From Here To India- My Epics of India Course Blog

Today I learned while revising my Introduction for my storybook that I can imbed videos!

      For my story lab this week I decided to watch the Crash Course mythology videos. The first video was entitled "What is Myth?".  I thought it was very interesting when it opened by talking about how myth involves things like psychology and science. It also talked about how there are different versions of myth, which I had learned about in my Classical Mythology course. For instance, just about everyone has a version of a great flood! It's also open to interpretations. Another interesting thing he mentioned was that in some cases, the line between myth and religion is blurry. The Bible has a version of the great flood story, and that book is a part of one of today's most wide-spread religions, Christianity. Towards the end of the video he defines myth for us and says that myth "Is a story, but a special kind of story, that has two primary characteristics: significance and staying power." I really like that definition of myth, and I think it's very re...

     I really liked how the story between Bhima and Hidimbi ended happily, so I wanted to focus my notes on this one.      After the Pandavas escaped the wooden castle that was set aflame, Bhima carried his mother and everyone else through the forest. Eventually they found a place to rest for the night. While everyone slept except Bhima, the rakshasa names Hidimba smelled them and sent his sister, Hidimbi to the group to bring the people to him. However, when Hidimba raced there and laid eyes upon Bhima, she fell in love with him and wanted him to be her husband. So she transformed into a beautiful woman and asked him to be with her. She offered to help take everyone on her back so that they all could escape Hidimba if only Bhima would marry her. Bhima refused, saying that he could easily carry them, but they needed sleep.      Now Hidimba at this point was impatient, so he went to them. He then wanted to kill his sister for betraying him...

     The part of the story I wanted to focus on for Part A was the story about Bhima and the Nagas. This is a pretty short portion of the story but it captures my attention.      Duryodhana was jealous of Bhima, and decided that he wanted Bhima dead. He poisoned Bhima's food one day, and Bhima fell asleep. While this happened, Duryodhana tied up Bhima and tossed him into the Ganges river.      As he sank, fierce snakes called Nagas attacked Bhima, but somehow the poison of the Nagas counteracted the poison Bhima had already swallowed from his food, so he woke up. Bhima broke his bonds and scattered the nagas. The Nagas attacking Bhima      It turned out that Bhima had sunk down to the city of serpents. The king of the nagas, Vasuki, desired to meet this great hero. Aryaka, great-grandsire of Kunti, met Bhima, and desired that Bhima should be given a draught of strength. Bhima drank from it and and fell into a slumbe...

Sydney Australia "I don't believe this," I told my husband, Ryan. We had just finished eating a lovely meal in our Sydney apartment. I had prepared a great spaghetti dish like my mother makes, complete with a loaf of French Bread and a chocolate cake for dessert. My husband and I had just cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher when Ryan had asked me to sit down with him on our couch so we could talk.  That's when he told me he wanted a divorce. "After all we've been through together? I've always been faithful to you, loved you and supported you through all our ups and downs. I moved across the planet for you, for your new job for Christ sake!", my voice beginning to rise as spoke. Shock was quickly giving way to feelings of betrayal. "Exactly," Ryan replied. His blue eyes were downcast in guilt, dark hair falling in front of his face slightly. "It's not fair to you. You do so much for me, I could never h...

     Here's my notes on the continuation of the film Sita Sings the Blues. After the intermission, we go to New York City. This is when Nina discovers that Dave has broken up with her. In an email . We see her feelings portrayed on screen.      We go back to the story of Rama and Sita, and Sita tells Rama that she is pregnant. Some think that Sita was unfaithful to Rama, like the dhobi. Therefore Rama banishes Sita because it casts doubt upon his reputation. We get Sita singing the blues again, now heavily pregnant. Laksmhan, drives poor Sita away and leaves her there. I feel terrible for her. We get a shot of Nina in a small and terrible apartment in Brooklyn.      The narrators talk about how Sita is rescued by Valmiki. We get another song from Sita. Sita gives birth to twin sons Lava and Kusha, who are taught by Valmiki. Meanwhile Sita longs for Rama. Nina asks Dave to take her back.      Eventually Rama comes across h...

