Little things..

I am in Macao again. This time in better spirits. It is gonna be a shorter stay.Lectures in strange tongues are no longer to be.

Couple of days into my stay we went to a lagar. A lagar is an oil press. Olives from the cultivators around reach here and through a series of semi- mechanised processes oil is extracted in sweetsmelling barrelfulls. Dani explained to me how the system works- how the olives are washed in warm water, crushed, then spread as layers on the round weed mats, stacked and pressed to extract the virgin oil. The workman told us that a good thirty kilograms of olives yield about three litres of oil.

Its the first time since coming to Macao that i am encountering activity of this kind. People red- faced and tired from a hard days work. All we saw were shops and bars and offices and an occasional old lady working in her kitchen garden.Dullness was the rule.

The burly workman at the mill had a warm air about him. He greeted us with firm handshakes rather than the usual kisses. The best was when he warmed bread for us on embers and served it on a metal plate with a generous amount of warm oil poured on it.Dani had already introduced me to the wonders of olive oil poured over food. But nothing had prepared me for the way the flavour and smell of the virgin oil had soaked into the crisp golden brown crust of the home-made bread pieces.

Its good that the place still has surprises in store. Be it a flavour hidden in a lagar or today's evening sky with its shades of magenta and purple.For, I feel the cheer rain out of me with each passing day in Macao. Why so, I wonder! Macao it seems has closed upon itself. Despite their long stay, everyone who has come here is a perpetual outsider. This is inspite of the language, inspite of the colour. Its not as if the people are leading an unhappy life. They have their festivals an their joys.White and blue lights and christmas trees have started to line the streetsides. Its only that they don't need us here to disturb the tranquility-the old and Catholic tranquility.

Archaeological matters

In the year 1984, an Italian rock art research team encountered a rock with prehistoric engravings at Valcamonica. Valcamonica or the Valley of Camuna lies between the provinces of Bregamo and Brescia in Northern Italy. Valcamonica is a major site of prehistoric rock art that spreads over the entire valley.

From the foothills of Capo di Ponte, a twenty minutes drive takes you to the Alpine village of Paspardo, an area with a major concentration of rock art. I spent two weeks here with the Valcamonica Rock art and Archaeology Fieldschool. Paspardo is a delightful little village fringed by tall chestnut woods. The high peaks of Alps mark her horizon in graduating shades of gray. But let us leave Paspardo behind for the moment.

Detour Italia

It is 6:50.
It has been so since the first time I stood on this platform, almost an year ago. Alvega- Ortiga is a broken station; just as its clock is. You cannot even buy tickets here. You can just wait. At the horizon you see the skeleton of what was a factory. Perhaps, it is there just to offer some explanation to the station, the station that is broken.

I remember my first day here. Slightly shivering in the early morning chill, I looked through the mist and wondered when the clock had stopped. Was it at dawn or at dusk? But I ask the question no more. A year in Mação has taken it away. The clock is symptomatic of Mação. A cloister town. And on several occasions I fear that I am trapped not in space alone, but in time too. That sends a shiver through my spine.

On Alcohol, Football, Salazar and the Cross Part II

At first it appeared that the supporters of Braga were taking their team's defeat in good taste. They seemed to be celebrating the runners up position. At traffic lights, cars honked in unison. Bannered and painted faces popped out of their windows waving at passers-by. By and by the disappointment started to bubble out here and there. Small troops of policemen patrolled the streets in vigilance, occasionally a traffic post was set ablaze, there were sudden movements of the people and the police to a street corner. And then, there was the disturbing sight of a dead eagle, floating in the town’s pool- the official mascot of Benefica.

On Football, Alcohol, Salazar and the Cross: Part I

1.
It was one of those nights when each star stands out clear against the cloudless sky. Against its deep midnight blue, the castle of Belver was aglow with lights. The breeze was just enough to give your hair a careless tousle. And the tingle of one of the best cocktails I ever had lingered in my mouth.

