Bringing India to the University: Philippine-Indian Bilateral Relations

- April 1, 2016, Friday.

- The Embassy of India in Manila, in cooperation with the Ateneo de Manila University (Department of History,) hosted a special talk on Philippine-Indian bilateral relations on April 1, 2016, 5-6:30pm, at the university's Escaler Hall. It was the first ever major Indian event that the university had in the recent years (at least, as far back as I can remember.) The best part about this event was that it was completely sponsored by the Indian Embassy. This was also my first major event in school; I served as the main point person for this event. Dr. Suresh Kumar, the first secretary of the Political; Press, Information, and Culture Section of the Indian Embassy contacted me and proposed this event to me, and I was given a go signal by the university. Of course, I could not have done it without the help, support, and guidance of the professors and staff of Ateneo's Department of History.

- On the day of the event, Dr. Coo and I welcomed Dr. Suresh and led him to the hall. Dr. Suresh came with Ms. Angelique from the embassy, and other embassy staff. They also brought Indian snacks and tourism pamphlets, so the students can have first hand experience of some aspects of Indian culture, as well as more information on the tourist spots (both historical and natural) of India. Apart from Dr. Suresh, I also met Mrs. Shanti Sreedhar of Natya Mandala; Mrs. Sreedhar is a multi-awarded dancer who now resides in the Philippines, and opened the first ever Bharatanatyam dance school in the country. Mrs. Sreedhar is also affiliated with the University of the Philippines - Diliman's School of Music, as she teaches Bharatanatyam to ethnomusicology majors. Bharatanatyam is a South-Indian dance (from Tamil Nadu to be specific) and is one of the popular classical dances of India. For the event, Mrs. Sreedhar assigned her daughter-and-student Sparsha to dance for the crowd.

- Students later filled the lecture hall, some of them my students, and the others by other history professors. History professors and some interested professors from the other departments also attended the talk.

Registration.

Indian snacks and traditional sweets waiting to be eaten.

- Dr. Suresh commenced his talk by telling the students on the different ways that India and the Philippines are fostering good relations, such as encouraging people-to-people connectivity, importing Indian companies, sending Filipinos to study in India and vice versa, and other schemes. Connecting with the Philippines is part of India's "Look-East Policy," which made India engage with the east (i.e. the rest of Asia) apart from the west (i.e. UK, the rest of Europe, and America.) After all, India has established relations with the different Asian countries even during ancient world history.

Full house!! Yes, that's me emcee-ing.

Dr. Coo introducing Dr. Kumar.

Dr. Kumar doing the first part of his talk on Philippine-Indian Bilateral Relations.

- Sparsha performed her short Bharatanatyam piece for the intermission. Her specific piece is called "Vandana," which is an invocation piece, which makes it some sort of prayer in the form of dance. Bharatanatyam, generally, is also a classical dance based on the element of fire, since the dance requires some jumps and sharp movements, making the dance look like a dancing flame. The whole audience loved Sparsha, not only because of her rainbow-colored costume, but also her impeccable dance technique. I was very happy in choosing Natya Mandala to perform for the event; I know I did not make a mistake in asking them to perform after seeing the quality of their performances twice in the past (click here for Swami Vivekananda's Birthday in 2013, and here for Utsav: UP's Festival of India 2015.)

It was hard to take a photo of her; well actually Ms. Shayne Garcia, lecturer of the History  Dept., took the photos using my camera as I was busy emcee-ing for the evening.

That's the Indian flag at the side.

I've actually seen Sparsha dance before, during the 150th Birthday Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda.

- After the dance, Dr. Kumar proceeded to the second part of his talk, which is about Indian influences in Philippine culture and society. For instance, many people do not know that many names of Philippine places came from Sanskrit roots (ex. Visayas - from [Sri]vijaya), or that 25% of the Filipino langauge came from Sanskrit (ex. diwa - from jivan [meaning "life"], bahagi - from bhagi [meaning "part/segment"] etc.) He also talked about different aspects of Indian culture and society such as the different languages of India, the festivals of India (particularly Diwali or the Festival of Lights, and Holi or the Spring Festival.)

A better shot of me.

Second part of the talk.

- Before ending the talk, Dr. Kumar had a Q&A game, with twenty questions. Each student who could give the right answer would get a t-shirt from the Indian Embassy. Dr. Suresh was impressed with the students since all the questions were answered correctly; some students were also quite competitive. Of course, all the teachers (including me) were proud since we knew that out students really listened to the talk. Some of my students got prizes as well.

Presenting, my 3 students who were able to get prizes (and 17 others from the other professors.) Please ignore my face in the middle photo, I don't know what I was doing/saying.

- To end the event, tokens of appreciation to Dr. Suresh and Natya Mandala were presented by the chair of the Department of History, Dr. Lianne Habana. Dr. Suresh had surprises up his sleeve as he presented some tokens of appreciation to us as well. He gave us a coffee table book on Indian wildlife, with the nature photos taken by some of India's good-eyed nature photographers.

Dr. Habana giving the token of appreciation to Dr. Suresh.

Dr. Suresh giving me his token of appreciation to me. (Thank you Dr. Suresh!!)

Dr. Habana giving Sparsha her token.

Dr. Habana giving Mrs. Sreedhar her token of appreciation.

Dr. Suresh, Sparsha, Mrs. Sreedhar, with Dr. Coo, Dr. Habama, and Ms. Garcia

- Finally, just before everyone left, it was time for them to have a taste of Indian snacks. I was only able to eat a bit since I was busy accommodating Dr. Suresh, Mrs. Sreedhar and Sparsha, the other professors, and the students. Also, since I was able to eat those delicious snacks before, I wanted to give more chances to the attendees who just had their first try of Indian snacks that day. I was elated to hear that they liked and appreciated the Indian snacks that they had. By the way, they had samosas, jalebi, among others. I also knew that the Indian Embassy's caterer made good food since I was able to enjoy them during the flag-hoisting ceremony last year in the Indian Ambassdor's House (click here to see my visit to/awarding in the Indian Ambassador's house;) I also met Dr. Suresh for the first time during that event.

Students lining up to get food. I was lucky to have some for myself too, but it's OK, I wanted them to have more since some of them haven't even tasted Indian food before.

Photo by Dr. Coo.

- After everyone left, I left school with a heavy bag and a happy heart. I knew it was a big shot to serve as a point person for a diplomatic event like this, and I definitely learned a lot not only from Dr. Suresh, but also through the guidance of the Department of History (especially Dr. Stephanie Coo, Dr. Lianna Habana, and Ms. Shayne Garcia) in organizing this event. I hope that more Indian events will take place in our university, especially since India is an emerging nation as it is excelling and greatly contributing to different important fields. Dr. Suresh and Mrs. Sreedhar were, likewise, happy that they were finally able to show their country's culture to the Ateneo community.

With Dr. Suresh, just before we left school.