T

he politicians and the police top brass are sure to drive us crazy for a long while to come.

However, now and again, we get to savor a small taste of progress '€” tastes such as seeing a prince and a pauper sharing the same train.

Well, not exactly a prince, but the other day a politician, a candidate for staff at the palace and someone sounding and looking like a TV fashion show producer were all in the women'€™s train car, along with a host of miscellaneous employees and housewives.

At least we can celebrate this bit of emancipation long after Kartini Day, the symbolic celebration of gender equality, is over.

For those travelling during the evenings on the economy train, the ticket price for the long trip between Angke, near the North Jakarta coast, and Rangkasbitung, in Banten, has just been raised over 100 percent to Rp 5,000.

Maybe that was why the carriage has been looking cleaner than usual.

Typically, the old benches can accommodate up to four slim persons. At night there'€™s lots of empty space.

The economy train transports returning security guards, cafe waiters, laborers enjoying rice and tofu in chili sauce from lunchboxes and Tanah Abang vendors who have closed shop, among others.

There'€™s always loud banter '€” mainly in rough Sundanese, the dialect in Banten '€” that can be heard between passengers, who obviously meet each other almost daily on the train.

However, it'€™s the dirtier carriages that are the center of the action, even though the price of admission is the same.

That'€™s where one can be sure of encountering broken air conditioners, the awful smell of stale fruit waste from duku or salak vendors '€” and even more dreadful smells wafting from the open toilet.

Young beggars keep poking at your feet as they shuffle up and down the carriages carrying litter to show they'€™re very useful, but that they could also use some spare change.

Buskers include the old and blind couple specializing in dangdut with a crackling speaker to a melodious thin man, accompanied by his thin wife with their infant.

They also chat with the passengers, who often include an elderly couple with a young man massaging his coughing dad.

Amazingly, the narrow corridors fit everyone, including the fruit vendors with their big baskets tucked under the bench, as well as other vendors, expertly weaving in and out selling everything from mobile phone cases to hot coffee mixed for you on the spot and served in a plastic cup.

Office workers may think they can get away by hopping on without paying the fare, just because it'€™s the economy train. But sometimes the inspectors show up.

It can be quite humiliating to be caught without a ticket for those who look much better dressed than the riff-raff sitting with their feet on the benches, eating oranges, offering them left and right and then tossing the peels to the floor.

Flimsy excuses '€” such as you didn'€™t know the rules, because you usually take the posh train with the smart handbags on the racks '€” won'€™t cut it then.

A few years ago London'€™s public was in fits with plans to revive the third class trains; they were ditched in the late 1950s to ensure equal services as one of the measures to tone down the class war and newspapers reprinted old caricatures of the masses crowded in the carriages.

Jakarta'€™s commuters still have the economy option, complete with its lesson in emancipation. Yes, it'€™s a cheaper way to travel over distances '€” even with the beggars.

But the train and its more scruffy passengers demand respect, by ensuring that everyone pays the few rupiah that make up their fares.

'€“ Ati Nurbaiti