     The film opens with Lakshmi rising from the sea with a phonograph. I laughed at the part where the song got stuck and Lakshmi stopped dancing. After a really cool intro to the film, it opens in San Francisco where Nina and Dave live with their cat. In a particularly funny clip, the cat bounces on Nina's head until Nina gets up to feed the cat.      We then start on the story of Ramayana. I love the narrators, their commentary is hilarious. They talk about how Rama is bansihed and then Sita comes with him. You get to see a wonderful musical number where Sita and Rama are off killing things in the forest. After a bit it goes to the part where Shripanuka gets Rama to take Sita for himself. The trick takes place and Ravana kindaps Sita. Sita is able to help everyone know where she's gone because she drops her jewels in the forest.      Hanuman finds Rama, who is distressed. Hanuman goes to find Sita at Lanka.We then get another modern cl...

Here is the plan for my storybook so far! Sources that I think will be useful: Pashupatastra Trishula Pinaka These are all Wiki articles. I am open to suggestions on other weapons that I can talk about! Ideas for Episodes: Episode 1: The Hunt for the Supernatural Death Star       As I said in my Topic Research post, I had the idea for this episode that the original trio, Luke, Leia, and Han would discover the existence of this weapon and that the Empire is looking for it. It's a race against the clock to find this powerful weapon before Vader, the Emperor's right-hand man, finds it first. Episode 2: A Return to an Old Planet      For this one, I couldn't think of a good story at first, but then I thought "What if Luke, Leia, and Han return to a planet that they'd visited before?" They could visit Tatooine or Hoth, much to the protest of Luke and Han, who believe that there's nothing of value on those planets.  Episode 3: A ...

Please feel free to leave your comments about my project here! Thank you! Funko Pop of Luke on Endor Link to my Storybook: Weapons in Star Wars

      For my Lab assignment this week I watched two videos, The Danger of a Single Story and Imaginary Friends and Real -World Consequences.      I really love the video about the Danger of a Single Story. I thought it was really eye-opening because in many ways I do allow a single story to become the only story. She made some very applicable examples. She talked about the images that were fed to us about Africa, images that I'd seen so many times. The example about Mexico was very personal to me, because I had planned to take a study abroad trip to Puebla for Spanish courses and my father managed to talk me out of it because he believed in the single story that terrible things happen to Americans there. We need to remember that stereotypes are not the full story and we need to keep an open mind.      Imaginary Friends and Real-World Consequences was also a great and interesting Ted Talk. As a huge Harry Potter fan, I was shocked when ...

    One story that really stood out to me was the story of the Battle of Rama and Ravana. It was an intense story that held my attention.      The story opens with Matali coming down on a chariot, offering to be Rama's charioteer. Agastya comes and offers advice to Rama about how to defeat Ravana. In order to defeat Ravana, Rama should hymm the sun. He then purified himself in the waters.    By this time Ravana was awake again and angry, and came back to Rama to fight him. Rama turns to fight him. The story describes the fight as two flaming lions fighting each other, which immediately put into my mind the image of Simba and Scar fighting in the animated version of the Lion King. Simba and Scar Fight, From Flickr.      The page ends with Rama trying to kill Ravana, cutting off head after head, but the heads of Ravana keep growing back. (Eventually Ravana is slain).      Overall I thought this was a really cool...

     I chose to shorten my notes down this time and chose a part of the story that caught my eye. I really liked the story of Sampati and Jatayu, because it reminds me of the story of Icarus and how he flew too close to the sun.      The story starts out with the two vulture brothers, Sampati and Jatayu, growing up together in the nest. As they grew, the nest started becoming much to small for them, so small in fact that they could hear and feel each others hearts beat because they were so close together. Eventually they longed to fly in the winds. So they did.     Unfortunately, the midday sun looked to them and Jatayu fainted, so great was the heat. Poor Sampati, wanting to help his brother as he fell, spread his wings and as he did so the sun burned them. Sampati fell, unable to fly and in a lot of pain.      He went to the cave of Saint Nishakara and asked why he wasn't allowed to die, because he was unable to fly and stil...

