Week 5 Reading Diary: Kunti and Her Son

I read the story about Kunti and her son, which is one of the stories in part A of the reading. The story was pretty short but it was filled with interesting details. It gave me a lot of new insight of how the author perceived these characters in his own way. I learned more about multiple characters such as Kunti, Vasudeva, Krishna, Vindhya and Surya. There were many more that were talked about but these were some of the important characters that I got out of the story. One of my favorites was Surya, the god of the sun. He was very interesting because he was a main character and Kunti one day had a dream about him. One of my favorites parts is when she had a vision about him and he drew nigh in the attire of the rajah wearing celestial earrings. To keep in short she basically had a vision of being a mother of his son named Karna. To conceal her newborn “babe” she placed soft sheets around him. This is one of my favorite parts because it introduces the main part of the story and it was very catchy to me. I like how the author gave detail about what was going on. I love seeing pictures in my head about the readings and if it does not create a picture in my head it really does not provide me with any motivation to keep reading. In this case, I could picture what was going on so therefore I kept reading and found this story to be very cool and interesting.

Surya

Link: Kunti and Her Son by Donald A. Mackenzie

Storytelling Week 4: The Indian Gods and Heroes: Rama and Sita

One day, when Rama and Sita were sitting together for some good quality time and talking about what they were going to do for the rest of the day. They were planning on going out to dinner together to a very fancy restaurant. Before they could continue talking about their romantic rest of the day, a woman approached them. What Sita did not know is that this lady was a sister of a very powerful king. This king was one of Rama longest enemies and he knew who this woman was. Sita was in the dark about this woman still, but that’s when Rama told Sita she needed to leave to talk this woman. This lady was Surpanakha and she began to beg for Rama to become her husband and Rama was not easily convinced. She then kept on pleading, knowing she was in the wrong. She told Rama that if they married he would become one of the most powerful leaders in the kingdom. He would be partners’ with Ravana and they could take over all the kingdoms if they were together but how could he agree to these teams with an enemy. This would destroy Sita if he left her after so many years together. He finally started to talk back and he knew his love for Sita was too strong to end even though the thought of so much power was very tempting. He told Surpanakha that he could not do this to Sita and that’s is when Sita returned and in jealousy, Surpanakha took out her sword and sliced Sita’s nose and ears. Rama in shock knew he could let anyone hurt his love and he took out his sword and had to end Surpanakha’s life. He knew what the aftermath would be by killing on of the most powerful King’s sister. An associate of Ravana saw everything happen and told Ravana. Ravana knew he had to get his revenge and sent fourteen of his most powerful men to slaw Rama, including Khara one of the greatest warriors in the kingdom. Rama’s adrenaline was still high and he fought one of the hardest battles of his life. Through many injuries he was able to take down all fourteen soldiers to save Sita’s life. He knew this was just the beginning to many battles he would after to fight for what he had done to Ravana. Rama and Sita knew they would also stick together no matter what kind of hardship would occur between them.

Author's Note: The original source is from the Indian Gods and Heroes but there is part in the story where Rama and Sita were with each other and then Surpanakha went up to Rama and tried to claim his love and then Raskshasi got mad and attack Sita by cutting her nose and ears and then Surpanakha went to get her brother Khara to come to the aid. Khara then sent 14 men and they all got slew by Rama. Then Surpanakha saw the battle and told her brother what happened therefore trying to get him to go slay Rama.

In this story, I wanted to make it a little romantic but filled with drama. I have some more ideas on how to work with this story but I like using the plot but also giving it a little twist by changing up the characters' role. I chose this story because I like the character Rama the stories he is involved in. I want the readers to be thinking throughout the story. I want them to be surprised by the endings and what is happening throughout the story.  

Biblography: Indian Gods and Heroes: Rama and Sita. W.D. Monro. 1911

Link: Storytelling Link

Rama's battle 

Week 4 Reading Diary: Rama and Sita

The stories about Rama and Sita are so interesting to me. I liked reading them so for this Diary Post I chose the Stories of Indian Gods and Heroes: Rama and Sita. I came to one of my favorite parts in the reading because it gave me some great story ideas. I find parts of the book where I think I can twist the story and put my on plot into it easier then others. In this story Rama was sitting with Sita and Surpanakha came up to Sita and has to marry her and then Rakshasi began to get mad and attacked Sita and cut her nose and ears but then Rama got his revenge. I thought this was a good idea for another post because it seems that I can make this go in many ways. Of course my favorite part was when Rama “slew them all”. Rama is my favorite character so far and he continues to be my favorite. I like how it then goes on to Khara and then many characters are introduced to the story. To me when you bring in more characters it makes for a more interesting story ideas. I personally like when the author presents more characters because it gives the plot more of a twist and it also gives the story a unique side of how the author thinks. The ending to the story or the transition is important and in this story it has a good ending for me to work with in my storytelling ideas. I am excited to work with this story more.

 W. D. Monro:Reading Diary Link

Great Picture of Rama and Sita

Week 3 Storytelling: Rama and the Plan

The mood starts off exciting and such a celebration for the king Ravana. As he is walking through his castle he is being cheered on by thousands of his supporters. He even has all the Gods you could think of working as his servants. The mood throughout the region is nervous because of Ravana and his awaited speech. The speech is very important for all of the people because he is revealing what he is going to do for his people throughout the castle. 

All of a sudden, Ravana’s sister comes running to him very disturbed. She is screaming very loudly and all of a sudden it gets the king's attention and he sees such an awful scene. Ravana look's to where this loud terrifying noice has occured and noticed Soorpanaka, the king's sisters, has been slashed on her face and she is badly hurt but this does not stop her from telling the king what happened. 

