random thoughts, musings and workings of a totally warped mind. tintin is a colorblind writer who paints,dreams of flying a kite along EDSA, teaches middle & high school writing & literature, and is the future mother of Kulay and Una Rosa Maria.

Friday, July 23, 2004

"Sa inyo ang___; akin ang Tundo!"
 
One does not easily forget the uniqueness of tondo, a singularity of features that begins to reveal itself with the early morning mass at the Santo Nino Church where parishioners would later be seen joining the eager buyers of kakanin and salabat sold by peddlers at the church patio, and of course, mornings are not complete without the magtataho who occupies his permanent post at the steps of Plaza Hernandez wearing his unmistakable gora, his shouts of taho! taho! are welcomed by children attending the adjacent Catholic school or by early morning parokyanos who await the opening of shops at nearby Divisoria where I have spent countless shopping sprees with my grandmother who, by the way, used to tell me stories to keep me from going out in the afternoon and head towards Plaza Moriones to watch the ati-atihan groups beat their drums, wave their arms in unison and parade around the plaza--a spectacle which children of my age would never want to miss as we marched along with them, danced in tribal fashion and screamed to our hearts' content--to brandish their pride the way residents of Tondo are wont to do: shame is a stranger to them, to us, as we stride along pot-holed streets where tambays who offer gin to passersby is a usual sight; those who dwell in makeshift houses take pride in a community where a sense of belonging is wealth enough--strongly felt especially when somebody, perhaps a tired resident jeepney driver, passes by one of these houses and smells the irresistible aroma of daing na bangus being fried for dinner, he smiles at the thought that he is coming home where meager living is never an absolute cause for despair; he takes pride in his children who would grow witnessing the multi-faceted life of Tondo, however poor such life can be, the stories of its people, including those mouthed by generation after generation of resident tsismosas, will never be placed merely in the far-end recesses of the mind.
 
***
 
That was a one sentence description of Tondo, a writing assignment from a Sociology of Literature class in college. Our prof, now National Artist for Lit F. Sionil Jose, wanted us to write about our hometowns--a one sentence description of it, on a whole sheet of paper. So what makes a sentence? The period. As in this: .
 
One of Ayen's entries reminded me of my classes with Sir Frankie. We were at first enamored by the thought that a categoricaly popular Filipino writer would be our professor. Of course, all our professors were writers. Sir Frankie was different though: we didn't like his works, much less read them.
 
But of course, the beer guzzling, hobnobbing, and a December tour of the Ilocos province with him and the whole class in a cramped coaster changed a few things. It didn't matter anymore if we thought Viajero was meant to travel on its own and never come back. Knowing the man was somehow enough.

 
 

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home