From The Head of One Indonesian Today

In the spirit of joyfulness for the success of Indonesian Uber Team to go into final, I dedicate this post for them, those brave girls who by the terms of Sutiyoso (former populist governor of traffic jammed and flooded annually capital of Indonesia) are Davids which in the final will face Goliaths. Goliaths, of course, is the China Uber Team who’s dominating the world female badminton rank from Number 1 to Number 5 whereas our most brilliant David only smashing on Number 24. Just give them hell, oh my brave She-Davids! Make your countrymen proud, since lately we don’t have anything to be proud of or to be happy about.

This nation is as gloomy as my current view from the window. What with soon-to-be rising prices in fuel which automatically will increase all prices from books to already-far-from-the-marginal-buying-power tempeh and “the curse call issue” raging this archipelago. Wait, a curse call? What in God’s name is that? (by this question tense sapimalas imagine that this post is actually being read).

Politician are known for certain traits or in the words of Andrea Hirata in his best-selling book, Laskar Pelangi ( loosely translated as ‘Rainbow Warrior’) are gifted with few characteristics “…populist, opportunistic, big mouthed, theoretical, know-it-all”. This in general knowledge is well, true. But Andrea Hirata forgot one more thing in his honest description of a politician (which is by the way are applicable in all nations): they are very good at deflecting people’s attention. In our case, they are using their mega weapon: press.

The first time I heard about this rumor, I was on bed and ready to catch my beauty sleep. My brother bid his good night farewell and out-of-blue warned me “Oh and don’t answer if you receive a call from number 086xxx and the screen turns red”. And as usual I replied: “What happen if I answer?” He retorted in that tone when you tell your friend a ghost story while you were outside camping and owls are hoo-ing, “You’ll have seizure and die. Good night”. I turned off my mobile, put it away and sleep it off. This morning while I reached my office, I browsed the internet and here is what I found.

In a nutshell, a shaman rumored to test his power cursed a 086xxx number. Witness what the victims said to the press (read the complete news here):

Haryono, 23 years old, live in Situbondo, suddenly fainted and let go of his stomached dinner upon receiving a phone call from his mobile phone on Wednesday night, May 14. In his official press release he said: When I answered the phone suddenly my hand was jolted with a high electrical wave.

Rasmi, 20 years old, live in Sumenep, received a cursed text message and after reading half of it, suddenly fainted.

Irrational? You bet. But it made into headlines on major newspaper and successfully divides public’s attention from fuel or corrupted legislative member. Indeed, absurd news tend to appear whenever an honorable member of legislative is on trial for corruption or the fuel price take a hike into Doomed Mountain.

At least today, for one day, Indonesian public will be able to shake off the curse and the fuel from their head. Today is a Badminton Day. After all, as Scarlett O’ Hara put it, tomorrow is another day.