Week 6 Storytelling, 80. Afterlife

Even though Yudhishthira knew this was heaven, it seemed more like the first level of hell.  In this beautiful place, his jealous and spiteful cousin, the cause of all Yudhishthira’s hardships, sat upon a throne in eternal bliss.  This could not be right, this could not possibly be heaven, especially since there was no evidence of his brothers and wife having resided here. 

To this Indra said, “ You can stay here in eternal bliss, just let go of your ties to earth and you will become perfect, unlike your brothers who fell short of this accomplishment.”

Yudhishthira replied, “I cannot stay here without my brothers and wife, especially not with those who have done me wrong down on earth.

Therefore an angel guided him to a forest of which he entered, though this was no normal forest.  The branches reached out for Yudhishthira like spears, scratching at his arms and clothing, and the forest floor was covered in what seemed like a thousand needles that pricked his feet as he walked.  Within this forest is where his family resided, among the piles of unrecognizable corpses and the fetid smell of putrification.  Vultures feasted upon these corpses with their razor sharp beaks and dark wings, fitting in with the mirk of the forest perfectly.  Beyond the forest was a desert too hot to touch, but he wouldn’t be going that far because here, amid the thorns and horror, his family lived in an everlasting torment of fire and torture, and it would be here he would stay.  He would stay here forever to comfort them in this awful damned place.

He could have turned away, could have left them for the eternal bliss where his cousin Duryodhana sat upon his long envied throne.  However, Yudhishthira was not that man, and at these words, “Leave me here, I cannot leave my family.”  The gods revealed to Yudhishthira that this was indeed not hell, but an illusion to test him of his love.  For passing this test he was allowed to cast off his earthly body within the waters of the Ganges and he assumed his celestial body.

With these he entered Swarga and met happily with Krishna, his brothers, and Draupadi, all of his earthly loved ones.  Everyone awaited him here including: Prativindhya (Yudhishthira’s son), Sutasoma, Shrutakama, Satanika, Shrutasena, Dhritarashtra, Karna, Abhimanyu,  Pandu, Kunti, Bhishma, Drona, and Dharama.  All of these men were valiant warriors who perished in battle and were able to enter heaven through their deeds on earth.  Therefore Yudhishthira entered heaven amongst all his family and friends, wanting for not.

Ascension to Heaven

Reading Diary B

So finally in these scenes the Pandavas brothers reach the end of their fourteen years of exile and wish to receive back their kingdom.  In order to do this, they approach Hastinapur with a small army, however they send a messenger of peace.  However Duryodhana refuses to accept anything except war or defeat due to his hatred, jealousy, and his own evilness.  He even thought to capture Krishna against his will even though he had offered some of his own troops to help Duryodhana's army.

61. Bhishma Falls
In this scene Bhishma is taken down by Arjuna with a volley of arrows.  Arjuna used a charioteer who was born a woman but became a man, which he knew Bhishma could not fight.  However Arjuna was not happy with killing the man he once called "father" , for they were very close when Arjuna was younger.  However Bhishma finally fell and in his absence Drona takes command of the army.

63. Abhimanyu and Jayadratha

In this scene Abhimanyu, Arjuna's son, is killed by Jayadratha and due to this Arjuna vows that he would kill Jayadratha before the end of the next day.  The entire next day Arjuna searched for Jayadratha with Krishna as his charioteer, they drove onward all day and eventually in the last rays of sun that day Arjuna found Jayadratha protected by Karna. By a trick of Krishna's design, Arjuna was able to bypass Karna and kill Jayadratha by way of cutting off his head.

So on and so the battle raged, Drona was lost to the battle, and the Pandavas won back their kingdom as was bound to happen.  Eventually after many visits to the battlefield, Bhishma finally lets himself die after providing advice to the Pandavas while awaiting his death.  Krishna too eventually fell to his death after being shot in the foot by an arrow and his city was swallowed up by the sea.

