WritersWorld

Tughlaq in the Library – Part I

Review
“Your Majesty, you’re out”,
“Am I?”
[Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay]

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Witnessing the sun rays dancing leisurely, peeking from this-that window, for days and days, it sat in dust amongst others, quaintly steady despite of its love for an extravaganza. Tughlaq – a play by Girish Karnad – captured in a petite white book, first published in 1972, sold at a humble (that now appears to be too little, too funny) price, steadily awaits the reader on the shelf in the library for that one chance.

But why so steady? Are you dead? Were you immured then?

Like a bright star in the darkness, it spreads its light when the reader opens the book first, without any promise – it may guide you, lead you astray or try nothing or try everything that you have cooked up in your head.

But be assured that it will stay with you, always, once you meet Tughlaq; a play in thirteen scenes, thirteen tricks, thirteen faiths, many murders and one Sultan.

Time’s moving, time has changed, many ruled and died, no more Sultans, no more sultanates, what’s in it for you? Has the power game changed too?

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What struck me absolutely about Tughlaq’s history was that it was contemporary. The fact that here was the most idealistic, the most intelligent king ever to come on the throne of Delhi… and one of the greatest failures also. And within a span of twenty years this tremendously capable man had gone to pieces. This seemed to be both due to his idealism as well as the shortcomings within him, such as his impatience, his cruelty, his feeling that he had the only correct answer. And I felt in the early sixties India had also come very far in the same direction – the twenty-year period seemed to me very much a striking parallel.

Introduction, Girish Karnad

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Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq (1290 – 1351) reigned the Delhi Sultanate (from 1325 to 1351) like no other; a visionary famous (less) for his political experiments, innovative ideas, (more for) tyrannical grandiose love for his public, the sultanate and history – he was the public’s beloved mad king.

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Painting depicting the court of Muhammad bin Tughluq. Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad.19th century
[Source – Wikimedia Commons]

…I have something to give, something to teach, which may open the eyes of history, but I have to do it within this life. I’ve got to make them listen to me before I lose even that!

Sultan Muhammad, The Fort at Daulatabad, Scene 8

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Who is the Sultan addressing here, if not us?

Ahead of his time, this king spoke directly to his future listeners, galloping towards his ideals, desires and dreams, forgetting behind the world he was tied to, and while he fell several times on this journey, the world tied to him suffered more.

Shifting the capital from Delhi to Daulatabad (Maharashtra), he pined to make history in a jiffy, combine past-present-future hurriedly, uplift every life, even the one that was not his own.

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Guard 1: Was it hard, coming from Delhi to here?

Guard 2: I survived. But my family was more fortunate. They all died on the way.

Guard 1 (sympathetically): I am sorry. The arrangements must have been very bad.

Guard 2: Oh no. The merciful Sultan had made perfect arrangements. But do you know, you can love a city like a woman? My old father had lived in Delhi all his life. He died of a broken heart. Then my son Ismail. He was six years old – would have been ten now! The fine dust that hung in the air, fine as silk, it covered him like a silken shroud. After him, his mother.

The Fort at Daulatabad, Scene 8

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You begin with just one image – the mysterious cover design (by Vasudev), a chess-piece-like king wanting to seize it all – which challenges you, but not so much as the dramatic scenes in the play as they convert your imagination into a projector. You visualise as you read, only to find that the king is not where you placed him; he deceives you again.

Sultan’s sins grow faster than his glory and power; and we get a first-hand experience for the playwright makes us sit in the front row.

We witness it all – the king’s game, we take part in it, but what part do we play? Unknowingly, knowingly?

“Both Tughlaq and his enemies initially appear to be idealists; yet, in the pursuit of the ideal, they perpetrate its opposite. The whole play is structured on these opposites: the ideal and the real; the divine aspiration and the deft intrigue. Tughlaq is what he is in spite of his self-knowledge and an intense desire for divine grace.”

Introduction, U. R. Anantha Murthy

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Tughlaq, first published in 1964 in Kannada, received immense success on stage and amongst readers; it was translated into English by Karnad; capturing that era so well, he frees his work from limitations – time changes, but human emotions don’t.

