Slow sync
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The city takes time to reveal itself.
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it is interesting to put faces to names, match personalities with virtual personas.
Vast and airy: The campus of Ateneo de Manila.
EARLY morning and the air is heavy, expectant with the promise of more heat and humidity. From the chinks in the venetian blinds in my room at the Faculty Quarters, the light streams in bottle-green. Outside, the environment is verdant, soothingly familiar. Identifiable trees (papaya, ashoka, mango), outbreaks of lime-green moss on the pathways, and the occasional buzz of a persistent insect. You might be in Kerala.
Ateneo de Manila
Faculty Quarters is perched on the edge of a cliff in Loyola Heights, where the Ateneo de Manila University is located. The University of course is not strictly in Manila but in Quezon, a neighbouring city that also falls under Metro Manila — the sprawling National Capital Region that encompasses 17 cities and municipalities. The campus is vast and airy; most of the buildings date back to a time when architecture was not challenged by the mundane constraints of space. One of the finest institutions of higher learning in the Philippines, Ateneo has a history that goes back 150 years. It moved to the Loyola Heights area in 1952, at a time when some thought that only the "children of Tarzan" would study here. Now, it is the hub of a bustling area. Outside the campus gates, on Katupunan Avenue, the buildings are lined with Internet centres, shops and restaurants. Sushi bars, Chinese outlets, Starbucks, Filipino chains that specialise in chicken, — the variety is staggering.
Lack of parking
A private university, founded and run by Jesuits, Ateneo attracts a number of affluent students. The most visible sign of this are the staggering number of cars. Huge parking lots are reserved for students, but even these don't seem adequate. One professor tells me that a student forged the number plate of her car. It allowed him to use the relatively less crowded faculty parking lots until he was caught out after his car got into an accident. A survey conducted in 2003 revealed that almost half the students travelled from their homes to Ateneo in private cars; only 15.27 per cent used public transportation. Filipinos like their cars large. At one Ateneo parking lot, I cannot spot a single hatchback among the assembly-like lines of SUVs and spacious sedans.
Traffic travails
Car traffic of course is not just a problem at Ateneo. Most of the cities in Metro Manila have a colour coding system to regulate traffic flow. Number coding would have been a more accurate expression for this arrangement, under which cars with vehicle plates ending with certain numbers cannot be used on certain days. (Example: no vehicles with number plates ending in 1 or 2 allowed on the roads on Mondays.) When you are buried in the middle of downtown traffic, you may wonder about the impact of this innovative Unified Vehicle Volume Reduction Program. Or how much longer you might be if it hadn't been for it. Someone tells me that, as always, the rich have found a way to beat the system. "They just buy more cars with different number plate endings."
No turban?
My students at Ateneo are an immensely interesting mix. They come from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Burma, Indonesia and India. Most are Filipino though, a few from the neighbouring islands in the archipelago. I have been instructing them online for two months and it is interesting to put faces to names, match personalities with virtual personas. Some turn out exactly as I imagined them. I fail to `recognise' others. I am unable to take up their generous offers to show me around Manila after class, but I spend lunch breaks with the students — mainly at one of the canteens in the university. During one lunch, a Filipino girl student asks me, "Sir, how come you don't have a turban?"
The Indian migration
The question has cropped up because of the sizeable number of Sikhs who have migrated to the Philippines. In the minds of some Filipinos, Indians (who are referred to as Bambays) are linked with two things: turbans and money lending. I get the impression that the association with money lending has lent the community an image that is not entirely positive. Indian food is another thing though. The Prince of Jaipur is located in Fort Bonifacio Global City, a swanky mall with food from just about every culinary corner of the globe. The interior is a riot of colour and kitsch — tables stand on legs of fake elephant tusks, portraits of Maharani Gayatri Devi vie for attention with pictures of busty village belles, and Kashmiri carpets and Kalamkari spreads are suspended from the ceiling. "Call me Max," says the affable Mr. Talreja, who runs the popular restaurant, specialising in Punjabi-Mughlai fare. On learning I am from Chennai, he adds: "I can have the chef rustle up a dosa, if you like."
Last meal in Manila
Manila takes time to reveal itself. On the face of it, it looks like a typically Southeast Asian city — tall gleaming high-rises that co-exist with modest tenements occupied by the less privileged. There are pockets where the city's history and heritage come alive — the most attractive of course being the old Capital at Intramuros, with its centuries-old walls, the cobble-stoned streets, and imposing cathedrals. In the most unsuspecting of places, there are wonderful, old Spanish villas tucked away behind the ubiquitous glass and concrete. I am taken to one of them for dinner on my last evening in the city by Dr. Violet Valdez, my gracious host and chairperson of Ateneo's Department of Communication. La Cocina de Tita Moning serves up heirloom recipes in the ambience of an ancestral home. Tables need to be booked and orders need to be placed at least a day in advance. The china, the glassware and the silverware form part of the collection that belonged to the aristocratic Legarda family and the meal consists of the signature dishes of the late Dona Ramona Legarda, who apparently "excelled in throwing unforgettable dinners."
I learn that the condiment on the table (salsa monja) is what nuns used to make as meal accompaniments for Spanish friars. The water is flavoured with pandan leaves and the meal comprises a startlingly simple pumpkin soup, a wholesome baked Lapu-Lapu (a kind of Indonesian grouper), a paella with a myriad flavours, and a bread pudding that is rich without being cloyingly sweet.
I finish with coffee and the thought there could be no better way of having a last meal in Manila.
MUKUND PADMANABHAN
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