient Panggung Krapyak, where the whispers of the Mataram kings still lingered in the humid air, lived an old dukun named Simda. She was the last keeper of a legendary healing potion called Banyu Murca Dewa — or BMD for short. They stirred the potion seven times counterclockwise, facing
Simda chuckled, a dry sound like rustling teak leaves. “Child, the Banyu Murca Dewa is not a recipe. It is a story .”
That night, Simda led Dewi into her garden. Moonlight bathed the jasmine and basil. “The first ingredient,” Simda whispered, “is eling — remembering. You must remember the taste of your mother’s cooking, the sound of gamelan at dawn, the smell of rain on dry earth.”