N

o, it'€™s not a typo. I did mean '€œAsia-Afrika'€, not '€œAsia-Africa'€. Because this is not about the much-hyped 60th anniversary of a certain conference held here this week, but about the street named after the conference that many of us pass every week.

Or maybe it'€™s about the conference, after all. We shall see.

Indonesia'€™s most famous streets named Asia-Afrika can be found in the better parts of Jakarta and Bandung, the nation'€™s capital and one of its most prominent cities.

The one in Jakarta is a busy two-way street in Senayan known as the home of the country'€™s national TV station and largest sports complex, one of the capital'€™s oldest convention centers and the capital'€™s closest semblance to the city'€™s lungs in the form of an 18-hole golf course.

Within the last decade it has also welcomed bustling shopping malls, fancy hotels and office buildings.

You would think that with all those big names dotting its path, Jakarta'€™s Jl. Asia-Afrika would be one of the city'€™s best boulevards. Well, it really is not. Just like most streets and roads in the city, it'€™s bumpy in some patches and losing street markings in others.

A large part of the sidewalk has long been occupied by stalls offering overpriced plants and garden knick-knacks. At night, stalls selling food and drinks spring up on the street itself, where many teens misspend another night watching their buddies racing in daddy'€™s car.

Garbage? There'€™s more than a little. After a mass rally, major sports event, stadium-filled concert, gathering or garden variety exhibition, trash piles up even higher and makes the plant pots look shabbier.

Traffic? Forget about events such as the Asian-African Conference. Concerts or soccer matches produce roadblocks that leave almost everyone in a standstill.

If Persija has a match, fans will park their buses on the street, sometimes brawling right there for good measure. And we'€™re not even talking about when one of those events occurs along with a seasonal sale at the malls. Driving on Jl. Asia-Afrika often feels like traveling from Asia to Africa.

All of this is hidden behind the bold banners, colorful confetti, fancy facades and glitzy getups inundating Jl. Asia-Afrika once the fanfare begins.

Pledges of a better future will be offered, nostalgia for past will be evoked. Sometimes a world record will be pursued. Everyone will be sucked into the arresting visuals, sleek surfaces, stump speeches and hysteria that come with program '€” and generally forgetting the hellish chaos paving their way in and waiting on their way out.

But what is life but a series of moment that makes you feel alive, an optimist would ask. So it goes, like a Caesar-decreed circus at the coliseum.

Some are bigger than others, some are organized more often than others, some squeeze more out of their budget than others and some inflate some people'€™s ego more successfully than others.

Like borrowed oxygen, sustaining breath just about enough until the next bash is unfurled along this long, winding and loaded street of Asia-Afrika.

Lynda Ibrahim is a Jakarta-based writer with a penchant for purple, pussycats and pop culture.