Death of Krishna

Reading Diary A

Wow, so much has happened in the Mahabharata that it's almost hard to be able to remember the details of each encounter!  As I am a little behind on the reading I've covered a little bit different amount of reading in order to catch up to where I should be.  As such I'd like to cover a couple of the stories that I found to be the most prominent to me.  Something that I've noticed in the Mahabarata is the occurrence of individual adventures of the Pandu brothers, such as when Bhishma married the she-demon and went to live with her for a while, or such as when Arjuna exiled himself for twelve years and came back with another wife.

27. Wife of the five Pandavas

I thought this was really interesting, not just because she was destined to be the wife of all five men, but because they seemed to be really okay with the five of them all sharing the same woman. My interest was really piqued at the way that the brothers even had rules and that there were no mention of jealousies between the brothers when one of the five was with her.  It's a little hard for me to understand how a woman could have five husbands!  Not only that but Draupadi's father actually was okay with the fact that she was marrying five men!

37. The Gambling Match

So this scene was the hardest for me to read, because not only did Yudhishthira agree to gamble knowing that he didn't know how, but he also agreed knowing full well that Shakuni did not gamble fairly.  Then while gambling, Yudhishthira knowingly gambled away all of his kingdom, his brothers, himself, and then the last straw of gambling away their wife Draupadi!  Could he really be so stupid as to not see the plot of Durodhana in this?  It was really hard for me to read knowing how stupid it seemed!

40. The Second Match

Alright, so not only did Yudhishthira lose everything the first time and then get his freedom back through his wife, but he stupidly agreed to a second gambling match!  This time he lost everything again and thus had to go into exile with his brothers and wife for twelve years in the forest!!  Who chose this guy to be king again?

After all this the Pandavas and their wife entered the forest to live with the sages in rags and with only an everful pot of food to keep them from becoming hungry.  While in exile Duryodhana tried to spy on them causing another of his failures where he was defeated by the gandharvas so that the Pandavas had to come rescue him.  This caused Duryodhana to become depressed and he vowed to let himself die for his failure and his embarrassment.  However a goddess carried him from death and gave him a new vigor for life, saying that he would have help in defeating the Pandavas.  So on the struggle between Duryodhana and the Pandavas continues!

Messenger to Pandavas

Thoughts About Comments

Alright so, so far I've noticed that the most helpful comments for me are those that actually critique the writing I've done so far.  Sometimes it's hard for people to see their own mistakes after staring at the same words for an hour or so, therefore I think it's really helpful when people suggest that I add more description to a place where I could have elaborated more, or on grammar, because let's be honest, sometimes sentences can last forever!  However it is really nice to know what parts of a story are so interesting to the people who are reading it so that I might be able to continue to use that sort of writing device knowing that it works to engage, or interest a reader. I will admit that I also like the encouraging comments too...it makes me feel good knowing that I've written something good!

Also I think you can learn a lot about a person by how they post comments, such as: when a person comments on your introduction and they tell you something about themselves because it relates to your own story.  So slowly, over the course of the semester you can really start to understand and know how people are, even if they didn't leave it in their introduction in the first place!

sad man

Reading Diary A

This reading seems to be mostly about the bloodlines of the kings and their women.  Many times the birth stories of Vyasa and his mother were repeated in order to show different ways the story is told.  Vyasa's mother was born a twin from the mouth of a fish and adopted by a fisherman.  This woman had Vyasa with the Brahmin Parashara who promised she would become a virgin again and she would smell sweet instead of fishy.

This led to the eventuality that a king came along and wanted her so in order to have her the king's son gave up any claims to the throne and vowed to never marry or have children.  Thus Bhishma became the overseer of Satyavati's children, who all died.  At which point she called out to Vyasa to take up the widows of her other sons, and then his sons became heirs to the throne instead.


Then from there one of Vyasa's sons married a woman named Kunti who birthed a son by the sun and put him in the Ganga to float away where he would end up being picked up by a woman in Anga.


It's all a whirlwind of intermixed bloodlines and a terrible fate for Bhishma, born as Devavrata!

Bhishma

Tech Tip Website/Storybook

Alright so I created my storybook website and decided to mess around with the settings and templates and fonts per usual and thus created my new google website!  I really didn't know that google had this feature so it's really cool to use and learn to understand how to take it further!

