A Greek feast - on a normal Thursday

While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it do we suddenly realize - sometimes with astonishment - how happy we had been.

Yes, today Zorba the Greek came to Mumbai! Perfect time for a Greek Feast  - in the company of the wonderful ladies in my book club. We chatted, discussed the book, watched a bit of the film, enjoyed Greek yummies like souvlaki, moussaka, tirosalata, melitsanosalata, Greek salad and olives, and of course with Greek music on the speakers! Opa! Opa! (no, no, no plates were broken:-) Great feast! 

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis was first published in 1946, and made in to a movie in 1964 - huuuge success around the world! People loved the story about the narrator, an intellectual, who hire the crazy Alexi Zorba - and together they travel to Crete to start a lignite mine. It is a book that I feel, still can provide some good insight and wisdom - about life, about being in the moment and living in the present, about appreciation, gratitude and about happiness. 

I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.

  

Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates - in the famous scene from Zorba the Greek

This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.

Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean sea.

See what I mean? Happiness doesn't need to cost anything and it can be found in the simplest of things: the sight of dolphins, a warm hug, a kind word, some cooling sea breeze- or simply sharing a meal with some good friends:-) And it is about seeing the beauty of it while it happens, not allowing the past to stress you (it is gone..) nor allowing yourself to worry about the future. To be in the present - 100%!    

So, one of my favorite scenes from the film is the famous one, on the beach. The mine has gone down the drain, the narrator is broke- things are looking bad and then ... 

- Dance, did you say dance?!

Nikos Kazantzakis is one of Greece most known authors. He was born on Crete in 1883. He studied law in Athens and worked also as a journalist. He traveled all over Europe, Russia and Asia and wrote numerous works, whereas Zorba being the most famous one. Kazantzakis died in 1957, and is buried in Heraklion, Crete where the epitaph on his tomb reads:

= I fear nothing. I hope for nothing. I am free. 

I hope you enjoyed it, dear reader. Thank you for following and have a wonderful evening! 

Bye from Mumbai!