Time, something the Sultan tried to play with, passing sleepless nights as if to overpower it, facing defeats, yet not accepting the fact that his public was not on his side, but Time’s.

For now, let us keep sitting in the front row, the classic play is about to begin –

“Announcer: Attention! Attention! The Warrior in the Path of God, the Defender of the Word of the Prophet, the Friend of the Khalif, the Just, His Merciful Majesty, Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq.”

Scene One, A.D. 1327

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Bhikshuni

Review
‘The mother of liberation’, green Tara; Sumtsek hall at Alci monastery, Ladakh, ca. 11th century.
[Source – Wikimedia Commons]

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वह दूसरी ओर पीठ किए खड़ी थी। हमारी टैक्सी एकदम उसके पास ही आकर रुकी। वह हड़बड़ाकर मुड़ी और मेरा कलेजा मुँह को आ गया। उसके चारों ओर छोटी-मोटी भगवा पोटलियाँ बिखरी थी, पीठ पर मोटे रस्से में दो-तीन भारी कम्बल लदे थे। अपने खुरदुरे, तिब्बती लबादे को सम्हालती, वह एक कोने में सिमट गई।          

भिक्षुणी – शिवानी

English Translation –

She was standing with her back to the other side. Our taxi stopped right next to her. She turned around in a huff and my heart came to my mouth. Some small bundles were scattered around her, two or three heavy blankets were laden with thick ropes on her back. Holding on to her rough, Tibetan cloak, she huddled in a corner.

Bhikshuni, a short story by Shivani


A known face, however time-wrought, when seen, catches the eyes and attention almost at once that you cannot resist thinking about it. She saw Kiki, her heart smiled and a surge of memories filled the world, stopping time effortlessly.

Kiki, a spirited girl, enamoured with every new idea, had the courage to not to conform, not too easily, blindly. As a maiden, when in love, then a married woman, a mother and again in love, she moulded her life and everyone she knew anew. Some cheered for her, others washed away her colours.

When her livid father cremated her without uncovering the shroud, once just to see Kiki’s face, she instantly got a new lease of life.

A new lease of life where she chose to become a bhikshuni; crestfallen, she took a turn to continue with this journey called life. How difficult it would have been?

To let go of the collection closely locked in the heart – the hurts, laughs, blessings, all of it. To begin afresh when old tidings try to tie one down, to let the old self know its place.

The bhikshuni was carrying a potali… what was in it, we know now.

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*Bhikshuni – a Hindu or Buddhist nun.

*Potali – a small packet or cloth bag.


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Agent P

Mixed Fiction

Agent P

He’s Perry, Perry the platypus

(You can call him Agent P)

Perry

(I said you can call him Agent P)

Agent P!!!

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You must meet Agent P before going ahead –

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There is an unsaid belief, upgraded as a myth and downgraded as a silly joke by some funky chaps, that our pets are, in reality, secret agents who fight/win/end battles and run against time, all the time, to save our planet. Wow!

Our furry, feathery, fierce, cutie-pie, moody friends follow a code covertly so as to fool the humans, carrying on with their tasks, living as undercover agents, pretending to be hungry all the time.

Calling for a cuddle, they plan their next move in the arena, darting love-rays through eyes, they confuse us, excited for a walk, they patrol the region thoroughly.

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Legend has it that a pet platypus, called Perry the Platypus (Agent P), holds a record for defeating his nemesis – an evil scientist – and saving the day, every day. Ha-ha!

So much so that an animated series, Phineas and Ferb, showcases this legends’ legendary acts.

Hmm! This makes our dear pets more awesome; they are our lovely cool-cool peace keepers who know top-secret stuff, wear stylish hats and win battles usually before it even begins.

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Meet the evil scientist, Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz and see Perry, I mean Agent P, in action –

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Enjoy Agent P’s theme song, the extended version –

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The Great Indian House

Short Commentary
Old gold!
[Image by Vignesh Murugan from Pixabay]

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The great Indian house, stationary, offering shelter to its inhabitants, was no less than a monster said the poet.