A Celestial Genealogy

Tech Tip: Pinteres Research

For this extra credit Tech Tip I decided that I would look up and learn more about the the "Rules of Gibbs" a long list of rules created by the leader of the DC NCIS crew on TV.  I personally love this show and have always wanted to know what Gibbs's actual rules were!!  Its great to know now and the fact that so many people wanted to create posts on the same things that I'm interested in is awesome!!

Tech Tip: Pinterest Board, Pinterest Embedded

Alright so I use pinterest all the time so this task was really a walk in the park.  However I did not have the browser button before and I didn't know I could do that, so that's pretty cool.

So I posted a board for our Indian Epics class titled: "Indian Epics Portfolio"  pretty simple.  I chose two boards to pin from Professor Gibbs pinterest because I found the "English words from the Indian language" board pretty cool.  There are several words there that I definitely thought were just english words but were in fact based in the Indian language through time and travel.  I chose the words "shampoo" and "candy".

Shampoo apparently comes from the champoe which originally comes from the meaning "to massage" or "to knead, press"  all the way from sanskrit language.  However the word "Candy" comes originally from the word Kantu in sanskrit meaning "ball of candied sugar" and made it's way through he Persian language all the way to French and then English. Follow Briana Gordon's board Indian Epics Portfolio on Pinterest.

Storytelling Week 4: A New Hope

It was a harsh landscape they worked, not at all like what home had been like.  The land here was thick and lush but the weather was much more turbulent, for part of the morning it rained and for the second half the sun shone so brightly that it was hard to do anything except lay in the shade until the morning was over.  Then in the evening the weather cooled remained steady until dark in which case the weather lowered to almost freezing, however this was okay because it was the same day in and day out, there were no seasons here.  This place was a new start for humanity, a new place, a new landscape, a new planet to colonize.

One of the most important aspects of colonizing this new planet was not creating shelter, or creating a government, it was creating a food source.  The colonizers stayed in their bunks on the Discovery, the ship that carried them to this new haven, they were all chosen for their abilities, abilities that would be crucial to their survival on this new planet.  The most important person to be brought, however, was the farmer, he knew the key to creating raw foods and since the beginning of the famine on Earth, he was the most important person.  Not the engineers, not the doctors, and not the builders, but the farmer was the most important; therefore they chose him to lead them.  He was a simple man with rough hands and steady work ethic and he proved his worth day in and day out.

Every day, after the heat of the morning had passed, he plowed his newly acquired vast lands.  He planted every day, sowing the seeds into the new terra they found themselves on.  Like every other day, today was a day of plowing, he was using his massive industrial plow as he made his furrows in the soil.  It was tough going, the soil here was much more thick and retained thousands more minerals than the soil on Earth had.  He focused on his task, back and forth, across the land until suddenly his massive plow came to a quick halt, the plow’s instruments beeping alarms.  Something was in the soil. 

He exited the vehicle and with great caution walked around to inspect what had caused his plow to halt, what could be so great that his machine would halt so quickly?

To his surprise he found the object sticking up out of the ground, he could tell the shower of dirt it had created when it impacted the ground had covered it.  He walked closer and began to rub the soil from what he could only assume was an emergency evacuation pod, which was most likely ejected when the sister craft to the Discovery malfunctioned and caught fire.   That single malfunction had caused what they assumed was the entire population of the craft to perish.  He moved quickly, removing the film of dirt that covered the window and was surprised to find that the craft was empty except for one small…baby.   With this discovery he quickly opened the pod and removed the child from the cryogenic sleep pod in which it was encased, thankfully it began to cry, a strong healthy wail.

He was so surprised by this that he became overwhelmed with emotion.  Their new population was small and as of the past decade it had become harder for their population to procreate, making this child the first good thing they had encountered on this new and unforgiving planet.  This child would be treasured, she would be loved, and she would be the first of the new generation to reside on this planet.  He took the child back to the Discovery and called everyone in to show them the miracle that had survived one of the biggest disasters they had encountered since leaving Earth.  The entire community would raise this little baby girl with love and compassion, and she would become the farmer’s first child.  She would be seen as a good luck charm as within the next year three more baby girls would be born and they would be raised as sisters.  This was the beginning of a new journey for everyone.

