Between an MRT and Air Force One

JAKARTA (JP): Comfort is a luxury if you travel on public transportation in Jakarta. It's by sheer luck, or a miracle, if you find a "comfortable" city bus to get to the office. The fact is most of the time you spend the bus trip trying to keep calm amid all your discomfort.

Of course, every cloud has a silver lining. That is good news for those of you who want to train yourselves mentally and physically to enter an advanced state of body and mind. Let's check things out one by one.

First, for your body. Most of the time, even if you are waiting in the right place, you will still have to chase the bus because there is no telling where it will stop. You also have to get onto the bus as fast as you can because the limit to make it on is 10 seconds. Sometimes that means competing with other passengers and pushing your way out of the crowd. And be prepared because there is so little space for you that it's lucky if you can remain standing on your feet.

Sometimes other passengers push so much that you have to move to a corner, or, because you cannot push other passengers in return, you are stuck in front of the always open door, your right leg on the bus floor and the other hanging awkwardly on the step. Once you are in the bus, you have to lean on something, either on a seat, the body of the vehicle or even on another passenger. If you do not grab onto something, you are likely to fall and head-butt your nearest neighbor when the bus lurches to a stop.

While it's important to maintain your balance, it's much more of a concern to hold onto your bag and wallet as tightly as possible. Otherwise, you may find yourself alighting the bus without your purse, cell phone or other valuables you had at the start of the trip.

Now you get the picture. Well, yes, there are hundreds of calories to be burned: the running, the jumping on, the grabbing, the pushing, the balancing -- they all add up to a strenuous workout for your legs, arms, upper body and lower body.

There is also a mental workout to be found in the test of your patience. If you get upset hearing people scream and scold each other wildly, don't bother to ride city buses. If you have never experienced what it is like to be pushed aside or never done the same to someone else, then city buses will be your training ground.

If you have a short fuse, try to learn how to go with the flow by traveling on the buses and dealing with all that goes around you.

Well, guys, your Jakarta living experience is not complete if you have never tried public transportation. It really is a "hell" of an experience.

OK, I'm kidding. Actually, the improvement in public transportation needs a lot of work. We need to tackle these problems as fast as we can.

We must build a Mass Rapid Transportation (MRT) system, which we often see in foreign movies. This is an old issue and the plan has been discussed for years. But the discussion ground to a halt when the monetary crisis hit us.

Our monetary situation is still bad, so dire in fact that it would be impossible to revive the plan for the MRT for Jakarta right now. Even though the people badly need it, they have to be patient with the existing transportation situation until the right time rolls around to make things better.

And then I read about the President's plan to buy a presidential airplane. Wow! How great Indonesia is after all. Just like superpower America, we are going to have an Air Force One. But then a feeling of despair takes over as I remember Mahatma Gandhi, who traveled in an economic-class train just to feel what his people went through.

Of course, we cannot compare the present with the past, or the amount of budget to buy a plane or to build an MRT. But if the people whose hard-earned money is used to run the country have to bear the brunt of the hard times, then why should the president enjoy the grandeur of a new plane? The important thing is he can professionally carry out his duties, regardless of whether he is on Air Force One or a regular plane.

Anyway, the plan to buy the new plane has been shelved. Yet the question that remains is whether the duties are being carried out well. It's something to ponder on your next ride on the buses.

-- Chadijah Mastura