Jakarta Diary: Part I

As I sit on the 17th floor of our high-rise apartment, one of the innumerable towers that form the incredible Jakarta skyline, I am amazed by several things about this beautiful country.

The first thing that strikes you when you land in the simplistic Jakarta airport (once you clear the long slow-moving immigration queue), is the traffic, if you are lucky you could get from the airport to the city in half hour and if you are a bit unlucky it could easily take two hours. I had the experience of doing both. The irony is, there is a huge patch in the middle of every major road in the city which could easily be converted into 1.5 lanes if not two. But No-Jakartans would not do that. Instead the roads are lined with trees almost infinitely. My father says that if a tree falls in a road due to some reason, they replace it with a new tree almost every time within the same week. These are not sort of “we-too-are-green” kind of trees that I have seen in some other cities. They are all very well maintained, lush green. It is humbling to see a country so resolutely adopting to be green in spite of all the troubles that it brings with it!

If you have any liking at all for observing people from a different culture, Indonesians offer a remarkable case study in contrasting microcosms living in harmony. An Indonesian friend remarked to my father-“Our religion is Islam, but our culture is Hindu”. This is visible in the innumerable statues of Hindu Gods and Goddesses on the streets of the city. This contrast extends beyond religious beliefs into their economic conditions as well. On one side of our apartment is the striking skyline that stretches across Jakarta, standing as a shining example of a nation that has boldly ridden the free market tide (and has had serious scars to show for it-check the conversion rates of Jakarta’s currency-Rupiah), one that has successfully attracted foreign investment and managed to raise standards of living for a major section of the society. If I just walk across the room, the window opens up to a different sight-a huge slum with people living in dilapidation. Of course an enormous wall separates the apartment from the slum serving as a grim reminder to the barriers these unfortunate people have to scale to improve their quality of life.

That being said, Indonesians, even the ones I saw in the slums are among the very few people who I am truly jealous of, the reason in the next post.