Oppie Andaresta

It starts with Rana and his best friend Janu who are climbing a mountain in bad weather. In the middle of a dense forest, they got separated and lost. Janu is lucky to be back home at last. But not with Rana. An extensive search was carried out. Rana not found. A week has passed. Rana's extended family decided to hold a tahlilan. Rana is considered unlikely to have survived and will surely die there. Dini can't accept that. As a mother, Dini doesn't want to just give up and still believes that her daughter Rana is still alive. Sure enough. After the tahlilan, Rana came home in the pouring rain.

Four stories unfold in Jakarta, a big city that feels cold and dehumanizing. Life there strips away meaning, turning people into soulless zombies. In their search for purpose, youths turn to the only things that seem worthwhile—television and movies. This obsession pushes them down a dark path, transforming them into twisted versions of anti-heroes who make anti-social choices that spiral out of control.

Eight stories are interwoven including the story of a child who works hard just to get a bottle of clean water and a pair of roller skates. Then there are siblings who sell pirated DVDs and start fighting each other when the younger one only wants to drink Starbucks coffee. The third story is about the daughter of a prostitute who has a crush on her moral studies teacher. Then we meet a Japanese man who is hungry for true love and meets a karaoke girl and we hear the story of a lowly-paid television director who is looking to escape the pressures from his wife and boss. Then there is the story of a female kindergarten principal who is trying to apply the Islamic way of life to defuse the temptations of the material world; or the tale of an expatriate’s former chauffeur who gets into trouble after receiving a farewell gift from the boss.