Storytelling for Week 10: Never Question a Woman

Once upon a time there was a king. This king went by the name of Shantanu and was a Kuru king of Hastinapura. One day Shantanu was standing along the banks of a beautiful river just admiring the scenery. As he walked along the shore of what is known as the Ganges River, something magical seemed to have happen. Shantanu thinks to himself, "My oh my, is that a beautiful woman coming my way", being all flustered. A beautiful woman appeared before his eyes. The woman took his breath away and it was love at first sight for the two. Shantanu, without knowing the woman's true identity, asked her for her hand in marriage. The woman's response was quite unexpected to Shantanu as she said, "I will give you my hand in marriage as long as you vow to never questions my actions, for they all serve a purpose". Shantanu willingly accepted that answer, and off they went. Later after getting married, the couple had a beautiful son together. One day while along the banks of the river, Shantanu turned around and saw his wife drowning their child. His initial reaction was pure shock, "Nooo, what have you done! My beloved child!", he screamed in his head, but remembered that he had vowed to never question her actions. He distraught by the sight of this, and he was even more distraught by the fact that he was not able to question his wife about her action. Time goes on and Shantanu slowly begins to forget about the incident, and they end up having another child! When he finds out of the news Shantanu cheers with excited and exclaims, "All I want in life is to have my name be carried on by a beloved son of min!". After the child had been born, the same incident occurs. He turns around to watch his own wife drown his own child in the river. This continues to happen, until she had eventually ended up drowning seven of her babies. By their eighth child, Shantanu can not longer take it. She begins the motion of drowning the eighth child, when Shantanu abruptly stops her. "NO, please don't drown another one of my beloved children. I am desperate for a child! Why, oh why, must you drown all of our children, I do not understand!", he says in a fury. Even though this had broken the vow that Shantanu had once made to his wife, she explains to him. My dear husband, "Our eight children were the Eight Vasus who were cursed by Vasishtha to be born on earth as humans. However, he limited the curse and said that they would be free from the curse within a year of their life. So, I released each of them in order to return them to heaven". Ganga then leaves Santanu alone and devastated as she takes the child with her and submerges into the waters. He is left with nothing, and does not know if he will ever see his beloved wife or child again.

Image Information: Shantanu rushes to stop Ganga. Wikimedia

Author's Note: I decided to retell the story of Ganga drowning her children in the river, because I was really intrigued by this story. For my storybook, I wrote about the Ganges river, and I had actually read about this story before our assigned reading, so I knew I had wanted to do a storytelling post about it. I wanted to add a little bit of dialogue and inner thoughts to what Shantanu might have been thinking, and to kind of retell the story in my own way, but keeping to the same storyline.

Narayan, R.K. (1978). The Mahabharata.

Week 10: Reading Diary A - The Suspense of the Battle

Reading Diary Pg. 85-131

• The gods send a gandharva to provoke Duryodhana.
• A battle breaks out and the gandharvas take Duryodhana captive, but he later gets freed by the Pandavas.
• Duryodhana's original plan to humiliate the Pandavas had completely backfired. 
• In the forest, the Pandavas are approached by a brahmin. He comes to them desperate because a giant deer has stolen his equipment that he uses to make fires. 
• The Pandavas chase after the deer in attempt to catch it, but fail. 
• As they are walking back, Nakula finds a lake and wants to drink because he is thirsty. 
• A voice arises from the lake telling him that he must answer a series of questions before he is allowed to drink out of the lake. 
• He ignores the voice and drinks out of the lake water anyways. This kills him instantly.
• Sahadeva, Arjuna, and Bhima also drank out of the lake without acknowledging the voice and ended up dieing as well. 
• This ended up being a test by their father, who is the God of death. 
• The brothers are brought back to life, and are sentenced to exile. On their thirteenth year of exile they received the gift of unrecognizability.
• They spend twelve years of exile in the forest and then are disguised during the thirteenth year.
• Draupadi is raped by Kichaka, so Bhima squeezes him to death.
• The story of Kichaka raises suspicion in Duryodhana's eyes. Susharman takes king Virata prisoner, but is backfires as Bhima rescues him and then captures Susharman. 
• Susharman, one of Duryodhana's sidekicks shows excitement when he hears of his death, and suggests that they attack Vitrata and steal his cattle.
• Prince Uttara, the son of Virata, hears the news of the cattle raid and take his charioteer. He ends up being terrified as they approached the enemy and then runs away. He is told to drive the chariot so that he can fight instead. 
• In a moment of anger, Virata throws dice as Yudhishthira and draws his blood 
• Uttara and Abhimanyu get married. 
• Krishna and Balarama attend the wedding and send a messenger to ask Duryodhana if half of the kingdom could be given to Pandavas. 
• Satyaki urges that everyone prepare for war. Both of the pandavas and Duryodhana are recruiting allies for the upcoming war. I have a sense that they are really nervous for this war or battle to break out. 
• The Pandavas end up making another bid for peace, asking that they all be given five villages and in turn the war can be avoided. 
• Duryodhana wants to accept the offer but when the time comes he cannot resist his will.

