magang di Jakarta Post

wohoooiii... hmmm.. sehari yang lalu, saat balik kekosan Grandong, gue memutuskan untuk njajal menulis sebuah essay, yang selanjutnya disebut sebagai opini ngasal, atau curhat tak tersampaikan, yang pada akhirnya bakal gue kirim ke Jakarta Post biar bisa ikutan program magang mereka, dari awal bulan depan ampe Desember, asik kali ye, gue selalu bermimpi untuk bisa kerja di Jakarta Post gitu, tapi yaaaah, its probably too much, but hey BANZAAAI!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why we risked getting squeezed in the city trains

Despite its soothing wordings in English, Indonesians know that the word city train, or the KRL, stands for a period of uncomfortable situations that at a certain point will need to be endured.

So what is the KRL? Long before the Transjakarta Busway, people from the outskirts of Jakarta have always had the, so far, fastest covering-limited-distance-transportation in the country at the most unreasonable price, in a good sense. Workers from areas like Bogor, Serpong, Depok, and Bekasi, could reach the center of Jakarta in a much shorter time, allowing them to commute on a daily basis and take light of that somewhat nonsense decision. I, myself, live in Depok and have to take the city train to Senen, and back to Depok everyday, the seemingly impossible distance between the two blurred with the aid of the white stallion. But seriously, If city trains were just an idea, with lack of realization, I would have been a part timer, going to work at six in the morning to get to the office at 12 till 6 to head home and sleep from twelve to six everyday, and of course die after three months of exhaustion, that’s right people, I’m talking about the ridiculous traffic. The city train is a gift, a blessing in such troubled time, a solution sought by those who demand answers, a solution to all of us, and I mean all of us, and how it is such a dangerous statement.

To be honest, there’s something wrong with the big picture. Like I said, saying that it’s a solution for everyone, it’s not supposed to be a solution acknowledged by everyone. These wide acknowledgments, added with the incontrollable blows of populations, making the train figuratively speaking a line of cans for human sardines, making me a tuna! But who am I to blame these people, despite their hobby of making babies, or seeing it as a trend, or the only activity to do on spare times...

A good principle of economy is to satisfy demands with sufficient supplies, and with more and more people taking the train, the providing of more trains wouldn’t hurt either. At this point the providing of more ‘cans’ is necessary to stop people from hurting themselves.

Subjectively, I could say that I hate taking the city trains and I will never recommend anyone to take them on whatever condition, I’m using the word ‘hate’ here. Just to let you know, I don’t use the word hate for everything else except Durian and getting mugged; for other circumstances, I use the word ‘dislike’.

But let me tell you objectively that the pair ‘city train’ should be described as ‘a popular attempt to commit suicide’ in the dictionary. Did you know that from the data of PT. Kereta Api, the average people whose casualties are caused by the city trains running in one track from Bogor-Jakarta and back alone reached 9 individuals a month? Try to accumulate it with the rest of the tracks-lines. Well, still not that many isn’t it? AIDS kill more people. But, did you know that 4 of these casualties got fried by the 10.000 Volts electricity running on top of the trains? Well, if you didn’t get on top of the train, you wouldn’t get fried, would you? Leaving you with the mere 5/9 chances to die. Let’s try another one; did you know that the average of injuries ranging from broken bones to the cutting off of projected parts of the body, like legs, hands, even fingers, reached 20 injuries a month, including those caused by falling off the train from the non-closable doors at 60 kilometers per hour, 2 kilometers per hour, and even at stationary? Well of course if you didn’t get anywhere near the doors, stay in the inside of the trains, you wouldn’t fall, would you? You’ll sweat like a mating hog, and got squeezed like a Teddy bear in the hand of a nauseated 2 year old, but you wouldn’t fall. Women might get abused sexually and pregnant women might faint -which happens all the time-, but they’ll go home in one piece eventually, wouldn’t they?

Wrong. Going home in one piece is not the thing that will happen at the end.

Poverty is the root of all evil, poverty too is the root of all desperations. The city train illustrated that well. The single running from Bogor to Jakarta represents multidimensional issues, the flourishing of poverty in every level of society.

Let me give you both the illustrations and the logic, you can rebut me if you want, but I won’t listen, unless you have my email address. The tariff from Depok to Cikini, my route, is Rp1.500. Of course the route from Bogor to the final station of Beos would only cost Rp.2000. I take additional bus, P20, which costs Rp1000 to Senen. If I do the trip with only busses, I could spend Rp5000 and even up to Rp8000 for a single go; they all double in the consumed time. I could take Transjakarta, but they double in distance and cost. Train is cheap, figure out the costs in a monthly basis and you’ll see what I mean. Now, how many Indonesian people make only Rp300.000 per month, how many Indonesian people make only Rp10.000 a day, you’ll be surprise. And that’s why many people decided to play this tuna role; to cut costs, probably because of their economy, but also because most of these people just can’t afford the other.

Then poverty leads to lack of education and vice versa, the education that education is important, and that it is accessible. It is a common knowledge that among all of the places in the city, most of the homeless children populations can be found lying around in train stations, having no option but to do all they can to survive another day, sweeping the floors of the trains begging for money, wasting their youth.

Lack of education then leads to lack of awareness, as simple as the awareness that littering could be bad. There’s a popular joke in Transjakarta, which is the reason why they don’t allow people to eat and drink in the bus is because they afraid that people might ignorantly throw their litter a meter away from them, out of sight out of mind, exactly like what happened in trains. Littering somehow has been a popular trend now, no matter how broke you are or how stinking rich you are, the average Indonesian people seem to have the thoughts that ‘you are not cool unless you can drink a plastic glass of water, and drop its empty container at your feet, and walk away with a straight face, looking like you don’t care’. One plastic glass is an antique, but 10.000 plastic glasses a day is a serious problem, of course if you care. But many don’t, that’s why you’ll think that the rail roads were build on a line of waste disposal terminal, that we have somehow developed a keen on disgusting decorations for public places.

We all know where lack of awareness leads, both social and environmental; they’ll turn left, go right, sweep round all negative reactions, and like vicious circles, they all lead back to poverty. Some people got rich, but their lack of awareness somehow blindfolded them from the growing conditions of how poor this country is to become, how they play part in the stripping, with all its natural resources consumed, some even destroyed unconsumed.

Those with enough income could take the air conditioned express trains now, stopping at specific business located stations, cost nine times more expensive than the original city trains – an effort to select their market as it is obviously seen-, and certainly cozy.

And the remaining limited numbers of city trains, with no doors, with people seemingly encouraged to try to get burned at the roof, with the joints unladed with sufficient floor, with pregnant women fainting all the time, will be given to us, more than two third of the populations circulating the city, those who live under the line of poverty.

No I don’t blame the vastly increasing populations, I blame those who have the power to control the population-increase and decided to be ignorant about it, just like how I blame the people who let us go up the roofs of 10.000Volts and burned ourselves, the people who could have given priorities to senior citizens and pregnant ladies, the people who could have seen the high demands for affordable city trains as profitable business opportunities, and of course I blame the same people who could have provided doors to their up to 120 kilometers per hour running steel.