It was a shot of casshassa (my best comparison would be with tequila) mixed with strong chilly. The tavern man was in a friar’s attire and called it ‘water on fire’. We had our tiny ceramic shot glasses corded around our necks. As Andre and I put the concoction in our mouths, the priest placed his hands over our heads in blessing and rendered a solemn sermon. And finally, when I gulped, my soul was on fire.

Tras os Montes I

São Salvador do Mundo

With my left hand, I tied a knot on the pine- like leaves of the little plant and the future became a certainty. In one year’s time from that evening I am to be married. My genial classmate has already made the offer in exchange of an elephant as a wedding gift. São Salvador do Mundo is not about the little plant and a wedding in offer. It is about a belief that dates back to more than ten centuries.

With AD 1000 fast approaching, the dooms day was in prediction. In the mass hysteria that spread around Europe, São Salvador do Mundo (literally saviour saint of the world) was northern Portugal’s little locale of salvation. The short steep climb carries one through a circuit of beliefs and folklore. The little plant has already shrivelled up with the weight of a hundred weddings on her head. Two simple white chapels perch on top of gray rocky outcrops. Then there is the stone where the devil caught his foot and fell down on his knees; got up and fell down again this time his horns hitting hard on the rock’s surface; cup marks marking each stage of his fall on the Fraga do Diabo (Rock of the Devil?). A strong, chilly wind caught our faces as we climbed up to the highest point on the cliff, to the second chapel of hope.


Hope, I think, must look, somewhat like Douro that flows beneath, nestled amongst the steep cliffs of Tras- os- Montes. River Douro (of gold), that captures the golden rays of the sun and shines out brilliant from rugged depths of the mountain...

The Wine Country

São Salvador do Mundo was our last and the lightest part of four days, titled Geomorphology and Geodiversity, through the North of Portugal. The landscape is predominated by schist in the lower reaches and more resistant granite and quartzite in the upper reaches. Schist is a soft gray stone that breaks with ease in neat layers. The slate we write on for instance is metamorphosed schist. The region is also the heart of the wine country in Portugal- home to the famous Vinho- do – Porto. If wine does not flow in the rivers, it definitely flows through the stone tanks and pipes of the wine factory of Freixo de Espada. For once, outside the dream also, as I turn a tap it is wine that flows out rather than water. The schist absorbs sunlight in summer and radiates it out in winter- conditions ideal for wine cultivation. The grape wine creeps up over narrow elongated schist blocks rather than on wooden support. It is a geology set out for wine.

I am writing this with a glass of wine on my tabletop- wine from a dusty green bottle that stayed for years on the cupboard of a house in Vilarinha de Tanho. During the last few days of our stay in this little village, many such bottles have found their way to the house where we stay. Vilarinha de Tanho is close to Vila Real where we have courses for a month. The place is in stark contrast with Mação. Mação is an impersonal city, flaunting its affluence, in the pretence of a village. Vilarinha de Tanho smiles and greets you with a spontaneity that is informal. Spontaneity of the several bottles of free wine and home-baked bread on our table, of the middle aged women who show us around the many little chapels (dedicated to our Lady of Affliction and Health and what not) and the repeated handshakes of the ever smiling man, always there on the same street, for whom the world is a reality different from that of the others.


But much was there before that....

Nazaré

The story is of a foggy morning, eight hundred years back in time. Knight Dom Fuas Rouphino, was pursuing a stag. All of a sudden, his game disappeared at the edge of a cliff. Rouphino who was close behind, heard in alarm the waves lapping below. Only a miracle could save. And it was a miracle that did happen.

At the very edge of the cliff his horse came to a sudden halt. Convinced that the Virgin of Nazaré had come to his aid Rouphino raised a chapel on the site. But, I do not think that any divine intervention was necessary. The spontaneous beauty, of the sight that spread below would root anyone to the spot.

O Album Nazaré

The Tale of an Axe

This was told by Chris Buco in her lecture on Rock Art in Latin America...