Week 9: Famous Last Words

I'm not going to lie, this week has been a tough one! Coming back from OU/TX, I had a slow start with all of my homework and assignments this week. Thankfully, for extra credit I can catch up on my points from missed assignments! One of the reasons why I love this class so much is because there is a lot of freedom to do what you want with your blog. It is also so exciting to me when I see page views and comments on my blog and knowing that people are actually reading what I am writing! I love that there are only the basic criteria for the blog posts, and the rest is up to our creativity. This class has really helped me to expand my mind, and bring out the more creative side of me. Since I am majoring in the health field, I don't have to do much writing for my classes, so this class has definitely helped me work on my writing and grammar skills. Looking back on all of the work we have done this semester, it is really cool to look at the progress made with each week and to see our blogs and storybooks change, grow, and become better! Even though this week was a tough one for me, I definitely plan to get back on schedule next week and work harder! I am really excited for this weekend because it is finally the homecoming game! We get to walk with our float in the homecoming parade before the game, which is always one of my favorite things to do! I love getting to see all of the different floats each year, it just amazes me what people can actually do with some paper and some wire! The homecoming pep rally is friday night, which is also always a blast! Even though we are cheering for our specific houses or groups to win the competition, we are all ultimately one and are rooting for the same team! BOOMER SOONER!

Image Information: Personal Photo: Alpha Chi Omega, Sigma Chi, and Kappa Sigma's homecoming board

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Here is the video of a Salsa Dancing Dog, enjoy!

Week 9: Reading Diary A - The Mahabharata

Reading Diary Pg. 1-39
Mahabharata by R.K. Narayan

• Shantanu is a Kuru king of the city of Hastinapura. He is a descendent of the Bharata race and the lunar dynasty. He is the youngest son of King Pratipa. Each of this siblings had gone down a different path and Shantanu just happened to become the king of Hastinapura by default. 
• Shantanu falls in love with a woman, who ends up being Ganga of the Ganges river. He asks her to marry him and he agrees under one condition, that he never questions her actions. He agrees, and they soon wed. 
• Time goes on and they soon have babies. Shantanu still does not know that the woman he has married is Ganga. She then drowns their newborn babies each in the river. Although Shantanu agreed never to question his wife's actions, he protests her against drowning their eighth child. This is when she tells him that she is the river Ganga.
• The story goes, that she is the river Ganga, and was incarnated into her present form in order give birth to eight gods. These eight gods would go by the name of the vasus, who are being punished with a human incarnation for stealing Vasistha's cow. By drowning the babies, they return to heaven. 
• She disappears into the river with the eighth child and later returns him to his father when he is fully grown. His name is Bhishma. 
• Since his wife has been gone, he eventually falls in love with another woman by the name of Satyavati. They later get married, and have two sons of their own - Chitrangada and Vichitravirya. 
• Chitrangada becomes king, but dies soon after. Bhishma then takes over and ruled as regent for Vichitravirya. 
• The king of the kingdom next door holds a swayamvara for his daughters: Amba, Ambika, and Ambalika. Both Ambika and Ambalika marry Vichitravirya. He later dies before ever having the chance to be a father. Satyavati begs Bhisma to take over and help his daughters to have children. He refuses because he took a vow of celibacy. They decide that the widows will bear children with Satayavi's son, Vyasa. 
• Ambika is terrified when she looks at Vyasa, because he is so ugly. She sleeps with him with her eyes shut, so their child is born blind. His name is Dhritarashtra. 
• Ambalika turns pale when she sees Vyasa, and therefore their child is born very pale. His names is Pandu.
• One of Ambalika's servants sleeps with Vyasa, and she reacts very positively her him. She bears a flawless child.
• Dhritarashtra marries Gandhari. She covers her eyes to share her husband's blindness
• Pandu has two wives, Kunti and Madri, but cannot have children
• Kunti has a mantra for obtaining sons from the gods. She conceives a child named Karna. 

