A city of Joy and Pain

There is something magical about Coimbra, which has crept into the Fado, the traditional music of Portugal, writes Annie Datta in From the Varsity.

Coimbra hits me strangely each time I the pass the river Mondego leaving behind my hill-top university. There is something both magical and emotional about Coimbra and this has crept into the Fado, the traditional music of Portugal with its two distinct schools. The fado of Coimbra is associated with students and their life style, their romance and their nostalgia for the Mondego. It is part of the academic tradition of the medieval University of Coimbra and now a part of the city culture. It is said that the tradition of singing and playing fado songs in the streets of Coimbra by the University students was common as far back as the XVIth century.

The fado is part of the lifestyle here and can be heard in any corner of the University hill, right from the rooms of the Academic Association to the bars and pubs spread all around. The final moment comes on a Thursday night of May every year when, on the steps of Se Velha, the gothic church-fortress and a significant landmark of this university town, students gather in black University capes to bid their last farewell. The sound of the Portuguese guitar and the cavaquinho fills the backdrop and in accompaniment male voices compose painfully the best of the Coimbra fado for the year. The Balada de Despedida ends the long story as the bohemian academic lifestyle comes to an end for many with this Queima das Fitas week. The traditional ribbon burning ceremony officially marks the end of the session followed by the annual cortejo (parade) by students on a Tuesday afternoon. There is a sense of yearning and sadness as friends that had come under one roof, begin planning for the journey back home.

Many of my batch mates are from the Far East on a yearly scholarship. One tends to fill up the address book with as many diverse names and places as can possibly be conceived. It could be an address in Shimane in Japan or Sichuan in China. In a year’s time faces have been etched in memory as also affections around them. Imagine sharing food on the same table in the campus canteens chatting while standing in long queues. Food is cheap and healthy and much preferred to the eatables served in a café. Many a time one would be nervously counting the money in one’s pocket as Coimbra as a city is costly. Besides food, transport is usually by taxi that tells upon a student’s economic health. Residing outside the campus is exorbitantly costly. Coimbra as a result is getting congested and the tertiary sector becoming increasingly important as a lot of income accrues from renting rooms and apartments to students.

A strange type of relationship gets built in this University town. The hostess at the café of the Faculty of Letters, who knows my addiction for tea with milk, asks me no more for a ‘café’. The old librarian at the history of art department wants to help me with books unlike the first day when she would not allow me to take home any. It seems that I know everybody from many years and as if we are part of a big family. The strings of the fado song, (fado literary means destiny), seem to unite people here in an enlarged melodious mood.

The Joanina Library is one of the most original and spectacular Baroque libraries in Europe and a must-to-visit spot in the University complex. To maintain its sanctity only twenty people are allowed in at a time. Built in the 18th century during the reign of John V, the library is named after him. There are three rooms with perspective paintings on the ceiling and the walls are lined with two-tier shelves in gilded or painted exotic woods and decorated with Chinese motifs picked out in gold brought from Brazil.

Green spaces are essential to the free air of academic learning. Not surprisingly Coimbra is not behind in this botanical asset. Located in the centre of the city, the 13-hectare Botanic Garden offers unique scenery with terraces, stairs and paths though it was originally conceived with a view to aid students of Medicine with ample “theoretical and practical knowledge". A walk through the garden transposes one to inner peace and serenity. So thrilled is one by the place that walking through this garden means living virtually in a fado.

Going down the Al Medina arch, a Moorish remnant, one sees another side of Coimbra. A maze of lanes gives the city an oriental touch. The day ends near the Mondego River. As I go past the arch another haunting Fado is heard from an old book store. I am saved from losing my balance on the cobbled street as I burst into tears.

The fado continues: Don’t tell your sorrows/ To the little pebbles of the stream/ Crying by those who weep/ We cry all the day.