“Now I must admit in my youth I was so terribly handsome that I was almost girlish-looking. Because there were so few female intellectuals in those days, there weren’t many girl members and when Young Java put on a play I was always given the ingènue role. I actually put powder on my face and red on my lips. And I will tell you something but I don’t what foreigners will think of a President who tells such things … Anyway, I will tell it. I bought two sweet breads. Round breads. Like rolls. And I stuffed them inside my blouse. with this addition to my shapely figure, everybody said I looked absolutely beautiful. Fortunately my part didn’t call for kissing any boys on stage. I couldn’t waste my money so after the show I pulled the breads out of my blouse and ate them. Watching me on stage, spectators commented that I showed a definite talent for playing to audiences. I concurred wholeheartedly.”
SOURCE: Sukarno: An Autobiography, as told to Cindy Adams, as quoted in Nigel Barley, The Duke of Puddledock: Travels in the Footsteps of Stamford Raffles (Henry Holt, 1992).
Far Outliers 