Week 8: Reading Diary Self-Assessment

Going back and reading through the instructions of the reading diaries, I have realized that I have drifted a bit from what the reading diaries are supposed to be. I have been writing my reading diary based on the main ideas and summaries of the chapters, while the point of the diary is to reflect on how you feel about the readings and what stands out to you the most, as well as character development. For my reading diaries, I have pretty much had a different strategy for each post. One week I will pick a couple main characters and write about them, while other weeks I will write what stands out to me from each chapter, and others I will simply write bullet points for what happens in the readings as I go. I haven't really found a strategy that I like best yet, I just kind of see how I feel about it each week and choose. Typically, my diaries are around the same length each time since all of the readings are about the same length. Sometimes I will put in my favorite quotes or what stood out to me the most in each reading. I did that more so in the beginning of the semester than I do now, but I definitely want to start doing that again. I do not add images into my diary posts, which I also think is something that I want to change. I think adding in an image would really summarize and put the diary to life. I would definitely say that I remember the readings better in this class since I am not being tested over it. I feel like I can just enjoy the readings and reflect on what I think about it, without having to worry about what I think may or may not be on a test or having to remember technical things. Overall, I would say that I am doing pretty good with the reading assignments. I haven't missed one yet, so I feel caught up on everything. One thing I do find myself doing sometimes is skimming through some of the chapters. I do need to work on more detail and really reading into the stories and reflecting on that rather than main ideas or summaries.

Storytelling for Week 7 - Should I Tell Him, or Should I Not?

To bide by my brother's side or to do what is right? This is the question that I am dealing with at the moment, and it is weighing heavy on my heart. I know that one should never turn their back on their family, but I also know that my brother is in the wrong here. My brother, Ravana, has taken Lord Rama's wife, Sita, and has held her hostage with the hopes that she will fall for him and give in to be his wife. Poor Rama has been searching for his loved one for what seems like eternity, and Ravana is trying every way to lure those around him into killing him. I must now stand my ground. I need to demand Ravana to return Sita to her husband, Lord Rama. If he does not do so, I will have to take matters into my own hands.

"Ravana, I must have a word with you."

"Yes, my brother, what is it that you want?"

"Ravana, you must return Sita. Her poor husband has been searching for her ruthlessly. It is not right of a man to take another man's wife."

"I will not. She will learn to love me and Rama no longer!"

Well, I guess there is no reasoning with my stubborn brother. I must go make things right on my own. I will seek out Lord Rama and go from there. As I make my way through the forest, I start pondering on whether or not I am doing to right thing. What information should I give to Rama, should I tell him all of our secrets and treasure or should I turn back around and head back to Lanka. This is a true test to my character, and I do not not if I should stay loyal to my own brother or stay loyal to what I know to be the right thing to do. Stealing another man's wife has always been the ultimate crime, so I must do something about it. I finally find Rama and his entourage and could tell they were skeptical of me at first. I want to assure them that I mean to harm, and am only here to help.

"Lord Rama, I am here to help you. I know what my brother, Ravana, has done is wrong, and I want to make it right."

"Come, I believe your sincerity. If you help us, I will assure you will become king."

"I am willing to tell you of the secret treasures of Lanka, but I will not assist in attacking my own brother. With that being said, I am rooting for your success."

