Monday Afternoon in Banawe

The moment you drive up to Banawe, the car parts, car accessories, car repair hub of Manila, the men start swarming towards you. Whether to ask what you're looking for or to size up your vehicle, giving unsolicited advice about what repairs or improvements could be made, wink wink, they were there and they were eager.

These men are the free agents of the street. They know where to find this headlight, or that fender. They know which person to call for any car part imaginable. A Blaupunkt stereo? A man would appear and help us out. The driver's side door of a Honda City type Z, 2002 model? Another man would appear and attend to us.

The car door would prove to be elusive. We went to four or five shops, cramped with car engines, headlights, tail lights, seats, and various other unidentifiable objects. Always, they would pick up the phone and call someone to ask for the availability of the said door. Always the answer was that it was unavailable. It had to be sourced from Pampanga, and their supplier would take two or three days to get back to us. Pretty soon we wondered, if whether each shop we went to, were dialing the same number, calling the same person.

J called it a “Man's World,” and apologized several times for bringing me there. But I found it fascinating. That Monday afternoon, I would normally be ticking off items from my neat to-do list, in my little carrel in the faculty room, in my little air-conditioned corner of the city. But there I was this whole other structure-less universe, where men smoked, stood around, chatting idly, while some squeezed underneath cars getting greasy from various repairs. It was the kind of place where, jostling each other for every oncoming car spelled the difference between earning something or nothing.

And amidst shops with names like Autorama, Joe's Car Shack, and all these men who looked like they , belonged there, in their Honda Cars or Nissan Team shirts, with their smudged hands, and Good Morning towels wrapped around their heads or neck, there was one, incongruous sight. 

A man in a gray sando, was sitting on the side walk, one foot plopped on a chair, immersed in Sudoku. Lost in a world where logic and number placements were more important that radiators, bumpers, alternators and brake pads, nothing could touch him.

"Being in the world, but not of this world " :)