Authors Note:  Last week I chose to take on a setting within the future and I enjoyed so I decided I would try the trend again in a different way.  When I think of a farmer I think of giving life, taking a seed and creating something more something useful.  This led to the thought of what it would be like to colonize and try to tame the soil of a foreign planet and what a gift finding a child would be, such as in the story of Sita's birth when she is found within the furrows of her father's fields.

(Sunity Devee)

Bibliography:  

"Sita and Promila" by Sunity Devee, from Nine Ideal Indian Women (1919). Web Source: Indian Epics: Reading Guides.

Reading Diary B

A lot more information came from this version of the Ramayana that was from Sita's point of view.  This version focuses on Sita and how misfortunate her life seems, it focuses on her destiny as Ravana's ultimate destruction, however that makes her life full of unhappiness.  There are good times whenever she, Rama, and Lakshmana are in the forest  in their little hut and come to think of it that seems the only time she was truly happy except for right after their wedding.

In these last few scenes Ravana is killed with an arrow to the heart and all of Lanka is sad. Then as in the other version of the Ramayana, Rama tests Sita's purity and she walks into the fire to prove that she was still pure.  Then after they reach home, the citizens of Ajodhya whisper of Sita's possible impurity reach Rama and he decides that his people come before his queen.  So Rama asks his brother to take his PREGNANT WIFE and LEAVE her in the forest!  He left his pregnant wife in the forest alone by herself! So then she is found by Valmiki and he takes her in as his daughter and helps her raise her twin boys, and he becomes a poet of the Ramayana and so on.  Then Sita returns to Rama with her sons but asks the Earth to swallow her up when he asks her to prove herself again.  Her suffering and unhappiness is over.

There's also the addition of the story of Promila, the wife of Indraji and crown princess.  The whole scene is completely different from the public domain Ramayana.  It depicted Indrajit as a proud prince who spent time with his wife in their pleasure palace surrounded by a beautiful garden full of flowers.  His wife Promila was very beautiful and brave and she entered the city of Lanka following her husband by riding up to Rama on a charger and telling him that she will enter the city whether he wishes her to or not, and he allows her to enter the city.  In this version Vibhishana betrays Ravana and allows Lakshmana to enter a hidden door in a temple and kill Indrajit while he is trying to pray to the fire god Agni.  Promila is so loyal that she burns herself with her husband during his funeral!

(Indrajit)

Reading Diary A, Devee

For this reading diary I decided to read Nine Ideal Women: Sita and Promila by Sunity Devee provided free online.  I've noticed several differences between this telling of the Ramayana and the Public Domain version I read before.  This version seems more detailed and includes more dialogue between the characters, spending a lot of time on the characters and their relationships.  It provided more information on Sita's birth which was absent from the version I had been reading.

Section 1 and 2:  These scenes capture the birth of Sita, who, in the bigger picture, is plotted to be the downfall of Ravana.  The events that happen to Sita are directly caused by the fact that Ravana would not let the holy men travel his lands without providing tribute and thus Ravana caused his own end.  What's most interesting though is that Sita is unaware that her father found her while plowing his fields and that he and her mother automatically accepted Sita as their daughter and princess without a second thought!  These scenes seem to explain a lot more why such a life is given to Sita.

Section 6:  Something that called my attention was the description of Rama as the sun-prince and Sita as the Moon-princess, that had never been mentioned before and I thought it was an interesting way to sort of throw into the story the idea of fate, that the two were destined to be together in order to bring about the downfall of Ravana.  Their whole union was planned in time before their very existence!