Image Information: Vibhishana as King. Wikipedia

Author's Note: I choose to tell a story of the inner thoughts and struggles that Vibhishana may have had when he decided to tell Rama of the secret treasures of Lanka. I wanted to retell this story in a way that would be the thoughts that someone today might have with the struggle between not wanting to betray a loved one but knowing what the right thing to do is.

Buck, William. (1976). Ramayana: King Rama's Way.

Week 7: Reading Diary B - The Exile Comes to an End

Reading Diary Pg. 374-432
The Ramayana by William Buck

• Vibhishana offers Rama to use a Pushpaka for his journey to return back home. A pushpaka is a flying chariot. Vibhishana offered this to Rama in order to help him return home in time for Bharata to see that he has come back, and does not kill himself as he had vowed to if Rama had not come back at the end of his exile. 
• On their way back home on the pushpaka, Rama stops to show where they buried Jatayu. Rama sends Hanuman home to Ayodhya ahead of them to tell his brother, Bharata, the news that they are on their way to returning from exile. Bharata cries tears of joy!!
• The time has come where Rama finally returns home to Ayodhya. Presents and gifts are being thrown at Rama, as the town is so excited to have him and to have him serve as their king.
• As time goes by, thousands and thousands of years actually. Sita becomes pregnant. 
• This creates gossip among the people that Rama serves. They are appalled that he has allowed Sita back into his home after being with another man, Ravana, even though she has proven her innocence.
• Thinking of this, I feel like it represents the thoughts and actions of a much earlier time period than today's modern views. Even though she had proven her innocence, just the fact that she was in the presence of another man is enough to send her into exile. 
• Rama demands that his brother, Lakshmana, take Sita down the Ganges river and abandon her, leaving her in alone and in exile. She is still pregnant.
• Vibhishana is aware that Sita is in danger and is in need of help, so he ensures that Valmiki will rescue her in her time of need.
• This goes back to the beginning of the book, where it first started telling the story of Sita being dropped off along the river and wandering herself. Valmiki comes to her rescue (causing him to finally come out from under his anthill) and invites her into his hermitage with welcome arms. 
• Not too long after, she gives birth to two sons, Kusha and Lava.
• Kush and Lava grow up being told of the story of Rama, their dad, from Valmiki, without knowing that Rama is in fact their dad. They learn the story backwards and forwards, and grow up really looking up to Rama as a role model figure. 
• I find this ironic because they almost look up to Rama in place of a father figure, when he is in fact their father.
• Kush and Lava eventually are told that Rama is their dad. Sita feared that they would resent him, but they actually took it really well and continue to look up to him.
• Rama held a big festival in the forest that lasts for a year. Kusha and Lava sing each day, and Rama eventually realizes they are his sons.
• Kala, Time, comes to Ayodhya in disguise as a hermit and demands a meeting with Rama. He announces that anyone who disturbs their meeting will have to die. In the midst of the meeting, Lakshmana walks in, and therefore must die. 
• The book ends with Lakshmana going to the Saraya River to die.

