Sandeep a foodie if ever one, escorted me home one evening last week from the park and spent some time at home with me, Ranjan and Manjiree talking about, no need to hold your breath, restaurants.
Manjiree mentioned the name of a restaurant that Sandeep must go to before going back to the UK. I could see the latter drooling about the possibility of having some good Greek food. Yes, the name was Zorba The Zen- Gastro Pub. I had never heard of the place, but apparently my foodie son and daughter in love had been there a number of times,
All that I could think of on hearing the name was this.
I went through an emotional roller coaster yesterday during and after seeing this old classic with Anthony Quinn in the lead role. I was reading an anthology of articles on India when I got quite engrossed in one particular essay on Santhara. The writer mentioned two films with scenes of attempted suicides and though it was not an attempt at suicide, he mentioned the scene in The Secret Of Santa Vittoria where a totally drunk Quinn climbs up a water tank and is unable to come down.
I had seen the film early in 1970 under very romantic conditions with my then new bride to celebrate our moving into our own proper home for the first time after our marriage. The scene that the writer mentioned, did not ring a bell though the scene in the Indian film did.
I just casually investigated to see if I could locate the scene in youtube and lo and behold I found that I could see the whole film on it! I cancelled every other plan I had for the evening and saw the whole film again after almost half a century! And I fell for Anthony Quinn all over again. Every time I see him he had that impact on me. The other one that I now intend seeing again soon is Zorba The Greek.
Quinn’s name in the film is Bombolini and that triggered off memories of a restaurant called Bombelli’s in what was then Bombay where too I had been on a number of occasions on romantic trysts and I tried to find something about that and discovered a number of articles about the now dead and gone restaurant from writers who were as nostalgic as I am.
What would I do without such technology that takes me back to almost fifty years?
This post has been inspired by Cheerful Monk who left a delightful comment on my post “I am not even good enough”.. I quote – “Time is on your side. The older you get the greater the ratio of females to males. I keep telling my husband that I plan to die first, that he will have no problem getting snatched up because he knows how to dance. :D”