She is scared to tell him what happened because of the fear he might be mad but she goes on and tells Ravana that Rama is here. 

Ravana face becomes stone cold. He knows who she is talking about. He knows that it’s the only human that can defeat Ravana and all of his Rakshasas. He begins to panic but then Soorpanaka calms him down and says,"I have a plan, To create a trap for him and lead him into the castle and surround him." 

Rama has begun to get closer to the point of attack but what Ravana does not know is that Rama has put a curse on Soorpanaka. This curse is about to cost Ravana his life. The curse is so powerful that it makes Soorpanka lie to her own brother. This curse has filled her with the lie that can ruin Ravana's life. Rama has been a huge enemy of Ravana for many years because he wanted the power Ravana had to use it for good instead of evil.

The only way this curse works is if Sita is involved. Sita is in love with Rama and will do anything to help him. Sita has a power to put curses on people and give the ability to people to put curses on other people. She gained this ability when she was very young and has used it wisely since then. She gave the power to let Rama put this curse on Soorpanaka. If Sita was not with Rama he could not put this powerful curse on Soorpanaka. 

What Ravana does not know is that Rama and Sita have been sitting in the crowd, watching. Rama and Sita knew that once they put the curse on her they would have to follow her and watch her tell Ravana the lie. They got to the celebration by sneaking past some guards. While Rama and Sita sit back in the crowd of people listening to what is going on and looking at Ravana's expressions, Soorpanaka has told the lie and Ravana begins deliberations for this plan to go into effect. The lie was to trick Ravana into believing that his palace was on fire. They plan to take Ravana down and free the people of the region of his evil.

Ravana starts to put his men into place and that’s also when Rama and Sita get into their spots to take down Ravana. Ravana begins the plan but before he even knew it Sita comes from behind and shocks him with her beauty and then Rama starts to blind all of the Rakshasas and they capture Ravana and take him into the forest where the journey to Rama’s kingdom begins. Rama has decided to keep Ravana a prisoner until his fate catches up to him. He wants him to pay for what he has done to all of the people of the region. The region has been forced by Ravana to support him and his ideas. Rama will release this curse with the help of Sita and everyone will live free again. 

Rama releases this curse with the help of Sita, and when the people are free of the curse, they notice that their King is not really with Rama. Ravana knew about the plan all along because he knew Rama was jealous of his power and he had his guard up at all times to be ready for a trap. While getting his men into place he disguised a civilian like him to trick Rama. He knew his sister would never do such a thing to lie to him, so from then he knew what was going on. He always had a plan for a trap like this one and set a trap for Rama instead and put a disguise on someone to make Rama think it was him. Ravana's plan worked and a random civilian was with Rama and Rama had no idea what had happened but this will ultimately cost him maybe his life and Sita’s life. Rama will eventually find out when he gets back to his region and that is when Ravana will end Rama's brilliant plan and take his life. 

Ravana's plan is to take out Rama and Sita in their sleep on the way back to their region. Ravana knew everything going on while on the way back and knew exactly when to make his move to finally destroy his long time enemy.

Author's Note: I am going to talk about a section where Ravana was getting praised but then Soorpanka came screaming so loudly everyone had to know what was going on. She was running and crying saying, “Look what happened to me." She was badly hurt on her face and she revealed Rama had done this to her. She then started talking about how strong he was and how beautiful Sita was. Then she was saying how "Sita should be your woman and I will take care of Rama" but she also got Ravana so caught up on Sita that he had to know more about her and began to think he had to have her for his own. Soorpanaka ultimately came up with a plan to separate Rama and Sita and that way they could be defeated. In my story I made Rama think he confused Ravana into falling into his trap but he did not know that Ravana knew about this trap all along and was prepared to take all of the necessary actions to stay alive. Ravana created a plan to disguise a civilian as him and make Rama believe it was really him in order to later on take Rama by surprise and be able to kill him.

I decided to stay choose to the plot but I wanted to change what the characters did in the story and I tried to make it more interesting and make the reader think about what might happen next. I decided to chose this image because I thought it best represented my story and I chose this story because I was very interested when I was reading about it and thought it was a great story I could work with.



Bibliography: R.K. Narayan, The Ramayana, 1972. Ramayana.

Rama and Sita Source: Hostelworld

Week 3 Reading Diary: Continued The Ramayana

The Part D section in my opinion is the most exciting part of the book because of the Rama and Ravana battle. The most intriguing part of these types of stories is what is leading up to them. I like reading the details that the author provides leading up to the climax, which I thought was the battle between them. I will start by talking about my favorite part leading up to the fight which is when the author talks about Ravana being surrounded by all the Gods and everyone is throwing flowers around him. Everyone is celebrating see a man that has taken all of the Gods and begin using them for simple tasks. I thought how he worded this section created another picture in my head about what is going on. The author does a create job of doing that in this class which makes me even more interested in reading more. I really like how he used Soorpanaka to make this part become more intense. This detail of how Rama slashed her means that he is getting close but it also seems like Soorpanaka was getting his Ravana head by telling him about Sita and her beauty. If I did not read the rest of this section the reader could take it two ways one which I just said but the other that Ravana should be getting worried that Rama is getting so close to him. This creates the reader to think about what is going to happen next and for me that is important to do for these types of stories. It creates the climax to be even more dramatic when the author can build up to it.

Author: R.K. Narayan Link: iBooks

The battle