Week 7: Reading Diary A - Sita's Return

Reading Diary pg. 325-373
The Ramayana by William Buck

• The fight to get Sita back still continues at this point in the book
• Hanuman and Sugriva kill Ravana's magicians, Lightning Tongue and Thunder Tooth. They were fighting with Jambavan in order to keep him from killing other demons, but they ended up being killed by Hanuman and Sugriva. 
• There is a feeling of despair among Lanka. I feel like this may be so because of the many losses this town has recently experienced. Shuka makes the feelings throughout the town known to Ravana.
• In the midst of all of this drama, Mandori exclaims her love to Ravana. 
• Ravana gets into a bit of a scuffle with the time god, Kala, but brushes it off his shoulder, because he feels as if he is invincible
• This stands out to me because it seems as if Ravana is quickly losing more and more of his troops and that he should be feelings pretty insecure and worried at this point. 
• Rama and Ravana finally go into battle. I feel like there was a lot of suspense coming up to this point, and now they are finally able to meet face to face and determine who is the better god
• The battle is a tough one. Rama repeatedly cuts off Ravana's heads, but they grow back every time. Ravana disguises as Indra, which catches Rama off god, but Matali is able to see right through it and keep Rama on the right track 
• Ravana may be in a state of weakness at this point because he is thinking Rama will fall for this trick, and might not be quite as on guard.
• Rama is finally able to kill Ravana for good
• Once Ravana is dead, Shuka delivers a note from Ravana to Rama. This does not happen in the other version of the Ramayana, so I like reading something that was unique to Buck's version.  
• Vibhishana becomes the new king of Lanka. 
• Hanuman is sent to tell Sita of the news of the victory
• Rama and Sita are able to reunite for the first time. The fire god, Agni, is able to prove Sita's loyalty to Rama.
• The time has come where Rama's exile is nearing its end. He is rushed for time to make it back to Ayodhya in time, so that his brother, Bharata, doesn't kill himself as he previously vowed he would do if Rama had not returned by the time his exile had ended.

Storytelling for Week 6 - Hanuman the Great!

"Oh my dear friend Rama, we must somehow make it across this ocean in order to get to Lanka and save your true love, Sita!", Hanuman exclaims to Rama. Rama, with a look of concern of his face, replies, "I am aware, Hanuman. We must find a way to send one of us over to Lanka to solidify that she is there and alive. Lets have a vote." As Rama's entourage gathers together, Rama explains that there needs to be a vote to determine who, that are capable, to cross the ocean and make it to Lanka to find Sita. Unanimously, Hanuman was voted to take on this challenge because of his monkey-like jumping skills. Afterall, he was in the form of a monkey. Hanuman was flattered, yet nervous. He had never made a jump like this in all of his life. He thought to himself, "This will be the ultimate challenge for me. I must use all of my strength and might to get over this ocean". Everyone had faith in him, and knew that if anyone could do it, it was Hanuman. Rama, especially, was encouraging towards Hanuma, and had little doubt that he could pull this off. After some training time, the day finally came, where Hanuman would make the great jump. He took a magnificent running start, starting from miles back, and jumped with all of his might! So many thoughts were running through his mind as he began this jump, "I don't know if I can do this. I'm not sure if I can live up to my requests.", "I shouldn't be doubting myself, I am Hanuman the great, and I can do anything I set my mind to!". The adrenaline kicked into full gear and Hanuman took off with unrelentless speed and strength. Rama and the rest of the team stood under to watch the attempted jump in awe, it was unlike anything they had ever seen before. As Hanuman made it across the ocean, it was smooth sailing for the most part, but there were some rough spots as well. He became tired and fatigued at one point. He thought he might not make it, and started to have doubts about himself. As he was going down, down, down, something magical happened. A mountain grew up from under the deep ocean waters, giving him a peak to land on. These mountains were named the Mainaka, and ultimately saved Hanuman's life. He was able to catch a good rest before setting off to finish his quest. He took another massive leap and began to make his way across the ocean. He was nearing Lanka, as he could see the lights of the town, when all of a sudden things went black immediately. He had a quick moment of panic. Hanuman had no idea where he was or what had happened. He ultimately realized that he had been swallowed by a sea demon. This makes Hanuman angry, so he retaliates by destroying the demon's heart and smoothly escaping through his ear! He had never been so happy to see daylight in his life. He was becoming closer and closer to shore, and before he knew it his feet were on the ground. Hanuman felt so accomplished and proud of himself. He had completed his task, and knew that Rama and the others would be so proud. After his quick moment of glory, he made the decision to turn into the form of a cat in order to more easily prowl the city. Hanuman does this successfully, and makes his way towards Sita.

Image Information: Hanuman Leaps to Lanka Updownload

Author's Note: I decided to tell the story of Hanuman leaping over the ocean to Lanka, because I wanted to show some of the thoughts that he might have had before, during, and after he made the jump. I wanted to add an emphasis of heroism to his character, and add a little bit different background. I thought this made the story light and simple. 

Buck, William. (1976). Ramayana: King Rama's Way.