Indian Epics Blog

There were these two little boys who had grown up on the same street ever since they were born. They were best friends, always hanging out and playing together. Their names were Mike and Will. Neither Mike or Will were happy unless they were together. One day Mike went to go knock on Will's door to see if he wanted to play soccer with him. No one answered the door, which was odd because Will or his parents were always home. Then he looked around back for a car and sure enough there wasn't a car. Mike started to freak out because if Will was going to go somewhere he definitely would have told Mike. Because Mike had been watching a lot of scary movies, since it was October of course, he decided Will and his family had obviously been kidnapped. Mike knew the entry code to get into Will's house so he decided to go inside and see if he could figure out what happened so he could let the police know. Mike hastily entered the code and  ran up to Will's room, but he wasn...

I really enjoyed the story about the dog and the elephant. It's fun to see unlikely animals become friends. If I were to retell this story I could change them to different animals or turn them to humans. I really enjoyed reading the rest of the stories, but the elephant and the dog one was definitely my favorite. The wise goat and the wolf was another great story. It was cunning and fun to read. I'm not sure how I might retell it just yet, but I think it would be fun to try. Title: More Jataka Tales Author: Ellen C. Babbitt Illustrator: Ellsworth Young Year: 1922 The Elephant and the Dog Reunited

After reading Part A at first, I couldn't see myself retelling any of the stories, but I went back and spent a little more time reading them and I enjoyed the Rose-Bud story where the four princes saw the same tree just at different times, but none of them ever thought it was pretty. It would be interesting to change it from a tree to maybe a garden or something else and the people who go look at it don't think it's worth anything except the last person who sees it fully grown and it's potential. More Jataka Tales Title: More Jataka Tales Author: Ellen C. Babbitt Illustrator: Ellsworth Young Year: 1922

One day, a boy named Giles. Giles grew up with a big family and had a lot of brothers and sisters, but he was the youngest. All of his siblings were so different. Some were quiet, others were kind, and some were down right mean. Giles did not know what kind of person he was yet and he wanted to figure it out. He was around his siblings all the time so always over heard their conversations and saw what they were doing. So everyday after school he decided to start imitating one of his siblings so he could figure out if he was quiet, kind, mean, or anything else like his siblings. On the first day, he overheard he eldest sibling Britney talking to her friend about how being mean helped her get what she wanted. So the next day Giles decided to be mean. He started yelling at his parents and telling them what he wanted instead of asking. At first his parents thought he might just be having a hard day, but as the day went on he just kept being mean. They decided to wait until the next d...

The elephant girly-face was a very interesting story to read and I think it would be a fun one to retell, but instead of an elephant I would make him a human being where he hears about how he should act and then does so accordingly. Cover of the Jatakas Tales Title: Jataka Tales Author: Ellen C. Babbitt Illustrator: Ellsworth Young Year: 1912

I really liked the story about how the turtle saved himself. It would be fun to change the turtle to a different animal or do retell the story from the turtle's perspective. I thought the story about the ox had a really good moral of the story. I would like to retell it, but I'm not sure exactly what I would do with it just yet. Those were the only two stories that spoke out to me. Man telling the King to throw the Turtle in the lake.  Title: Jataka Tales Author: Ellen C. Babbitt Illustrator: Ellsworth Young Year: 1912

It was a hot summer's day. As the sun rose high in the sky the competitors took their place. Today was the day and by the end one of them have Draupadi's hand in marriage.  All in all, there were four competitors. These five men came from all over, each from a different kingdom. They all wanted to win Draupadi's hand in marriage in order to unite their kingdom with her father's. Also, it did not hurt that Draupadi was the most beautiful woman in all the land. The men had to compete in an activity of Draupadi's choosing. Since Draupadi is a woman who enjoys strength so she obviously chooses archery. First off, Bhima goes.  He completely misses the mark. Totally embarrassed, but thankful he had one more try he goes again. The second time he hits the outer rim of the mark, but at least this time he hit the target. Inside his head he was hoping that the other contestants did as poorly as he did.  After Bhima goes, next up to the target is Karna. He was born as a c...