With its welcoming smile and thousand arms it ushered the foreigners to come and stay and to become one with its culture – resistance withered itself away gradually. The time of Rajas, Shahanshahs, travellers, envoys, merchant kings, queens all lived and looted and loved this great Indian house.

This monster’s burning red eyes never blinked said the poet, not even when its inhabitants, its children set each other on fire. It swallowed these deaths, warmly, and sang lost songs.

Who met this monster once couldn’t leave, those who left, came back, every single time, as matter or chatter.

The monster – and so maybe for the want of a better word – fits and breaks the spectrum simultaneously, it is a monster but not evil or kind, not entirely, said the poet.

Reminiscing, hating and loving it, the poet’s poem tells that the great Indian house, with all its filthy incongruities and slow, glossy loveliness, is alive, apparently stationary, yet on the move, grappling impalpably with every idea and action that it warmly, blindly has gathered, is gathering.

The great Indian house when hit by a tempestuous storm, though handling it eventually, even now follows the tradition of first welcoming and serving it hot tea.


A modernist bilingual poet, linguist, essayist, folklorist, philologist, translator and scholar, A. K Ramanujan ‘wrote of the home left behind with a remote passion and irony’. Born in Mysore, Ramanujan moved to the US in the 1960s; settled there, he would remark to friends that he was the hyphen between Indo-American.

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Once upon a time…
[Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay]

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His translation of the Kannada novel Samskara and a Tamil bhakti poetry, Speaking of Siva, into English and the essays like ‘Who needs folklore?’ and ‘Is there an Indian way of thinking?’ allowed the readers to see regional literature in a new light.

The following poem, that inspired this blog post, appeared in Ramanujan’s second collection of poems titled ‘Relations‘ in 1971.


Small-scale Reflections on a Great House

by
A K Ramanujan

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Sometimes I think that nothing

that ever comes into this house

goes out. Things that come in everyday

to lose themselves among other things

lost long ago among

other things lost long ago;

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lame wandering cows from nowhere

have been known to be tethered,

given a name, encouraged

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to get pregnant in the broad daylight

of the street under the elders’

supervision, the girls hiding

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behind windows with holes in them.

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Unread library books

usually mature in two weeks

and begin to lay a row

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of little eggs in the ledgers

for fines, as silverfish

in the old man’s office room

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breed dynasties among long legal words

in the succulence

of Victorian parchment.

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Neighbours’ dishes brought up

with the greasy sweets they made

all night the day before yesterday

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for the wedding anniversary of a god,

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never leave the house they enter,

like the servants, the phonographs,

the epilepsies in the blood,

sons-in-law who quite forget

their mothers, but stay to check

accounts or teach arithmetic to nieces,

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or the women who come as wives

from houses open on one side

to rising suns, on another

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to the setting, accustomed

to wait and to yield to monsoons

in the mountains’ calendar

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beating through the hanging banana leaves

And also anything that goes out

will come back, processed and often

with long bills attached,

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like the hooped bales of cotton

shipped off to invisible Manchesters

and brought back milled and folded

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for a price, cloth for our days’

middle-class loins, and muslin

for our richer nights. Letters mailed

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have a way of finding their way back

with many re-directions to wrong

addresses and red ink-marks

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earned in Tiruvalla and Sialkot.

And ideas behave like rumours,

once casually mentioned somewhere

they come back to the door as prodigies

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born to prodigal fathers, with eyes

that vaguely look like our own,

like what Uncle said the other day:

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that every Plotinus we read

is what some Alexander looted

between the malarial rivers.

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A beggar once came with a violin

to croak out a prostitute song

that our voiceless cook sang

all the time in our backyard.

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Nothing stays out: daughters

get married to short-lived idiots;

sons who run away come back

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in grand children who recite Sanskrit

to approving old men, or bring

betel nuts for visiting uncles

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who keep them gaping with

anecdotes of unseen fathers,

or to bring Ganges water

in a copper pot

for the last of the dying

ancestors’ rattle in the throat.

