Menyusui anak tetangga; Nursing the neighbour's baby

Women play a major role in Hendra's oeuvre, appearing in both a vital motherly nature as well as being resilient. In this painting the virtue of compassion is highlighted, demonstrated through the mutual helping of one another. The composition consists of three women with the woman on the right exuding a sense of grief and her inability to nurse her own baby. It is common practice in rural areas in Indonesia to nurse someone else's baby if the mother of the baby is sick. The woman in the middle of the grouping has come to feed the baby whose head is denoted by the concentric red circles on its cap. The woman on the left is grooming the other's hair and seems to be distracted by something outside of the composition. The subject of the painting also relates back to Hendra's situation in prison, because it symbolizes a wife of a political prisoner who is sick with grief for her absent and captive husband and is unable to nurse her baby.