Thursday, March 19, 2009
Padua, Italy
The sun rose over another beautiful day in Northern Italy as I prepared myself for the lecture I had to give that afternoon at the University of Padua. Annalisa introduced me to Grancereale biscuits studded with dried fruit that she dipped into her coffee and ate for breakfast. I have always loved Annalisa's coffee and I sat on the armchair designed by Le Corbusier but made by her late father as I sipped it and enjoyed the sunlight that streamed almost blindingly into her living room. Corbusier, of course, is the famous French architect/designer (and creator of the city of Chandigarh in India which, I remember my mother was so keen to see that she took us all on a family summer trip one year to this modern Punjabi city.
At 9.00am, we were ready to leave the house for Padua (Padova in Italian) and with Annalisa behind the wheel, we took the country roads that led us to the ancient city. It was exactly a year since Amy and I had spent a day in Padua on our Italian travels. I had included Padua on the itinerary at that time mainly for two reasons: to see Giotto's marvelous frescoes in the Capella Arena or the Capella degli Scrovegni as it is also known and to visit the pilgrimage site of the Basilica of St. Antony of Padua. We had 'done' both sites last year but had not found the entrance to Pallazo Bo which is the main and oldest building of the University of Padua, the second oldest university in Italy after Bologna. So, this year I was keen to see it.
A Guided Tour of the University of Padua:
Annalisa had arranged for me to take a guided tour of the University with her graduate assistant, a lovely young lady named Francesca whose wonderfully fluent English made her an efficient interpreter during the tour. My own Italian was growing by the day and I was able to add to the few vocabulary items I had picked up last year. However, there was no way I could have understood anything the guide said, were it not for Francesca.
As Annalisa's department of Modern Languages was a ten minute walk from Pallazo Bo which is in the heart of the center of Padua, we walked briskly there to make the 10. 15 tour. It happened to be graduation day in Padua and the university area was crowded to capacity with parents and well-wishers who had participated in the formal events. By the time we arrived there, the informal part of the day's celebration had begun. I have never seen anything like it anywhere in the world. Young grads were covered in eggs and flour, their hands and legs taped with bands of thick cello tape and each one was made to stand in the midst of the mess and read out the poems that their friends had composed for the occasion (most poking fun of them). It was a wonderful lesson in Padovan Cultural Studies and I enjoyed the crazy spectacle. Many of them were posing for pictures with their family members with large laurel wreaths hung around their necks while others were placed up on a stand and were being feted. I stood to watch this for a while after the tour, of course.
The tour itself took us into the oldest part of the university which was founded in the 1200s. It's most illustrious professor is Galileo Galilei who taught here for 18 years and did most of his own research here (leading, of course, to his discovery of the telescope which led, in turn, to his discovery of the motion of the earth around the sun, which led, in turn, to his feud with the Vatican and his imprisonment and later recantation). I recalled both Bertolt Brecht's play entitled Galileo as well as the fabulous film of the same name that was made by Joseph Losey and which I had watched at least thirty years ago in Bombay (Sir John Gielgud had unforgettably played the Pope in that film). The guide took us to some of the most beautiful rooms within the Pallazo whose walls are covered with family crests made of plaster of Paris (hence very heavy) that celebrate the presence of very prominent alumni in the University).
In particular, the tour of Pallazo Bo took us to the Anatomy Theater which was used in the Middle Ages for the dissection of cadavers to allow medical students to increase their understanding of the body's systems. This tiny room which is built like a Roman arena in concentric circles allowed students to stand in tiers and look down into the crevice at the base where the body would be placed for dissection. It is a most unusual room and certainly I had never seen anything like it. Famed for its medical and law faculties, the University of Padua made pioneer attempts to further the cause of medicine and I felt privileged to see this medieval space which is no longer in use.
Next, we went to the Aula Magna, where the university officials met regularly to discuss matters of policy and, for a while, to award degrees. Today, the university's students number in the thousand which makes it necessary for them to find new spaces for the commencement ceremony. However, this was a room in which Galileo sat and discussed matters of policy and the walls and ceilings are covered with frescoes that feature the celebrated astronomer as well as Petrarch, the Italian poet who was also a professor in Padua.
The highlight of the tour was the visit to the lecture hall in which Galileo used to address his students together with the podium on which he stood while delivering his words of wisdom. It had a great deal of age to it--that was easy to see--and a carved marble bust of the renowned teacher in placed on it out of respect for his prodigious contribution to Modern Science . It was 11 am by that time and Llew had taken to calling me at that hour. His call came as I was perusing the podium and I did speak with him for a few minutes before calling off.
Meeting Anja at Cafe Pedrocchi:
Once the tour ended, Francesca and I made our way to Cafe Pedrocchi, a famous Paduan institution, where I had made plans to meet my German friend Anja who is currently on a Fellowship at a university in Venice and would be arriving on the train from there to spend the day with me. I had last met Anja a few weeks ago in Berlin which is her native city. She was the friend who had arranged accommodation for me with her friend Anneke in her wonderfully bohemian flat in the West end of Berlin. Anja's train was late and she text-messaged me to convey this, but she did arrive by 11. 45 am. We had a lovely affectionate reunion and then decided to walk to the Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua as I wanted to get there to make a special petition for my complete cure from plantar fascittis.