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And though many times from everywhere,

recently only twice:

once in nineteen-forty-three

from as far as the Sahara,

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half -gnawed by desert foxes,

and lately from somewhere

in the north, a nephew with stripes

*

on his shoulder was called

an incident on the border

and was brought back in plane

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and train and military truck

even before the telegrams reached,

on a perfectly good

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Chatty afternoon.

*

And the saga continues…
[Image by Victoria_Regen from Pixabay]

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An Old Tune

Flash Fiction

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Nibbling the leaves and thorns, reaching for its yellow flowers, suddenly, Jhui-Mui the little goat made a novel request to the Khejri tree, “please tell me a story.”

Jhui-Mui’s mum and other goats chuckled a bit, then continued surfing the shrubs spread around the Khejri tree for shade, water and love.

The tree which gave, for centuries, both food and medicine to all, with its ground bark to make a flour during the very many parched famine days, and its deep-deep roots that held the soil and directed the researchers to the cool water table, the desert’s old friend, Khejri, knew a pocketful of folktales too.

The Khejri tree told Jhui-Mui the little goat about a four-hundred-year-old tree, one who belongs to its own family, but lives in a far-off desert, alone on a barren hill, with roots fifty meters deep and long groovy, harmonious branches that welcomes every traveller and every story.

“What is its name?”, asked the beady eyed, happy Jhui-Mui. “The Tree of Life”, replied the Khejri tree and hummed an old tune that filled the arid air with cool magic.

No one spoke, everyone listened then.

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The Tree of Life (Shajarat-al-Hayat), humming an old tune, in Bahrain.
[Source – Wikimedia Commons]

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Pourquoi – Why?

Dialogue Poem
Who said am deaf? Who?
(Yummy candy)
Tell me! Loudly, louder! Eh?
[Image by Nicole Pineda from Pixabay]

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Pourquoi, say poh-ko-aa… means why

In French. Why? Yes, why! No! Why

French, all of a sudden?

In between an investigation?

Seems like a classic case of burglary to me.

Oi!! Footsteps! Oh! You stepped on the clue!

Huh, sorry, I did? Where?

No, oh, wait I’ll stand here

Or should I stand next to you?

Stay put you… you!


Pourquoi, say poh-ko-aa… means why

In French. Not again! But why?

Caleb please, stick to English!

Note down his name, he is oddly palish

Staring at us, a nut-job!

Ah-ha! His handprints on the door knob!

But he is the one who called, he is the owner.

No, he is not the owner!

Is he? Well, we’ll see, we’ll see.

Oh, a bloodied knife near the shrubbery?


Pourquoi, say poh-ko-aa… means why

In French. Why are you telling me this, Caleb? Why?

A lovely app, see here, language learning app!

Get lo– Why’s the tap wearing a cap?

Where? There! Oh, red spots again, call back-up, this is a gang—

(Bang, bang, bang!)

(Footsteps, door, footsteps)


Caleb, told you, he’s a nut-job, shot himself

“You f-f-found the knif-f-fe, cap on the tap, f-f-footprints, the deaf-f-f

Cat saw me, aaaahhh, am dying, am dead, am dying, am dead,

But of-f-ficers, know this-s-s, the dead body… is dead…”

What!!?? Hey, hey!! Wake up! Oh! Caleb, he killed someone, he

Is, was a murderer! I’ll call the team, give me the key!

Am not staying with a dead body, you stay here, it is always me!

Why? Tell me, why? WHY?

Pourquoi, say poh-ko-aa… and you’ll know why

In French.

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Which One?

Commentary
Three Worlds by M. C. EscherLithograph, 1955.
[Source – Wikipedia]

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Out of the three worlds, this time, which one can you hear? Which one appeals to you more? The fish’s saga, the floating leaves’ travelogue or the tall dry trees’ declaration?

Is it clear then that the fish is frantically slow and brokenly quick, dashing here and there, carrying a wide-eyed moustache-o message for one and all?

And that the floating leaves, united and wet, surge to take over the stick, the feather, the boat and the paddles? A spirit of wilfulness rises in every seemingly dead leaf that allows it to fade at its own pace… green, red, brown, and skeletal leaves speak a different language.

