LEBARAN TO THANK FOR MAKING IT LESS

Lebaran is coming and that means we are seeing all the ritual of pulang kampung,a moment to realize that Jakarta is a place we can enjoy living.

With all people heading their hometowns, what are we expecting then?

1. Less polluted air.
With more than NEW three hundred cars and bikes everyday, you have the point breathing decently fresh air in Jakarta is a rare luxury. Thank this moment; aren't you glad that most of them now have some place to pollute with the vehicles?

2. Less economy.
Gathering people is economy and as people gather, they create more warteg, more bridal salons, more papers, and in turn, they produce waste. So, with more than two million people checking out of Jakarta, you are bound to see a cleaner Jakarta.

3. Less time to go anywhere.
Lebaran is the only time you know that destination anywhere is actually shorter. Infamous for traffic jam, Jakarta streets have really made you believe that life should be spent more on them and Lebaran allows you to temporarily acknowledge there is more to life than wasting it on the road.


And knowing all this, don't you wish they were not back for good?

BEGGARS HAVE NO CHOICE

Isn't that twenty one enough in less than a month?

Less than two weeeks ago, we were shocked to learn that twenty one people died in their effort to claim twenty thousand Rupiah alm by one Islamic boarding school somewhere in Pasuruan East Java. This is not the first. We have often heard this thing, what is supposed to prolong life turned into death, and I have never been expecting what happened in Pasuruan would be the last. Today, the same activity turned to be the same disaster; this time it took place somewhere in Lombok.

That we are a nation of poor people is what we can not deny and being poor, it seems, is close to begging. If you walk the street, you would see more and more people doing this job (by the way, is begging a job?). In certain traffic lights you are very likely to see MORE beggars than passers-by.

However, apart from the unfavorable economic condition, I believe strongly that culture has its own share of responsibility for all this. Being poor is what you take,but what you are gonna do about it is what you choose.

Some people find themselves with no access to enjoy quality life and this is like, 'Hey, I deserve what you deserve and you gotta share it with me' and this is what happens; poverty they believe they are entitled to begging.
The other cultural reason is, it is not something to be ashamed of. I live in a community where there are many Arab descendants and they are constantly good givers on Friday (I learned that they believe they earn more pahala when they do on Friday). Having known that their Arab neighbors have this Friday rituals, 'poor' people just pop up out of nowhere, every Friday morning, swarming their houses begging money or whatever. I know these weekly beggars do not live under or on poverty line; they just exploit the situation without any sense of shame attached.


All said, is giving responsible too for this? Hmmm, iya kali ya..

KILLER FOODS

Three companies producing baby milk and three of them are manifestly guilty of adding melamine, the substance responsible for dysfunction in kidneys and some internal organs. Four babies are dead and hundreds are reported to have been under treatment for the melamine-induced milk.

This is not a case in a point. Some months ago kid toys, also made in China, were recalled from the market as the toys were painted with chemicals endangering anyone, not only toddlers, exposed to them.

Am I too observant or, what, my opinion says we are irrational when cheap things are their options and they seem to have never their lesson. We have been astounded repeatedly by reports that products from China shorten rather than prolong life but we have kept seeing ourselves coming to them as they are packaged in different brands and more affordable prices. Remember those candies and canned canned ready-to-eats?

I think the next time you drop by at the nearest Giant or Carrefour or Hypermarket, you know what NOT to do; for the time being, anything made from the mainland is best not to buy.

PRETENDER OF THE MONTH

Boys,

To observe this month, let's safely stack away your porn DVDs and those skin magazines. It only takes one month before you can go back to this business of pleasure. And since un-subscribing is just a click away, I think you too can temporarily stop the mailing lists delivering those picture perfect scantily clad girls.

And maybe it is time for you NOT to see or even call the one your girlfriend or wife doesn't know or if she might have tried to, you have always successfully convinced her that the one is just a friend or business partner; you know that 'just friend' has been more than a friend and the truth about it must not leave any regret to your spouse she deserves to kill you twice. Remember, it is only a month.

This is the month you show the world you too can be out of this world. Talk and act God.
You have done more than enough the other eleven months; you've sworn and cursed even the smallest thing and in these thirty days that everything that comes out of your mouth is only utterances that make others envy for the religious you. Suffer them more by showing that I can give to the needy; you know people have always been impressed by handsome amount of giving and have never questioned how you got it. As soon as the thirtieth day is over, you can blatantly claim 'payback time you fools'.


Never has appeasing God been this easily sweet...

WHAT'S ON OUR TV TODAY?

Gotta ask myself why I keep watching TV.

There are three reasons why I am not watching anything and you may add if you want to.

1. Except O Channel and Metro, all TV stations’ darling is gossip shows, successfully popularized under the name infotainment (again, I don’t know what is so informing and entertaining about knowing other people’s private business) and they behave that they are responsible to let you know why those celebrities get married and divorced, what time they have breakfast, etc. Trans TV feels it has moral obligation to update us with gossips and that is why it runs Insert Pagi, Insert (sometime at twelve), and Insert Sore, everyday.
I think the TVs know that you are not going to be more loaded and readier for life just because you are informed that Julia Perez got her period this morning but commercials have always been haplessly lured with these showings. All the defense we have got from them is this excuse “What we are doing here is to reflect what the people want”.