A Visit to the Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua:
Francesca and Anja were more than happy to accompany me to the spot and we arrived there about 15 minutes later while strolling along the medieval cobbled streets of Padua's historic quarter in which no traffic is allowed. It was nice to see the grand basilica again with its many domes that give it almost an Eastern mosque-like air. We did not have too much time to linger but I did visit the Chapel of the Relics which contains many parts of the saint's body including his tongue and I did see again the remnants of his brown cassock which is in rather a tattered state at the base of the altar that is decorated in Renaissance style with a profusion of carved marble angels and a multitude of paintings. It makes for a very ornate space indeed and a fitting setting for the gold containers that house the relics of the saint. I also had a chance to pray at the Tomb of St. Antony while Anja studied the frescoes in St. James Chapel which were very recently restored. Anja is an art historian who is working on her Ph.D. on a Renaissance Venetian artist--hence her interest in the chapel's frescoes (which I had seen last year).
Out on the main square, we posed for pictures by the striking sculpture of Guatamelatta, an equestrian statue by Donatello which looks down upon the bus loads of visitors who make the pilgrimage to the shrine. By this time, it was past 12. 30 and we needed to stop somewhere for lunch before returning to the university's Department of Modern Languages for my 2 pm lecture. We did find a very nice restaurant in a square near the Pallazo dei Raggioni and over a lovely pasta with zuchhini and prawns in a light and delicious tomato sauce, we sat on the pavement in the warming sunshine as I caught up with Anja and all her news. It was marvelous of her to come from Venice for my lecture and when she informed me that her partner Andrea would be joining us for dinner later that evening, I was even more pleased.
My Lecture at the University of Padua:
Then, we walked briskly back to the building where Annalisa was awaiting our return past the lovely old stone bridges and the cobbled streets with their oodles of medieval atmosphere. Padua is indeed a beautiful city and I was pleased to have the chance to visit it again. However, it was time for me to turn my attention to the official part of my visit and with the computer set up to screen the film 1947 Earth, I began my lecture on Bapsi Sidhwa's Cracking India and its migration from page to screen through the hands of film maker Deepa Mehta. The classroom was crowded with Italian graduate students (over a hundred of them) who are taking Annalisa's course on 'Post Colonial Literature, Film and Culture'. They are fortunate indeed that Annalisa's contacts with eminent faculty members of Post-Colonial Literature around their world allow them to have many guest lecturers who bring their own brand of teaching and scholarship to these students' curriculum. For most of them, English is a foreign language and I was instructed to speak slowly.
The lecture took about an hour and went well with the students listening attentively. It was followed by the screening of the film and we decided that after the movie, we would break out into a discussion. All went well with the session and after the screening, Annalisa suggested a five minute break. The Q&A session that followed was interesting as Annalisa joined me at the podium and brought her own insights into the points I had raised about the impact on the Partition of the Indian sub-continent on the weakest and poorest sections of the population, most of all its women. By using fiction--albeit based greatly on her own life and memories of the violence that arose in Lahore--Sidhwa was able to articulate the idiocy of the political decisions that caused so much upheaval in the lives of ordinary people and destroyed forever the communal harmony that had existed on the sub-continent before the British policies of Divide and Rule brought distrust and hatred to the masses.
Spritz and Italian Dinner at Day's End:
Right after the session finished at 6 pm, Annalisa, Anja and I headed off for a drink--or a spritz as they call it in Northern Italy. At a small cafe, we sat down with very refreshing and energizing Camparis and Aperols that were mixed with club soda and served with small hors d'oeuvres which we nibbled. It was a very relaxed start to our evening and at 7. 30 pm, we made our way to the restaurant where Annalisa had made a reservation for us. It had started to rain by this time and under Annalisa's huge umbrella we found our way to the spot where Andrea was waiting for us.
I had a really wonderful Italian meal in their stimulating company. We started with a small glass of white wine but ordered a carafe of house red wine with our meal. Annalisa suggested I go for a crespelle which was a large crepe filled with a pumpkin mousse that was scrumptious and served on a small bed of cheese sauce. Andrea opted for spinach filled ravioli while Annalisa chose a rather unusual dish of local grilled cheese with bacon and a creamy polenta.
Conversation flowed easily as Anja told us about being stopped at Padua station and being interviewed by a television crew on her views about the current Pope. It turned out that all of them (who have been following the news about the Pope's visits to African nations) are riled about his conservative comments everywhere and his interference in Italian politics and affairs of state. Since I had no idea what they were talking about (as I have been traveling so much that I am out of touch with global news), I merely listened but as I have not warmed to this Pope, I could understand where their outrage was coming from for this Pontiff seems to have Foot in Mouth Disease and makes outrageous comments wherever he goes.
Then it was time for dessert and Anja and I stared a bowl of tiramisu while Andrea chose a panna cotta. Dinner was an extremely enlightening meal for me as I understood how my Italian intellectual friends perceive this Pope (very badly, I might add) and how averse they are to his stance on crucial issues.
By 9pm, it was time to say goodbye to Andrea and Anja who were taking the train back to Venice and to thank them to making the journey to Padua to meet me. I settled the bill (having decided to treat all my friends to dinner at the end of a very successful day) and we left the restaurant in a light drizzle and made our way back to Annalisa's car. We arrived at her flat within a half hour and since both of us were rather tired by that point, we were straight to bed.
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