The tall dry trees say nothing that time can capture in the garb of winters, autumns, summers, springs or monsoons, for the tall dry trees declared it long back that it is all just one big movement, constant movement, and stays so whether you measure it or not.

Is it clear then that the trees are old masters and not just a reflection of our ideas?

Out of the three worlds, now, which one do you listen to? Which one swirls you as if on a joy ride? Which one’s too fast, which one’s too slow?

Which one? Or is there simply just one?

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One big movement!
[Source – Pixabay]

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The Elevator Masterclass

Fictive Feature
Time for the elevator masterclass.
[Source – Unsplash]

It was not planned, the elevator masterclass, it just happened and then onwards became a ‘thing’, a trend, a mantra hailed by all the students of screenwriting.

Hmm! And what about the professors? They are not a fan, and naturally so, for elevators are too congested a place for a class. Many prefer taking the stairs ever since.

Any-Hooghly-who… this is what happened that fateful day.

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But first, please watch this Academy Award winning short animation film, Geri’s Game

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Professor A. R Pillai, cleaning his spectacles, enters the elevator when his students, Deva and Lata, come there rushing.

Sir, sir, sir!! – Lata

Sirrrr!! – Deva

They enter the elevator.

Sir, you said Geri’s Game pulled a masterstroke… crux of your 7-day workshop, sir… – Lata

How-how-how sir? – Deva

Well, think for yourself! Now, chess is a complicated game, more so when you’re playing against yourself, right? – A. R Pillai

The elevator door closes.

Sir, you mean this twist, that Geri is playing against himself… – Lata stops mid-way as Professor A. R Pillai, bespectacled, takes his ‘listen-to-me-now’ stance.

That too, the twist, but also the character, Geri, old chap, more of a caricature, he’s determined, hmm, to play chess, game of chess rules his mind, we see it, we stay with him, you noticed his expressions…? – A. R Pillai

Yes… his expressions! – Deva; gesticulates for emphasis.

Who’ll win, what is happening, what is at stake? Music roars, no not literally, it roars and raises the tension, yet it is lovely, the music, there’s conflict, Geri vs Geri, who’ll win, both are one, yet different, you noticed, one is sober, oldie-goldie types… – A.R Pillai

The one with spectacles, yeah. – Lata

Yes, and the other one is cunning, ‘hah-ha’ he laughs, confident… but a fool, the oldie-goldie fools him, tricks him… right? Ah-ha!! And what is at stake? Well, the beaming denture! Oldie-goldie’s smile, literally, and he wins it back. The end! – A. R Pillai

Right! And no dialogues… – Lata

Sir, because animation tends to… – Deva; his question delays itself on hearing the elevator’s ‘tung-tung’ sound.

The elevator door opens.

Nah! Forget that! See every story as a puzzle piece, if it is well-rounded, it’ll fit well, you know, the viewer senses it and takes it along. – Professor A. R Pillai.

He walks out and says without turning back, ‘Tomorrow, 9 am sharp!’

‘Yes sir, thank you sir’, say Deva and Lata still in the elevator.


Maybe in the rush to express it all (at times, simply to end the conversation) and in the eagerness to know the answers, all minds in the elevator tune-in to a common harmony.

‘Tung-tung-tong’ – comes a sound that interrupts the narrator.

‘What? Is it still… hello?’, says the narrator, then quickly adds, ‘umm, the elevator suddenly stopped working today… huh, seems like this masterclass will go on for a little longer.’

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Darkness and Pleonasm

Nonsense Poetry
“Dear giraffes, turn around and look up”, said the moon.
Pleonasm – the use of more words than necessary to convey meaning.
[Source – Pixabay]

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Dark night, night dark

Like thundering clouds sans lightening

And we missed, skipped the enlightening

Message. “You damn fool, think hard,

You didn’t hear anything?”

Lub-dub, lub-dub, quack-dub,

“Quack dub?” Yes, the darkest darkness

Followed us that we failed to see in the darkness.