Before I go with Number 2, let’s picture ourselves with the common situations in those gossip shows: A mom just learned her son died in a motorcycle accident, one father is radiantly all smiles for his first baby, and parents are devastated to learn that their daughter got jailed because of drugs. When any of those situations is plainly black or white, what you will almost always hear from them is this question: “BAGAIMANA PERASAAN BAPAK/IBU SEKARANG?”.
You couldn’t help asking yourself how these media guys they live to believe they have been responsible for our improved intelligence.

2. Shows like American Idol mediocre wannabees on Indosiar and TPI run from 4 or 5 P.M and finish at 1 A.M and the programs encourage anyone to support contestants by texting KETIK REG bla bla bla. The impact has been devastating; they borrowed money (to loan sharks) and sold everything they had to smoothen their road to fame and the failed guys, most of them, have to live on the brink of survival to repay their debts. KOMPAS reported they end up being a pariah in Jakarta and do any manual job or anything to survive and pay off what they borrowed. TVs know this but they have never devised a mechanism that allows one vote from one number, let alone openly and constantly reminded participants and viewers they must not jump into crazy texting. But again, with one text deducts your phone credit Rp. 2,200 (it is fourteen times more expensive than the normal rate Rp 99), they are quite on the impact as they benefit from it. Tabloid PULSA once reports this premium texting is a business generating more than one trillion Rupiah in 2007.

3. So called mega sinetrons (what is so ‘mega’ about them anyway?) portray shows to us like, among the impossible others: SMP students acting and getting dressed like street prostitutes and the ever popular depictions of people of the mainstream religion’s superiority over the others and at the same time those people are being disadvantaged. TVs know all this and when they defend the viewings reflect what happens in our society, - that our SMP students are prostitutes and that mainstream Moslems suffer from non other non Moslems -, then they have done a very god job convincing advertisers many will surely watch the sinetrons. Here, nothing excites people more than being reminded that their God is better than those other Gods and knowing their religion is being sidelined by another.
You can not complain. Because when you do, they would laugh and say it is just a fiction put on TV and forget what they just maintain that what they are doing is to reflect the society.

WE ARE HAVING A REUNION!!

“You go to a school reunion because you want to tell them, that after all these years, you made it. For whatever it is”.

I did not believe that statement. To me a reunion is a moment I always look forward to. It always excites me to acknowledge that the mighty time always has its way to beat us no matter how much we want to stay forever young. Some girls in my younger years I could not forget for their stunning looks kept convincing me that they were really the ones I had always admired. They did not look the same. Some boys I envied for their athletic builds are not now any better than me; they have developed these belies and thinned their hair on their heads. Some did manage to fool the time; they came up with lighter skins (must have been those whitenings) and darker complexions.
And for some I could not recall how they were back then, I just said to them they looked wiser. I do not know what I meant by saying that...

But the real excitement went more than skin deep. I was so thrilled to know that after all those years I could feel the glimpse of time standing still when we met. That all conversation evolved how we got punished by that teacher for not wearing black shoes and white socks; this girl cried a river because some boys (I know them) concocted a plan to give her a quick kiss on her way to the rest room (which I kept hearing that but never got the chance to ask that girl if it was true); that I erased some recorded tape for third graders’ final test and got caught by the teacher himself, Pak Amir, our guru olah-raga. The recollection went on and on and that moment made those nineteen years like yesterday.

But all that conversation that developed during the reunion got me to agree they said above. I overheard some did not come because of, you know, all these they considered failure. The reunion is such an obviously stupid declaration. One friend was not there because she said she was just a housewife and thought she would be ashamed if old friends asked what she did for a living. Though she admitted taking care of kids (and the husband, of course) was beyond how much someone can make every month, she just could not overcome the feeling that success in life must be attached with a job located somewhere in Sudirman or Thamrin or Kuningan. One failed her marriage and knowing that the ex is one of us, the classmates, gave her more reasons not to attend this get-together. She had her point: “Why would I keep hurting myself by all the reminiscing with him around?”

For some less acceptable reasons, some declined to go there because they do not have a kid yet and some because they have too many kids (more than two are deemed too many and they thought it was silly). Remarks like “Is that true you have four children now?!” or “you have no kids yet, right?”
To most, these questions are good lines to open a conversation but to those few, thinking of those questions, the questions kill even before the conversation is started.

But those old photos displayed during the reunion were the eye opener of what is larger than the excuses. Seeing some of our friends are gone forever, I had to admit that no matter happened or happens or will happen, that he or she is alive and here is more than anything to all of us, maybe to me especially. I have not been successful for what they expected me to be and neither have I been immune to those pains but I am glad to tell you that I am still here.


See you in our next reunion, nine teen years from now, in 2027...