Getting into the swing of the campaign runaround

It's that time again. Youthful, skinny motorists with gigantic flags whizzing through traffic, happily ignoring red lights, while paunchy middle aged men, equally colored, sit in dignified decorum with equally large flags adorning their cars and vans.

The "election festival" is here. While at Mardi Gras in New Orleans the participants fling colorful glass bead necklaces, here the "party" campaigners wave hand signs and flags at passersby instead. There is excitement and euphoria in the air.

What is intriguing is the superior and ultimately confident attitude the campaigners sport. Perhaps it is because while the rest of us ponder, discuss and analyze who is the best party to vote for, they campaign wholeheartedly in the hot sun and through the jungle of Jakarta traffic several hours a day.

But for a city that has traffic problems of catastrophic proportions, the traffic jams and gridlock due to election campaigning is almost unbearable.

After a long wait at a crowded red light, our car finally took a deep breath and surged along with the wave of traffic, only to skid to an abrupt, heartbeat skipping halt. Like a disturbed swarm of angry bees, the motorists swathed in red exploded all around us.

Amid this situation, it is not surprising to learn how the election time lifestyle has turned most of us who need to travel long distances in Jakarta into nocturnal creatures -- rushing about our chores after the din of blaring horns and sirens of campaign motorcades sizzles down with the afternoon heat.

So for a group of creative housewives with meticulous reorganizing skills who efficiently dissect any problem, it was decided to make the best of the election fever and devise a detailed plan of how to avoid the traffic blues.

A map with days, dates and routes to and from the very important destinations was devised. Reds, greens and white tags dotted the roadway map. Two weeks of daily chores were rescheduled, and "absolutely unavoidable" trips were rerouted.

"Honey, remember we are having dinner at a hotel tomorrow," reminded the spouse.

"Dinner at eight, right? Well then we should leave by four p.m."

Explaining the baffled expression was a little complicated.

"Well, it is Day Seven -- I need to go to the salon, return the rental videos and while I pick up the pair of slippers that the dog chewed last week, you can pick up the stuff from the dry cleaners."

"But why so late in the day?"

"It is Day Seven of campaigning," I repeated impatiently. "See the red dots all the way up to the south, the green and white intersect and all the usual detours and shortcuts are not helpful, so that's why."

While sitting in the car we mused further on how to go about our daily routine while trying to outsmart the election mayhem.

"Perhaps schools should open late and show movies on videos so kids return home after the election hours are over," observed the kid in the backseat.

"We have that painting exhibition to attend all the way in Kemang, have you devised a route for that yet," the spouse remembered in all eagerness to participate in the new scheme.

"All clear on that one. Elections will be over by then," I replied happily.

It was a wonderful feeling of expectation -- then we will only have the regular grind of mundane, predictable traffic jams, intimidating busways and some impulsive flooding to deal with.

-- Pavan Kapoor