A celebration of rural life in Portugal

Situated midway between Santarem and Obidos, Rio Maior is an agricultural centre of remote origin, writes Annie Datta.

After a meal in a rustic makeshift wooden hut in Rio Maior, used in the past as storehouse for salt to prevent it from corrosion, I snatched a moment to enjoy the fresh mountain air of this landscape of pine and eucalyptus forests. Situated midway between Santarém and Óbidos, Rio Maior is an agricultural centre of remote origin. Numerous prehistoric artefacts have reportedly been found in the surrounding areas. An area rich in natural mineral salt deposits, Salinas, as this place is called, has a regional tourist shop that offers artesanato

In Portugal rural life is much celebrated both in real life and art form. Ceramic olive dishes are a favourite pick of the tourists coming to medieval towns like Óbidos. Rural toys by their very simplicity attract the wonder of a child not affected by the big-money world of robotized toys. A framed tile takes you to a scene of olive-picking in Alentejo, south of Portugal, with bulls in fields in the backdrop. Restaurants here decorate their interiors with tiles conveying activities related to bread making, fruit picking and harvesting.

A painting on silk depicting a scene from a Mughal court or a hunting scene from India is much valued here among teachers and students who because of their own cultural richness have the sensibility to appreciate such art. My teacher was thrilled when I offered her a bottle of sandalwood oil and a box of papier-mâché. It comes as a surprise seeing nearly everyone wearing an Indian kurta in summer in the campus.

Ethnic wear including jewellery has been incorporated so well here that one feels regret at having rejected chunks of one's own tradition in a hurry to copy the West that now looks to the East for richness and variety. Many Portuguese shops have Indian décor and familiar names. On a recent visit to a jewellery exhibition in Batalha near Rio Maior, one could not help noticing the bulk of semi-precious stones and jewellery on display.

It was indicative of a trend that is here to stay. Cheap glassy beads are worth their weight in gold here. As a friend once put it to us "It takes a million to copy the 'poor' in the West." Capitalism, it seems, has the great advantage of even incorporating and profiting from what rises as a protest to this great leveller of cultures.