Skip to main content

Chiquitita

ABBA


Chiquitita, tell me what's wrong /You're enchained by your own sorrow.”  Thus begins one of the songs that kept me bewitched for quite a while during my youth when I was passing through a tough time.  ABBA had sung it long before it crept into my veins like a soothing intoxication that ached my soul dully.  I was enchained by my own sorrow.

Like Chiquitita, I was always sure of myself until the confidence was shattered by a deep disillusionment that broke me irreparably.  “You’ll be dancing once again,” ABBA sang to Chiquitita.  “Let me hear you sing once more like you did before / Sing a new song, Chiquitita.”

I learnt to sing my new song.  That was my redemption.

We have to learn to sing a new song after each heartbreak.  The world loves to break hearts.  That is the way of the world.  That is how it is.  The storm is far too mighty for the feeble wings of the gentle birds.  The tide in the ocean can wreck the steeliest of ships.  The raucousness out there always resounds drowning the new song that you sing.  Yet you have to sing your song.  Only the song is yours. 

The sorrow is yours too.  As natural as the storm in the sky and the tide in the ocean.  But the moon that shines in the darkness is natural too.  So is the warble of the nightingale. 

Come to terms with your sorrow, Chiquitita.  Isn’t it partly your own creation?  You can’t help the raucousness out there.  But you can help yourself.  You can sing your own song.

PS. Third post in Blogchatter A2Z Challenge



Top post on IndiBlogger, the biggest community of Indian Bloggers

Comments

  1. Teacher like u is a great blessing for me.
    Thanks for teaching me new
    lessons of life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your own song- what a wonderful thought! And songs by ABBA are amazing. If you like ABBA , do watch the movie " Mamma Mia ". A musical with ABBA songs!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I watched that movie long ago. Don't remember the story now, but the songs still echo in memory.

      Delete
  3. Wow! I love how you summed up the conclusion..the last two paragraphs ..short and impactful :)

    The sorrow is yours too. As natural as the storm in the sky and the tide in the ocean. But the moon that shines in the darkness is natural too. So is the warble of the nightingale.

    Come to terms with your sorrow, Chiquitita. Isn’t it partly your own creation? You can’t help the raucousness out there. But you can help yourself. You can sing your own song..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Some things are so much part of your heart that feelings come naturally while writing about them. Thank you for your touching words.

      Delete
  4. Wonderful! What lovely sentiments expressed in this post.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Joys of Onam and a reflection

Suppose that the whole universe were to be saved and made perfect and happy forever on just one condition: one single soul must suffer, alone, eternally. Would this be acceptable? Philosopher William James asked that in his 1891 book, The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life . Please think about it once again and answer the question for yourself. You, as well as others, are going to live a life without a tinge of sorrow. Joyful existence. Life in Paradise. The only condition is that one person will take up all the sorrows of the universe on him-/herself and suffer – alone, eternally. What do you say? James’s answer is a firm no . “Not even a god would be justified in setting up such a scheme,” James asserted, knowing too well how the Bible justified a positive answer to his question. “It is expedient that one man should die for the people, so that the nation can be saved” [John 11:50]. Jesus was that one man in the Biblical vision of redemption. I was reading a Malayalam period...

India in Modi-Trap

That’s like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic chant and expecting the stars to spin closer. Illustration by Gemini AI A friend forwarded a WhatsApp message written by K Sahadevan, Malayalam writer and social activist. The central theme is a concern for science education and research in India. The writer bemoans the fact that in India science is in a prison conjured up by Narendra Modi. The message shocked me. I hadn’t been aware of many things mentioned therein. Modi is making use of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Centre for Study and Research in Indology for his nefarious purposes projected as efforts to “preserve and promote classical Indian knowledge systems [IKS]” which include Sanskrit, Ayurveda, Jyotisha (astrology), literature, philosophy, and ancient sciences and technology. The objective is to integrate science with spirituality and cultural values. That’s like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic chant and expecting the stars to spin closer. The IKS curricula have made umpteen r...

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...