     When I first read these articles, I realized that I have been giving feedback wrong for probably most of my life. These articles, and the feedback gallery, opened my eyes on this oversight, and also gave me ideas of more helpful feedback that I can give going forward.      The first article that I read was The Difference Between Praise and Feedback . It opened my eyes to the fact that praise tends to put people into a fixed mindset, and that if we want to get others into the growth mindset, then we need to be able to provide feedback.      The second article I read was 5 Reasons to Stop Saying Good Job . I enjoyed this one, because it offered some reasons about why we shouldn't simply just tell people "Good Job!". It makes us more dependent on that person for praise, even our self worth.      Overall I think these were very useful articles, because it pointed out to me an area where I can grow as a person. My parents...

     So for the first topic I came up with that I wanted to research, I decided to look at Weapons within Star Wars. There are a lot of weapons within Indian Epics, so to combine that with Star Wars would be an interesting idea. I have three possible weapons that can be integrated into my story.      1.)  Pashupatastra      This is an ancient and powerful weapon of Shiva. This weapon is given to Arjuna in an interesting weapons-quest story which can be found here.  I'm thinking that if I choose this topic for my final project, I will have my main characters, Han, Luke and Leia go after the weapon on a little weapons quest themselves, so the broad theme of the story (a weapons quest) and the weapon itself will be what I use for my story, but the specifics I will come up with myself.     2.) Trishula      Another of Shiva's extremely powerful weapons, when I read the description of this, it...

The Mighty Lion      Once there was a mighty lion named Rakashma, and he lived as a prince in the jungle. Now this lion was strong and mighty, so few dared to challenge him. One day, he came across the most beautiful lioness in all of the jungle, she was a princess of a neighboring land. He knew the moment he laid his eyes upon her that he wanted her to be his queen. This lioness was named Sataria.  Sataria the Lioness       He went to her father, the mighty king Makata, in hopes that he might have ask the king for his daughters hand in marriage. When Rakashma introduced himself and asked if he could marry Sataria, the king pondered the request for a moment.     King Makata      "You may do this," the King replied, "if you can successfully complete the challenge. In order to win the right to marry Sataria, you must pass the test of taking down The Great Elephant, who resides in the lands near here. I...

     In this portion of the story, we pick up after the death of Dasharatha. Word is sent to Bharata, who comes back home and finds out that his father has died and Rama has been exiled. Bharata gets angry at his mother for doing this, and she flees in terror. Baharata also proclaims that he will destroy Manthara, because she is the source of all their woes.     After grieving and performing the funeral rites for his father, Baharata decides to go to the woods and find Rama. He attempts to convince Rama to come back, but Rama refuses. Rama says that even though his father is dead, he must obey his command and stay in the woods for the fourteen years. Since he could not pursuade his brother to return, Baharata asked Rama to put on a pair of sandals, Rama did so and then returned them. Baharata stated that he would live as a devotee and guard the throne in Rama's place until the 14 years were over. The sandals became a symbol of Rama's power, and one interesting...

     After reading part one of the Ramayana, I found I enjoyed it. The story begins with Dasharatha, a King who wanted sons. So he performed rites for many years and was finally blessed with four sons.The eldest is Rama, and the first part of the Ramayana focuses mostly on his adventures. Rama is an avatar of Vishnu, and he meets Vishvamitra, who requests Rama to accompany him on a dangerous mission.      They come across the terrible Thataka, and Rama, operating by sound alone since she turned invisible, killed her with his bow. Upon her death, Rama is granted powerful celestial weapons. Visvamitra led Rama and his brother Lakshmana (who had been accompanying him) to his hermitage. There Rama and his brother were attacked by Maricha, the son of Thataka. Rama used his powerful weapons to defeat him, thought Maticha escaped with his life. Afterwards everyone rejoiced and Visvamitra told Rama a few stories. One was about Ganga, which became the Ganges riv...