TIK...TAK...TIK...TAK...

Teuku Abdullah Sakti was hard at work one afternoon last week on an old typewriter, diligently arranging the words as he transliterated Hikayat Tambeh, an Arabic-Malay tale of love and heroism, into Roman letters.

Daily from afternoon to night, Sakti would absorb himself in a work he has been undertaking since 1990. He works alone in a 4x3-meter room at his house at Desa Tanjong, Darussalam, Banda Aceh. He follows the rout