Page 235: A Postcard from the Big Durian

Less traffic. Less crowd. Jakarta gets its annual rest when lotsa people who usually utilize it to make a living leave it for a while to enjoy the most celebrated and longest holiday in this country: Eid Mubarak. Some of them go to their hometowns. Some of them take trips to other cities. And knowing that this city finally gets a break it deserves from the “tortures” that come from the hands of its citizens, including me, somehow soothes me a bit. I don’t know why. But that fact soothes me a bit.

Sometimes when I hear a person says that s/he likes Jakarta, I easily assume that that person isn’t being sincere, perhaps even preparing for some cruel jokes about The Big Durian. The best reason for that is maybe because I see it from my own perspective. I’ve never really loved Jakarta, although I was born and raised in this city. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don’t. But to say that I hate it could be a misleading statement as well, since that’s not how I feel, and Jakarta has been some kind of pond where I met people whom I like.

Whom I love.

Some of those people gathered with me to celebrate Eid Mubarak. Nothing of importance has changed, pretty much the same like last year. I was happy, but not ecstatically. It wasn’t vapid occasion, for sure. I felt such relief when I knew the festivity is over. Just like this “enticing” city, I needed a rest too. Probably I still need it for my emotional part, considering last month filled with lotsa suffocating shits. I need some kind of shield to ignore unnecessary stimulus that can lead me back in to that over-analyzing-my-life abyss. I’m building one.