The Year of Disguise part in the second part of the Mahabharata was so entertaining. I love that each of the brothers disguise themselves as something/someone else. I could have a lot of fun having them pretending to be different things, maybe a far off prince, a joker, maid, cook, there is so just so many options! After their year of disguise, I wouldn't include a rape or anything I would have them overthrow the kingdom and taking it as theirs. I would probably have the five brothers rule together and have them live happily ever after.  The Pandevas in Disguise Title: The Indian Heroes: Mahabharata - The Princes of Elephant City Author: C. A. Kincaid Year: 1921

I like how there is a challenge for suiters to win the hand in marriage and that could be interesting to look into. Instead of having all five of the Pandavas brother's marry Drupada's daughter, I would only have Arjuna marry her since he is the one who won the contest. The part where Arjuna marries a sea nymph is cool and I like that he has to defeat an alligator which free's them from their cursed form. I could retell this part but have the sisters be something other than an alligator or maybe have them be mermaids instead of sea nymphs. I really liked this version of the Mahabharata more than the original.  The Little Mermaid and Her Sisters Title: The Indian Heroes: Mahabharata - The Princes of Elephant City Author: C. A. Kincaid Year: 1921

I am extremely happy with my progress so far. At the beginning of the semester I worked about a week ahead and it was nice because then I didn't have to worry about due dates, then I got sick and thankfully I didn't have to work on this class since I was a week ahead. I try to finish all of the assignments early so I can focus on getting ahead, just a little bit each week. This is why I'm working ahead now. My routine stays the same about each week, sometimes if I'm not feeling like doing work that day I don't and make time to do it the next. There isn't anything I want to change going forward. I'm doing well and not waiting until the last minute on anything. :) Motivation Meme

I really like all the feedback and comments I'm getting. They make me feel good about the content I'm posting and they're helpful as far as constructive criticism. I think I'm leaving good comments, probably not the most constructive, but I typically enjoy everything I read and don't have a lot of negative things to say about their stories unless it's a difficulty in understanding. I feel like all the blog comments are good because they're connecting all of us together between stories and our interactions. We're all getting to know one another through our stories and it's really fun. I think looking forward I'm gonna try to focus on giving more constructive feedback rather than just praises. I chose the image below because I thought it was really cute and it's true. Feedback Cat Meme

So far in the seven weeks I've been reading stories and retelling them in my own way it has been an interesting time. At first I was worried about how I would be able to come up with anything because I don't think of myself at creative at all. Granted, a lot of my posts have been easy and not super creative but they have still been fun for me to do. I've done fairytales and simple things like that but I have had fun with the creative process. I'm proud of what I have done so far and I can't wait to see what else I can do. Especially with the storybook process. My favorite reading has been the Ramayana, even though Rama really pissed me off at some points it was really intriguing. I think my biggest accomplishment has been just getting out of my comfort zone with writing and really trying to make my stories as good as they can be. Looking forward, I'm just gonna keep trying to get out of my comfort zone and start coming up with different kinds of stories. ...

On a gloomy afternoon, five brothers are wandering around, lost, in a forest.  Earlier that morning the brothers decided to go on a hike, but instead of walking the planned trail that was laid out for them by the forest rangers, they decided to blaze their own trail and just go wherever their sense of direction took them.  It turned out that the forest was much more vast than any of the brothers realized, and before they knew it they were very much lost. The map they brought with them was not any help because besides the trails already mapped out, it just showed a bunch of green so they  were unable to discern their location from the map.  Thankfully, the brothers were all experienced hikers so you would think they would have come prepared with plenty of food, water, and other equipment to build a fire just in case anything bad were to happen while they were out hiking. Normally they would have brought all of those essential item...

In the last part of the Mahabharata there wasn't anything that spoke to me to retell. I'm not big into war or battles where everyone is trying to kill each other so it is hard to connect with any of the stories. So I plan on retelling a story from Part C this week.  Brishma on Bed of Arrows Title: The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic Author: R. K. Narayan Year: 1978

I really liked the small part about the story of the lake. It reminded me of ghosts of Christmas past. I think it would be fun to retell this story, but have the brothers have to answer the questions going over a bridge or something similar and have them all take their exile somewhere different and crazy. There wasn't anything else I really connected to in the rest of part C.  Deathly Hallows Story Title: The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic Author: R. K. Narayan Year: 1978