Until rooms in our mansion do us part

Until rooms in our mansion do us part

JAKARTA (JP): When Haryono met Salyah (this is not the title
of a movie, mind you) they fell in love instantly. They vowed to
live happily ever after. "I'm not a fortune hunter," said Salyah
(later known as Sally). "All I need is a piece of floor ..."

"And a little roof," interrupted Haryono, nicknamed Harry.

"As long as we are together, I don't mind living in a small
hut."

That romantic piece of conversation took place more than two
decades ago. Now the couple are very well off. Harry is a
successful businessman, and Sally is a popular dress designer at
the same level with Poppy and Ghea. And that "piece of floor and
a little roof" have become a mansion with 15 bedrooms, each with
a private bath, not to mention two huge living rooms, a library,
a movie room and a Texas-style bar. Their friends joke that,
without carrying a map, you could go astray in the house and
instead of going to the guest room you're supposed to stay in,
you could end up entering one of the four maids' rooms.

In the beginning, Sally and Harry kept changing their
residence as often as Michael Jackson has changed his appearance.
Their reason for moving was that the previous houses did not meet
their requirements. Their first house in Bintaro was too small
for a family with three kids. The second, in Pondok Indah, was
not constructed in line with Feng Shui (Chinese philosophy about
building houses). The third was disliked by their kids who found
it too far from Jl. Thamrin, the center of excitement. The fourth
was not socially acceptable because its immediate environment was
not "elite" enough. And so on. Not until a few months ago did
they find this perfect mansion. "This is what I call a house,"
said Harry.

People in Jakarta, especially those with money, are obsessed
with having a "proper house" to live in. And there are so many
criteria for defining a "proper house". And the offers advertised
by the real estate developers are fanning the flames of voracity.
The more choices you have, the more complicated it is to find a
house that meets your taste. The closer a house comes to meeting
your requirements, the more expensive it turns out to be. And in
most cases, one ends up buying a house which is far beyond his
means -- with a monstrous mortgage of course.

And it seems that one of the criteria for a proper place to
live is privacy. Since sharing has become an ancient, almost
forgotten word in this day and age, one has to work hard so that
he or she can provide privacy for the family.

Indonesians in big cities used to be so friendly that
relatives and friends could stay with them for as long as they
wanted. This required a spacious house with as many rooms as
possible. But nowadays, the number of rooms in a house doesn't
reflect the friendliness of the owner, nor his willingness to
accommodate guests. The quantity of rooms reflects nothing more
than the owner's prosperity. If you don't mind my saying so, the
size of one's home has become another status symbol!

Beyond that, however, just what is it that you get from having
a large number of rooms in your house? The answer to this
question could be very intriguing.

Harry and Sally offer an example. When they lived in Bintaro,
theirs was a very close-knit family. They ate at the same table,
shared the same television set and chatted warmly in their only
living room. But now, that warmth is gone. Everybody has their
own room, with a private TV set, a private refrigerator, and a
private phone. For business purposes, Harry even equipped his
bedroom with various business machines such as a computer, a
facsimile machine and a printer.

"I can't stand the noise," complained Sally, justifying her
choice to sleep in her private bedroom full of equipment for
fitness and beauty care, including a sauna.

With everything so private, the family members rarely even
encounter each other in the house. In addition, the activities of
each of them are so intense that they have to make appointments
to see each other.

In her solitude, one night, Sally began wondering where
prosperity had taken her. She longed for the time when one of her
kids grabbed the drink she was holding, or wolfed the bread she
was about to eat. She longed to see how her children competed to
get to the ringing phone. Now they seemed to be at such a
distance that she felt she was all alone in that big house she
once craved.

Wishing to say "good night" to her husband as she had always
done in their earlier days together, she went to his room
upstairs. But her steps halted at the close door. On the door
there was a sign that read PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB.

-- Carl Chairul