(Birth of Sita)

Storybook Styles

TOPIC.  I've decided that my topic for my storybook will center around Ravana's family with the goal of showcasing some of Ravana's family members, both good and bad.  I will use at least four stories including:  Kubera; Lord of Wealth, Kubhakarna; The Sleeping Giant, Vibhishana, and his son Indrajit.  I chose these based on their closeness of relationship to Ravana and the roles they played in the Ramayana and in the battle against Rama.  I chose two who seemed fairly good and two who were displayed as villainous.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Indrajit", by Donald A. Mackenzie, from Indian Myth and Legend (1913). Web Source: PDE Ramayana
"Vibhishana", by Donald A. Mackenzie, from Indian Myth and Legend (1913). Web Source: PDE Ramayana
Kubera: Lord of Wealth, by Amar Chitra Katha, Volume 839
Kumbhakarna, by Amar Chitra Katha, Volume 528

POSSIBLE STYLES

Court case style.  One of the ideas that I really like for tying all of these stories into one style is to put them in a way as if they were put on trial for having been involved with the kidnapping and containment of Princess Sita.  They would be judged on grounds such as the degree of their involvement, their intent, and their character.  I think this would be a good way to show who truly were the righteous and who were truly evil people.  I like this style because I think it would be a good way to show the difference between those that truly wished to go against Rama, and those whose duty was to follow Ravana.

War Memorial.  Another good way might be to have a war memorial where speakers speak about these people and the struggles they triumphed through in order to save Sita from Ravana and his cohorts.  Vibhishana himself might even speak as he was left to live forever and he could provide an eyewitness account to the Memorial.

Sons of Vishrava: a Celestial Genealogy.  This would be more of a anthology that would show the different offspring of their father Vishrava, and this would include Ravana, instead of Indrajit, and others as he had many children from his two wives.  This one would be fairly easy to do and would be structured in a ancestry.com sort of way.  I like this one because it would give more leeway on the information I could include on each character offering a well rounded amount of information that isn't just focused on the abduction of Sita.

Lanka, a City of Struggle.  Part of Kubera's story is of how he was chosen to rule Lanka first but it was taken from him by Ravana.  Then Ravana used his brother Kubhakarna to try and keep the city and he also sent his own son and heir to fight Rama in which case he was eventually killed.   Not only that, but Vibhishana tried to save Ravana and the city by providing wise advice but was tossed aside.  I like this because I could research more information on the city itself and find more information about how the city was actually ruled through time.

(Kubera: Lord of Wealth)

Tech Tip: Weather Widget

Alright so now I've added weather to my blog, which I think is pretty cool and is a lot easier to do than I actually thought!  I get excited over the smallest things!  My favorite type of weather can be found in the spring and fall, its not too cold and its not too hot, sort of in the 70-75 degree range is perfect!  My most hated weather is rainy weather or blasting heat, I don't do well in the heat with my pale skin and intolerance for heat!

Tech Tip: Sidebar Box

Okay so I added the HTML/Javascript sidebar to my blog and it reads: "Your eyes are more beautiful than a wild cows!"  I wrote this also in arabic because this was something that my introductory Arabic teacher said all the time in his homework that he created for us and it was very funny to me to think that a cow might be considered beautiful. However apparently a cows wild eyes are considered beautiful.  So I just thought it was something fun I could add to my blog.

Storytelling Week 3: The Technical Instrument for the Measurement of Existence),

(The River Sarayu)

It had been so long, and when he looked in the mirror his face no longer looked like him and it came to pass that King Rama took it upon himself to remove himself from his throne and enter the Institute. Within the Institute laid a piece of the river of Sarayu, like a choppy lake surrounded by plain, serene white walls and flooring interrupted only by a sleek silver terminal that rested just on the artificial bank of the river. Rama approached the terminal slowly and with reverence and with a single touch the terminal, known by the acronym T.I.M.E (Technical Instrument for the Measurement of Existence), came to life displaying all the events of Rama’s existence on Earth. It contained all of Rama’s eleven thousand years beginning with his birth and ending here at this very place in time.

His Brother Lakshmana had already entered the River of Sarayu and it was he that Rama wished to follow after. It was heard that the institute had rained flowers down from the heavens, an unusual event for such an esteemed place.

Within the T.I.M.E. machine Rama selected the names of those who would follow him to the heavens including: Sugriva and any monkey or bear who wished to follow him. He left a message for Hanuman that said, “You shall live forever until the stories of me fade.”

He left messages also for Jambavan, about how long he should live, and to Vibhishana, giving advice and good counsel on how he should govern his people. He also left messages for others of less importance to pass on his goodwill and wisdom he had earned throughout his eleven thousand years.