Prehistoric stone axes acted just like modern axes. They chopped. What remains of the axe now is the stone head, carefully flaked out of the core and polished by skilled hands. When they find their way to us, archaeologists, we draw them, measure them, try to identify how, in their making, each strike fell.

The Krahô as a group of people presently lives in the North- East of Brazil, in and around the state of Tocantins. The numbers and occupation patterns, mediated over time by violent conflicts and colonization. Time and again in the region, one comes across pre-historic stone axes. For the Krahô, these lunar (stone axes) have immense symbolic significance, significance different from their original ‘chop chop’ function. They are painted and held in ceremonial gatherings and preciously guarded over generations.

Carnaval en Badajos Part-2

Carnival in Badajos

Nations are only a train ride apart, that too, a four hour one! Badajos is on the Lisbon – Madrid railway close to the Portuguese border. From Mação we make a rough diagonal to the South East, cutting across first the river Tagus and then the Guadiana. The Guadiana presently divides Badajos into two.

Carnival in Badajos was Lolo and Boris’s suggestion. Lolo is a student of journalism in the University of Extremadura in Badajos. As for me, I could be anywhere but in Mação. I had absolutely no idea of what it was to be in a carnival. Thankfully Dani alerted me to the simple rules like “if you don’t wear a costume to the carnival, you are asking for trouble”.

Heritage...

My friend Ivo says that the Portuguese today have nothing to keep them together. No political movement or cultural expression that helps them identify themselves as a people. Hence, they desperately cling on to every scrap from their past.

Ivo was trying to problematize the naturalized assumptions on conservation of archaeological sites. He questioned the undue stress on preservation at the expense of means of livelihood. According to him, when it comes to a balance of interests the ‘heritage managers’ of Portugal clearly have their priorities wrong.

A Viagem com o Pedro (Travels with Pedro)

Mação doesnot allow you to get out very easily... Every week i go to the big supermarket that is a 15 minutes walk from home and look at the prizes of bicycles. But, they say bikes come cheap only in summer.

Pedro Cura teaches Lithic technology and is the brother of my professor Sara Cura. The young koora s are these always busy, always pleasant people. Pedro had promised to take me to visit a site that i was working on for my assignment as soon as he could get hold of a jeep and also some time. And this Monday he said we could finally go.

Mação has gone under my skin

For some time now I have been planning to write. But I am in a kind of stupor. I have been in Mação for over two months now. The schedule has become tight. The subjects taught range from geomorphology to palaeo-ecology. Portuguese remains almost as incomprehensible as it always was… There is never enough time for anything. Even so, deep down I feel lethargy setting in…

Mação is constant. You can come back here after two years and find everything as you left it. (It's like going to Ganga Dhaaba and finding Rona Wilson there!) A fifteen minutes walk in any direction takes you out of the town. The number of abandoned houses increase as one moves out of the town-center. In the middle of the abandonment sometimes newly painted red roofs appear like surprises. Its like a game where some one sets out little playhouses here and there for no specific reason.

O ÁLBUM PORTUGUÊS

The Ghost of Mação

It was an early autumn morning in 2004. An old lady was walking through the cobble-stoned street, near her home in Mação. As was usual for the place and time, the road was silent and deserted. It was then that she came face to face with the ghost.

The ghost was very dark and wore a white tunic and was walking towards her. Then it spoke. She ran inside her house slamming the door behind. The petrified lady later told the mayor of the town that the ghost tried to follow her inside and in fact knocked at her door.

Mação...

Ten o’clock in the morning. The sun shines a bright yellow, The air is a strange mixture of warmth and chill. The cobblestone streets cut neatly through the white and yellow houses. The church bell rings out the time. Then there is only the sound of my footsteps…

This is Mação, a little town in the heart of Portugal; nested among the hillocks and in the valley of Tejo. From the nearest hill, Macao is a cluster of bright red rooftops, set in the green and yellow landscape. Autumn is slowly giving way to winter. When you are alone in the street you think you are walking inside a painting.