Lights off, there was no light!

Scared, we threw our candles away,

Out of fear we trembled,

And threw our matchboxes haphazardly,

A few hit my head, I caught one silently

And hid it in the fish tank for emergency.

(The fish lit a bonfire! They tried to!)


“What?” Madness ruled us, yes, madness!

Madly we wept and stood still in one corner,

Or was it the centre? Uncertain, afraid,

We slept quickly, peacefully and

Woke to see the dark knight

Who had come to return our torch light;

Said, it helped him cross the teetering bridge

Twice, for he came to return our torch light.

Listen, not a lie this, later we heard it, all of us,

The breaking of the teetering bridge

And a desperate goodbye.


“It was the dark knight!” O-but we

Couldn’t see anything for our torch light

Died along with that goodbye-cry,

Both engulfed by the darkness and its hands,

Crushed under its dark feet, that we failed to see

In the darkness. For clarity now

We have all blindfolded ourselves.


After heavy rain, hail storm, whispering winds,

We can now feel some warmth,

Feels like the sun, but who knows-ya,

Not us, for it is impossible to see-ya,

Especially in this darkness. “Ahhh!”

(The one who said ‘ahhh’, rushed away.)

Rushed away? In such darkness?

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Agnes Obel and The Narrative

Short Coverage
See, the blooming narrative!
[Source – Pixabay]

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Tell me now of the very soul that look alike, look alike

Do you know the stranglehold covering their eyes?

If I call on every soul in the land, on the moon

Tell me if I’ll ever know a blessing in disguise…

The curse ruled from the underground, down by the shore

And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before

And the curse ruled from the underground, down by the shore

And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before…

The Curse, by Agnes Obel

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Listen to the song The Curse by Agnes Obel before reading further –


Humanity as an unabridged version, dancing forwards, backwards, forwards, in joy, in pain, walking down the lane is moving too fast and swaying too slow, thought she and wrote it on the blackboard. The white words looked silly but good. She gave a date to this thought and it made a ‘gong’ sound that ricocheted for fun.

The curse is the boon, thought she, but only once in a while when seen thus.

Retracing becomes easier than stepping forth and so one forgets.

And in the search for meaning when they get tired, they choose to imbibe what they hear from others, what they find familiar.

The familiar good that is, not the familiar grim; nevertheless, it is an overwhelming experience, thought she.

Just so you know the underlying emotion here when in search, is that of love – love that doesn’t chase meaning… for it owns it. A simple smile, gesture, hello-hi wave, acknowledging the tata-goodbye, is love triumphing over time.

Time notices it and smiles, each time just so you know. And she followed this thought and it withered away, it withered peacefully.

Now you take this cool-cool mountain air to the riverside and let it gush, let it fall as droplets. Sit by the riverside, fall and rise as someone else who is thrilled to continue the search.

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So let the narrative grow

like a rhizome, spreading then like Time

Without boundaries, fast and slow.


Here’s the official video of the song The Curse

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“The Curse” is a song I wrote after I read the book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It’s a book about the mind, and there is a chapter in the book about narrative fallacies, and I thought that was really interesting – how we construct these narratives of our own lives, even though so many things, almost anything that happens, is the result of a lot of things outside of our own control and doesn’t have any meaning – it’s completely accidental. But our minds want to put meaning into everything and to make sense of them. We’re like these “meaning machines” – human beings.

I thought it was really beautiful and interesting, because in a way, he says it’s why we invented math, music, science, and poetry: this need for meaning. And religion, and so forth. But there is also the flip side, why we have all these wars and these hardcore ideas of national identity. That you can go out and kill other people. It’s a blessing and it’s a curse. I just thought it was interesting, and then I wrote this song about it. Some people couldn’t figure out if it was a blessing or a curse.

Agnes Obel (Singer, Songwriter, Pianist)

Read the amazing Agnes Obel’s full interview here – Song Facts

Listen to the other three soulful songs that inspired the blogger to write this short coverage –

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Familiar by Agnes Obel –

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Just So by Agnes Obel –

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Riverside by Agnes Obel –

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