When he had finished with all the things he had left to do he pressed “done” on the terminal and his life’s information disappeared and the terminal lowered into the ground as if it had never been there in the first place. From across the plain white room a door appeared from the smooth surface and from it came a figure robed in white, he went by the name of Brahma. Brahma called out to Rama, “ Hail, Oh Vishnu! You and those you have chosen shall now enter the Sarayu, you will take whatever form you wish and go into the beyond where neither thought or speech is known to any except Maya..”

Brahma led the way to the waters edge and flowers, just as for Lakshmana, rained down from the ceiling and a great wind blew through the room and Rama felt the joy of those who he had chosen and he stepped into the waters of the Sarayu knowing he was not alone and that in heaven he would return to himself as part of the god Vishnu.

Author's Note: The origin of my story is from the scene in the Ramayana that tells of Rama's Death.  I took the story of Rama's death and I reinvisioned it in a post modern, futuristic setting where the Sarayu is no longer an entire river but only a piece of it is left and in order to enter the waters a person must review their life as a whole.  In this case Rama had to review eleven thousand years of life through the terminal/time machine, after which he could allow others to enter with him led by Brahma.

Bibliography:
"Rama Departs" , by Donald A. Mackenzie, from Indian Myth and Legend (1913). Web Source: PDE Ramayana

Reading Diary B: Public Domain Ramayana

First of all I'd like to talk about this portion of the readings as a whole.  I was really excited to be reading of the end of Ravana because honestly that's what we've been waiting for since the beginning of this epic.  However, I was very unhappy with the treatment of Sita after she was rescued.  She was accused several times of having stained Rama's reputation and that of their families, it seems very little thought was had of what Sita actually went through.

65. Hanuman and the Mountain.  I actually really liked this scene.  Hanuman, since he can jump the farthest, is sent in search of some mystical herbs that will help the wounded and revitalize the troops after Indrajit's attack. Jambavan, leader of the bears, sends Hanuman to Himalaya, king of mountains.  Hanuman searches all over the mountain and when he cannot find the herbs he lifts up the mountain and brings it back with him! Not only did he take it, he also took the mountain back! I really liked the ingenuity that Hanuman has in taking the entire mountain instead of giving up!

67. Ravana's Lament.  I thought that this scene was a good look into Ravana's character, a look at how he may be the villain but he is still a father to his son and has certain rules he follows.  After his son is killed he weeps in lament, he had never expected that his son should precede him in meeting death.  After his initial sorrow he becomes angry and at first intends to kill Sita in order to make Rama feel his pain, but in the end some rakshasa women persuaded him to not cross the line of killing women for the sake of his reputation.

74. Sita Tested.  In this Sita says that due to Rama's awful words she would throw herself on a pyre and that the fire god would not let the fire harm her if she were pure, if Ravana had not stained her purity.  The gods became angry with Rama and begged him to trust her and still he hesitated, then the fire god welcomed Sita into his arms and did not harm her.  Rama delighted in the fact that she was pure, apologized for his harsh words and told her he did it to show the people her purity.  This to me is insult to injury, she was just released from a most likely long incarceration under Ravana only to be treated this way by her own husband!

78. Valmiki's Hermitage.  Again in this scene Rama spirits the innocent Sita away from him and puts her in the care of Valmiki the poet.  There she would stay for sixteen years without seeing any of the royal family and she would have twin sons in the likeness of Rama, but he wouldn't know that because he stashed her away like a purchased item he no longer wanted to play with.

Rama and Sita

Reading Diary A: Public Domain Ramayana

46. The Rainy Season.  I was really got into Rama's lament.  When I met my boyfriend he worked over an hour away and I could only talk to him a couple of times a week and it was awful, but to not be able to talk to or even see.  To not know if she was doing okay, it would kill me.  In fact Rama says that the only reason he still lives is because he knows that Sita is still alive.  His only thought is of rescuing her from Ravana and his goons.

