Sukarno's Sarinah

Sukarno's Sarinah

Visitors to Jakarta will notice the Sarinah departmental store, located in Central Jakarta, though they might not bother set food there. It is not a glitzy mall in the class of Plaza Senayan or Taman Anggrek, but for some reason I am pretty fond of the place.

It is located within walking distance from my hotel. I frequent the place almost daily, as there's quite a good food court at the basement where I sometimes have my meals and also it is convenient for me to take a shortcut through the store when the taxi drops me off at Jalan Thamrin on my way home from office.

The city's busiest McDonalds outlet (also the first in the country)--open 24 hours--is located within the Sarinah complex. And obviously it also has the tightest security in town. What more when it is located right next to Jakarta's Hard Rock Cafe.

There's another Sarinah located at Pasaraya Blok M and both are good places to shop for local handicraft. But the one located along Jalan Thamrin is the original one. In fact it was the first modern departmental store in Indonesia--the pride of Sukarno--when it was opened in the sixties.

Sarinah was in fact named after the servant girl who brought up Sukarno when he was a kid. Sukarno wrote a book called Sarinah in the forties, expounding his view about women and their role in society. Sukarno considers his nanny Sarinah as one of the greatest influences in his life.

Sukarno adores women and his insatiable appetite for them is legendary. A trivia question that I like to ask my Indonesian friends is: How many wives did Sukarno have? Name them. (This will also make another interesting blog posting). The present president Megawati is actually Sukarno's daughter from his (technically) third wife, Fatmawati.

In his autobiography, (as told to Cindy Adams, an American lady journalist which he himself confessed to be "the most attractive female journalist he has ever seen"), he defends his weakness for the opposite sex: To him, women are beautiful creatures of God, to be admired, adored and respected.

Sukarno was also very devoted to his mother--a popular photo of him kneeling and kissing the hand of his aged mother is widely reprinted in many books. When Sukarno died in 1970, he was buried beside his mother's grave in the town of Blitar, East Java.

The historical Sarinah mall stands today, almost as a monument symbolizing Sukarno's adoration for the many influential female figures in his life. These days, late at night, at the Sarinah McDonalds outlet, one can sometimes find specimens of the fairer sex, offering companionship for the night, for a fee.