Komboloi

Tonight's musical fare has been essentially - no, entirely Gypsy - and centred around the music of the Camargue, and featuring, in particular, one of my all-time heroes: Manitas de Plata. Good stuff, indeed. However, I'd already decided to pen a short note on Komboloi; the ubiquitous 'worry beads' of Greece, favoured by most Greek men, and considered a national pastime: although habit would probably be a better characterisation. Deriving from religious 33-bead prayer beads - allegedly the lifespan in years of Christ - they were secularised to the now standard 23 bead string that has been in common use for generations.

I've owned many [sets of?] Komboloi over the last nearly fifty years, and always carry a string in my pocket, and routinely pass the beads one-by-one through my fingers to pass some thinking time, or wrap them around my left hand as I type, as I have now. Don't ask me why, but I've always liked this little ritual, ever since I first discovered it in 1979, on our first jaunt abroad, and we found ourselves in Athens with no plan or lodgings at eleven in the evening, having winged the entire trip on the urging of my kid sister and her [now late] husband, as they had done five or so years before. 'Just get on a plane, get a taxi and head for Omonia Square...'  cf. my post September 8th, 2020. Stressful and exciting in equal measure, to be sure.

We eventually got dropped off in said square by the taxi - which had dropped off many Greeks at various destinations around the city first: the driver kept stopping to pick people up, like a bus service - with frankly far too much luggage and no clue whatsoever what to do next. So we did what all young people instinctively do and headed for the nearest bar and ordered a drink. I immediately bought cigarettes and ended a two year fast from tobacco on the spot. After a couple of drinks, and quite a few cigarettes, things started to look a little less intimidating and we relaxed to the point where we could hatch a plan for the night's rest.

The point of this, though, is that having noticed that all the blokes in the place - and it was overwhelmingly a male environment - were worrying away and clacking strings of beads similar to rosaries or some-such, we clocked that while all of the older guys were clutching what would still be recognised as the classic Komboloi - as we later learned they were called - the youth were all strutting around with strings of beads, about an inch each in girth, the resultant loop being a foot or so in diameter; and wielded in such manner as to yield a clack of heavy metal loudness when deployed. The damned things would have made passable assault weapons, for God's sake. Kids, eh? Having not yet returned to Athens since that trip, I often wonder if Mega-Komboloi are still a thing: I somehow doubt it, though. Bead-worrying is now probably just an old man's game. I gladly count myself part of that demographic number, however. Talk to you later...