49. Sampati and Jatayu.   I think it's interesting how patient Sampati was throughout his time that he was unable to leave his cavern because of his burnt feathers and blinded sight.  I also thought it was really nice that Sampan didn't hold a grudge against his brother for having sacrificed himself for Jatayu and in the end was able to regain his body by helping Hanuman find Sita and Ravana.

57. The Burning of Lanka.  In this section I thought it was great of Hanuman to take his punishment and make lemons out of lemonade, however of course he couldn't actually feel any burning sensation on his tail however he was smart enough to let it keep burning so that he could burn Lanka as a pre-emptive strike to what would be Rama's later attack.  Than Hanuman returned home with the news that he had indeed found Rama's beloved Sita.

60. Vibhishana. I also thought it was interesting how easily family ties and loyalties are broken within the royal and celestial families.  Vibhishana is Ravana's brother and he is the only person who says that Ravana should hand Sita over to Rama. By saying this it made him a traitor in Ravana's eyes and so Ravana orders him to leave, and was basically pushed to Rama's side, which he joins soon after.

(Vibhishana)

Public Domain Ramayana

Tech Tip: Blog Profile

Alright so I have now configured my google plus profile and it's pretty cool I think.  I decided to display that I am currently in a relationship because I am very proud of the man that I am with, he is an amazing man that I would do anything for!  He's also pretty cute....

(personal photo)

I chose to hide my e-mail, my phone number, and my address because there are some crazy people out there these days and so I gotta be kind of careful, ya know?  Overall though I think this whole thing is pretty cool, profiles, and templates and all that jazz!

Project Topics

1. Possible Topic: Ravana and Family.  I got this inspiration from the fact that in stories we've read so far, we have already met several of Ravana's family members including his uncles, Maricha and Subaru, and his sister, Surpanakha.  Their stories really got me interested in how the family dynamics play out for Ravana and his family, which the more I research the more extensive the family seems to become!

Research so far:  Well I read through the Wikipedia article for Ravana and he has a lot more family than I expected.  He has his two uncles, six brothers, two sisters, three wives, and seven sons! One of his wives was the daughter of an ancient king of the demons and his grandmother is Thataka!  Also apparently Ravana's advisor is actually his great-uncle Malyavan, who is the brother of Sumali: the father of Kaikesi, the mother of Ravana!  I had no idea he had such an extensive family!

(Ravana)  

2. Possible Topic: Lady Villains. I thought it would be very interesting to focus on all the women who seemed to be on the dark side of the Ramayana such as Thataka, Manthara, Surpanakha.  I found it interesting that the Indian culture seemed fairly one sided when it comes to gender and the demons in the Ramayana are no different.  There is very little mention of women even on the darker side of the celestial beings, and it seems that even when mentioned that get little notice.  There are three times as many men celestial beings and characters as there are women celestial characters.

Research so far:  Wikipedia doesn't seem to have a whole lot on any of these people but I hope that more will surface as I read more into the Ramayana, and continue to sift through web pages. However there is some information on why these people are the way they are such as Manthara, who became antagonistic to Rama after he broke her knee as a child.  Then in turn it seems Manthara poisoned Kaikeyi throughout her childhood with her scheming, making it easy to make Kaikeyi jealous and take her advice against Rama.

(Kaikeyi)

3. Possible Topic: Animals in the Epics.  I thought this was pretty interesting because when you start to think about it, animals have played a large role in the Ramayana.  My specific memory is that of Jatayu trying to save Sita from Ravana when she was being kidnapped.  I'm interested in seeing how else animals will tie into the stories the further that we read.

Research so far:  As it turns out, Jatayu has a bigger background story than I thought, there are some bits about his brother, and there is also the mention that Jatayu is old friends with King Dasharatha! How surprising! Upon further research I saw that the gods actually have a few animals that they like to inhabit especially including the eagle, the bull and the elephant.

(Jatayu)

4. Possible Topic: Celestial Weapons.  I find this topic very interesting because I have noticed that Indian weapons are similar yet not like anything usually found in western literature. These weapons go by the names of chakra, which is sort of like a Chinese throwing star in disk form. There are so many weapons that are given to heroes by the gods and wielded by the gods as well. I thought there were enough that they deserved their own topic.

