Happy Ied Mubarak (Selamat Hari Lebaran)

After fasting for one moth during Ramadhan, on 1st Syawal, Moslem's people all over the world celebrate Ied Mubarak. We call it “the winning day”, since during the Ramadhan month, not only we are not eating during the day, but we also challenge to execute good deeds as much as we can, make gifts as many as we can, go to the mosque for praying as often as we can and say God’s name and read Koran as long as we can. We should also prevent ourselves for any bad actions such as swearing, hurting the others, etc. Ramadhan is also the month that we can make requests to God as many as we can. God promises if we can fulfill what God has ordered, God will multiply our good deeds for hundreds or even thousand times. God will approve our requests, and for sure we will receive God’s mercy. After we pass Ramadhan month, on the Lebaran day or Ied Mubarak, we would be as clean as a baby.

Indonesia, the largest Moslem country, where 90% of its populations are Moslem, off course celebrates this Ied Mubarak. It is the time when all Indonesian people, from all over the world, return to their hometown. Mostly Javanese people, they love to have family gathering during Lebaran day. Mother, father and children will go together to see grandparents and other relatives in other cities. We need to see the others since Lebaran day is the day when we ask forgiveness from others to complete what we have done during the Ramadhan month. The money that they have been collecting during a year will evaporate only for a few days. Each business in Indonesia also has an obligation to offer support funding for celebrating the day that we call THR or tunjangan hari raya.

Some people said that going home for Lebaran celebration is out of our rationalization. How come that the amount of money that they can develop as capital to build further business, use only for individual consumption. New dresses, lots of food, gifts for friends and neighbors are also the complementary things. Plus traveling expenses. It consumes a huge amount of money. Even people abroad who could not get permission to go home from their supervisors will send money to their relatives in Indonesia to celebrate the day which is about 9.1 trillion rupiah this year (MetroTv news). Nevertheless, going home is a tradition. Something that has been infiltrated into people’s mind that this behavior is a must in their society. No matter how expensive it is. Gathering with family is a relief after one stressful year working and struggling for life in other’s people areas. Not only forgiving, they are also eating together, laughing together, doing recreation together with all of the members of the beloved families. On the other hand, going home is a show off on how successful they are during these years.

People will spend money in their hometown. Transportation business will reach their peak of sales. Money itself will be distributed evenly to each corner of the country. Some economic experts say, this phenomenon will strengthen our macro economy condition. I think if we have an event as big as Lebaran day every month, Indonesia will have a stronger economic condition than today. No wonder, there are more and more holidays we have now than a few years before. This will encourage people to travel and distribute money to other places.

Jakarta will be empty during this Lebaran day. It is predicted that almost 3.2 million people will go by train, plus several other millions will take buses, airplanes and ships. Several factories such as traditional medicine factories, offer free bus ride to several towns for people who work for them. Even my office, at the ministry of forestry, offers free buses to several towns in Central Java. Maids from my office colleagues normally take the opportunity. Another phenomenon is, there will be 3.9 million people that will go by motorcycles (Tvone.come). Motorcycle is a cheap vehicle that most people afford to buy. Last year, 74% of the total road accidents were from these motorcycle riders. Irrationally, 5 people rode on it (parents and 3 little children). So you could imagine how dangerous it is, traveling for hundred kilometers with a motorcycle where the whole family are the riders, and where all of around them are giant trucks and buses. So this year, some motorcycle dealers offer a program of going home with motorcycles together. Wives and children will be put in buses where husbands are traveling with his flock of motorcycles. This hopefully will reduce the potential road accidents. Though negatively they will bring more people when they return, during the Lebaran holiday, most people will go and Jakarta will be empty. So empty.

When I was a child, my family was part of these Javanese flocks that went home from Jakarta to their hometown. Father, mother and 6 children. We were not a rich family so we took the cheap standard economic train where people can still go with the train with no seats. They are sleeping all over the train’s floor. In Malang, my mother’s hometown, we stayed at my grandparent house. Though it changes now but to date, I can still remember the old house. Old style of windows and doors, the big kitchen, railway next to the house and the smell of my grandmother medicine oil as she spent time on bed during her last days. At that time, I met all of my cousins, and traveled almost every day including visiting my father’s hometown. The last time I went back to Malang with my parents was during my high school. It was only 4 of us, both of my parents, me and my little sister. My father took us to many of his memorable places during his childhood. A house yard full of Zalacca palm and its fruit, places where my father stole the sugar cane with his friends, and the river where he swam, fished and played around with his boyfriends during his childhood. My father looked very happy showing us all of his memorable places. A few years later, he died.

Grandparents had gone. Father had gone. So far, we celebrate Lebaran day at home and visiting relatives older than my mother and late father, not far away from Jakarta. And also we have relatives visiting us during the day. There will be big feast. Everybody should eat. When the time goes by, people are getting older. Marriages make people visit their spouse’s family than their own. More people move to other towns and less and less people are visiting us. And this year, for the first time, we celebrate Lebaran day in Bogor at my sister’s house. Not in mine, since my home is too small to have the whole family’s members. This must be the most quite Lebaran that we ever have. But hopefully, this will tighten up the closeness of my family’s members.

Happy Ied Mubarak everybody. Please give forgiveness to every mistake that I make, unconsciously or intentionally. Have fun with your families and May God blesses will always be with us each day.