Academic turns to ecofriendly transportation

Academic turns to ecofriendly transportation

By Ridlo Aryanto

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Although they have already grown up, the
three children of Iwan Nusyirwan, a lecturer at the School of
Philosophy, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, are still very
fond of singing this famous children's song, Naik Delman (Riding
a horse-drawn cart).

They love singing the song because traveling by a horse-drawn
cart is very much a part of their experience. They go to
university in a two-wheeled buggy with their father as the
coachman. Well, is Iwan also a coachman?

"Well, well, well, I am still a lecturer. But for the past
seven years I have used my small two-wheeled buggy to go to the
campus more often than my old automobile," said Iwan, chuckling.

Obviously, Iwan, a 1974 philosophy graduate of Gadjah Mada
University, is not making any headlines at all. When he travels
in his small two-wheeled buggy, he said, he can interact more
easily with his social environment.

"If I drive a Mercedes, I feel there is a greater distance
between me and my social environment. Boxed inside a car with the
glass covered with a protective film, I will be alienated from my
surroundings."

As a two-wheeled buggy is not commonplace, many of his
colleagues in the campus find it strange to see him park his
buggy and Sumbawa pony in the campus parking ground. "Many
friends used to call me a senior lecturer deserving pity. Others
drive a Mercedes, but this one rides in a buggy," he said,
laughing heartily.

Things have changed now. Today many of his students ask to be
given a lift in his buggy. Besides, in his spare time, he enjoys
a pleasure ride along Jl. Malioboro with his family. "As the
buggy is enough big only for two passengers, we must take turns,"
said Rindangmateati, 19, one of his children. Iwan also often
takes his wife in the buggy for a housewives' gathering in
Kotagede, south of Yogya.

His students have nicknamed him "the man who tends a horse".
Every day, on the way home from the university, he cuts grass
that he can find between the campus in Bulaksumur and his house
in Minomartani, just north of Yogya.

"I have the sickle with me every day. I usually cut grass
around the UGM valley or somewhere close to my house," he said.
For Iwan, who is also a graduate of the Yogyakarta Plantation
College, agriculture is better practiced than learned as an
academic subject.

Iwan, who is also secretary-general of the Yogyakarta chapter
of the All-Indonesian Judo Association, has his own reasons why
he likes to collect the grass by himself. Previously, he had
hired two persons to tend his horses. When they were already
well-experienced in looking after horses, they were "hijacked" to
work for someone else. After this bitter experience, Iwan decided
to look after his own horses. He now has three horses and is
assisted by his housemaid, Mbak Inem, to look after them.

When asked whether he, as a lecturer in a highly prestigious
campus, was not ashamed to cut grass outdoors, Iwan quickly shook
his head. He said he would never feel ashamed as long as what he
did was for the good of the horses.

"Besides, there is no rule prohibiting a lecturer from cutting
grass, is there? As long as what I do is not against any social
norms, let alone state laws, there is no reason for me to feel
ashamed."

Apart from using a buggy himself, Iwan also nurtures the hope
of seeing his fellow lecturers also do the same. He argued that
taking your family in a horse-drawn buggy going to the campus
once a week could be an effective antipollution campaign in the
campus.

He noted with disappointment that usually the campus was made
a pollution-free area only once a year during the observance of
Earth Day or Environment Day. Even then, he noted, only few
complied with the call for a no-car-for-a-day campaign.

Iwan, who also has a masters degree in public health from the
School of Medicine at Gadjah Mada University, said that his hobby
of traveling in his buggy was closely related to pet-keeping, a
hobby he had begun 10 years earlier. That's why sometimes Jacky,
his pet gibbon or Empeng, keeps him company when he rides in his
buggy to see a horse race or a buggy race in Prambanan, Klaten.

Iwan's dream of having a buggy as his private vehicle was
prompted by the victory of Kancil (one of his horses) in a buggy
race in Prambanan about seven years back.

Kancil's success and his desire to preserve increasingly rare
traditional vehicles encouraged Iwan to start his hobby. At first
he met the owner of Kancil and bought it for Rp 850,000. As the
horse was small in stature and would never be strong enough to
pull a large-sized buggy, Iwan had a two-seat buggy built. "It
was then early 1994 and I spent only Rp 600,000," said Iwan.

Iwan is not Javanese but he understands well the classical
philosophy about the symbol of prosperity for a Javanese male, as
manifested in the concept of wanita, kukila and turangga, namely
that a man will be considered a real man only when he has got a
wife (wanita), a bird (kukila) and a vehicle (turangga). In its
development, turangga, which constitutes a basic value of
masculinity, has undergone a functional change into being a
symbol of prestige for the Javanese nobility. "Clearly, riding in
a pretty horse-drawn buggy has raised the dignity of Javanese
nobility," said Iwan, who was born in Padangpanjang, West
Sumatra, on Jan. 25, 1946.

Iwan knows that sawdust or straw on which a horse sleeps and
urinates is a good growth medium for edible, pricey mushrooms.
A kilo of fresh mushrooms can pick up Rp 7,000 to Rp 18,000, he
said.

In fact it is mushrooms that led to Iwan's craze for a horse
and a buggy. Back in 1989, he grew mushrooms at home. As he had
no horses then, every time he would like to sow new mushroom
seeds, he had go to Prambanan to collect horse dung from horse-
drawn carriage owners. Realizing the important role that a horse
played in his side business, Iwan bought Kancil and two
Australian horses, named Rosswell and Macarena respectively.
These three horses now occupy a stable which used to be a carport
in his house.

Iwan spent Rp 25 million for the purchase of these three
horses. He is lucky as he does not have to spend a lot of money
for the fodder and the maintenance of the horses.

"At most I will have to buy a mixture of rice and bran to mix
with the grass. Rp 1,000 a day will be enough for the fodder of
the three horses. The dung will be recycled and used as the
growth medium for mushrooms, and no longer will his neighbors
complain about the disturbing odor.

Iwan also runs a course at home on how to cultivate mushrooms.
Six classes, each consisting of a little more than 10 persons,
have completed the course but Iwan and his course participants
have yet to be able to fulfill the increasing market demand for
mushrooms in Yogyakarta alone.

Iwan said he was concerned to see that andong, a horse-drawn
four-wheeled carriage, has given way to taxis in Yogyakarta, a
region which used to be famous as an andong city. Now you can
only travel by andong in Prambanan Temple area, around Malioboro
and Parangtritis coast.

"Today, people are complaining about the traffic congestion in
Malioboro. In that case, why doesn't anybody try to make Jl.
Malioboro or UGM campus a special zone for andong," he said. "How
beautiful life will be if this dream can materialize some day,"
Iwan said, pulling the reigns of his pony. Whirrrr...... clip,
clop, clip, clop, clip, clop.