Research so far:  I've spent some time looking through wikipedia articles and I think the best thing I have noticed so far is that every god has more than two arms and therefore are able to wield more than one weapon but in addition to weapons they also tend to wield other things in their extra hands as well, such as Vishnu who is seen wielding a chakra, a mace, a lotus, and a conch shell.

(Vishnu)

Storytelling Week 2

(Ravana)

Amidst the concrete jungle of New York City, a young, beautiful woman sat alone on a bench at the edge of Central Park. She had urged her brother-in-law to run after her husband when she heard him crying out for help. She knew it might not actually be her husband calling for help, but she couldn’t chance that he might be in danger. However what she didn’t know was that she was being watched. A man in the shadows of the park’s trees was waiting for the very moment when her family left this beautiful young woman. This was his chance.

He approached Sita, wearing a plain robe of a priest. Sita acknowledged him with a bow of her head and he spoke to her, “Young woman, why are you, such a pretty thing, sitting on this park bench alone? You seem more suited to be sitting upon a throne awaited on by an entire kingdom, than alone on this rough park bench!”

Trusting the priest she told him how she, her husband Rama, and her brother-in-law Lakshmana had taken refuge in Central Park after Rama’s father, Dasharatha, had kicked them out of his luxurious apartment, and now they had no shelter, no food, and scarce water. Then she asked, “Will you wait here with me until my family returns to me, father?”

It was then the man cast off his robe to reveal a very sharp, black suit with a silk red tie, which he adjusted smartly. “I am no priest! I am Ravana, I command the Rakshasa gang, I rule over the Lanka underground, even the CIA fears my power! However, you my dear have captured my cold heart, I will make you my queen, I will give you all that you have ever wanted!

Sita, shocked, replied angrily leaping up from the bench, “Don’t you know who my husband is? I am a married woman! Don’t you know what Rama will do to you? How dare you think that you can steal me from him? What lets you think so highly of yourself? You’re more likely to take the sun from the sky than to win me!”

Ravana drew himself up and put his chest forward, “You do not know of the power I hold! I have the technology beyond your wildest dreams; I can do more than you have ever dreamed!” With that final word two Rakshasa members came out from behind Sita and took hold of her and despite her struggling, Ravana and his two Rakshasas forced her into a nearby sleek black BMW and sped away Sita towards the Lanka underground.

Authors Note: For my inspiration I chose the scene called "Ravana and Sita" where Ravana catches Sita alone and steals her from Rama and Lakshmana.  I chose this style of storytelling because when I envisioned Ravana, I see him as the stereotypical mob boss, Kingpin of the Rakshasa gang, everyone fears him, and he possesses way more power than he should. So the mob boss in the snazzy suit and fedora hat, was how I truly saw Ravana. In order to achieve this I merely changed the time period and setting from ancient India to modern day New York City and Central park as the Jungle.  I updated the language so that it was more modern as well.

Bibliography

"Havana and Sita", by Donald A. Mackenzie, from Indian Myth and Legend (1913). Web Source: PDE Ramayana

Reading Diary B

I believe what continues to astound me is not necessarily the familial turmoil that Kaikeyi had caused, but more about the love between the sons and their father Dasharatha. When Rama was exiled, not only did his wife, a privileged princess, follow him, but also his brother Lakshmana followed him as well.  Then when his other brother Bharata returned home from visiting his mothers lands he is extremely angry with his mother for having put his brother, Rama, into exile.  Then the fourth brother, Shatrughna, also came forward with Manthara.  The brothers condemn these women but refuse to kill them on the basis that Rama would not agree with it.  Then the heartbrokenness of all the sons and wives when Dasharatha died after Rama's exile.

Even after Rama refused to return to become the rajah, Bharata returns to him with sandals that he would wear briefly, which would sit upon the throne in his stead for fourteen years with Bharata as governor.  Throughout the entire exile neither Sita nor Lakshmana complained, and many people were kind to them.  Except the rickshas demons, the siblings of Ravana, who then came to steal Sita from Rama to become his bride instead.  However, apparently Ravana cannot hold a candle to Rama's character and looks.

(Jatayu)