Life on the Road

For a few days recently, I swapped my safe, predictable and comfortable life in Jakarta for a decidedly unsafe, unpredictable and uncomfortablelife on the road to various locations in North Sumatra. Choosing to travel largely by public transport added to the stress because I found myself crammed into minivans containing more people than seats. Invariably, some male in the vehicle would light up a cigarette to add to the discomfort already caused by the overcrowding, heat and dust. It was an opportunity to exercise non-reaction in the face of provocative stimuli and overall I did very well.

I started to find that it was easier simply to accept the situation, rather than work up the emotional energy required to get annoyed and express this annoyance or try to contain it. Simply observing the situation and seeing the humour in it helped. At one point in my journeying, I was stuck in the back of a minivan when an old guy decided to light up in the seat in front of me. He was sitting beside a woman nursing a new born baby and had his own granddaughter on his lap. At least I was beside an open window and had some escape from the smoke. Nobody complained or even looked annoyed and neither did I. This old guy obviously had no awareness that the smoke from his cigarette might be harming the lungs of the baby beside him.

On another occasion, I was reminded of Meher Baba and his widespread travels throughout India. Usually he traveled by train in the third class compartments and often slept rough. My discomfort was mild and transient compared to what he would have gone through. So I just watched and found myself repeating, in mantra-like fashion, "observe but don't react, respond appropriately if the situation requires it". This practice was put to the test during the final leg of the journey when the driver of a private vehicle that we were sharing with other people was recklessly overtaking vehicles and it seemed that the appropriate response would be to ask him to stop and for me to get out. However, it was the middle of nowhere and as fate would have it, the car finally died because the driver had been pushing it beyond its limits and it had fatally overheated.

Thus it was that all the occupants of the vehicle alighted while the driver surveyed the situation. We had been standing by the side of the road for no more than two minutes when a fatal accident unfolded a couple of hundred metres up the road. A bus collided with a female motorcyclist who had been killed instantly. The bus overturned and its occupants suffered cuts and abrasions but nothing more serious. I uncovered these details because I walked up to the accident scene. This was New Year's Eve by the way and the young woman who was killed would have been looking forward to the coming year. It reminded me of the futility of thinking excessively about the future because it may not arrive.

I was also appreciative of the breakdown of our vehicle because it meant that we transferred to a taxi whose driver who was certainly less reckless and we completed our journey in safety. I have a final image of passing the motorcyclist's body as it lay by the side of the road. The body had been covered by pieces of cardboard but the bottom of the legs were visible. The victim had been wearing blue jeans and her toenails were painted red. When we arrived at the hotel it was 7pm and I wasn't in any mood to celebrate the arrival of the New Year but at least I was alive to see it in.