Reading Notes: Mahabharata

One part that seemed really cool in beginning Part A of the Mahabharata was the fact that Ganesha would only write it from dictation if hi pen couldn't stop during the entire time of its telling. Sometimes, I found myself having to stop and look up words (or people), for example, asceticism (which is the avoidancce of any indulgence ). I liked the story where Satyavati was raised by the fisherman's wife and smelled like fish due to a sort of curse. I also really liked the part where she was allowed to lose her fish smell if she saved herself for the person she met on the river. The part when she gives birth to Vyasa but he leaves her is another favorite part of mine. As he leaves, he tells Satyavati that anytime she needs help, all she has to do is think of him and he will be there.

Another story that caught my imagination was the part with Shatanu and Ganga. He see Ganga in human form and immediately falls in love with her. She agrees to marry him as long as he promises to never question her. They get married and she gives birth to their first child. However, Ganga throws her new son into the river. She does this 7 times to her and Shatanu’s children, and he breaks the promise he made when they agreed to marry—he questions her actions. She leaves, but later comes back and tells him why she threw them into the river. (Which is still unclear to me, besides the fact that they are supposedly “the vasus”. When she comes back to tell him this, she brings Shatanu her last child named Devavrata.

Ganga trying to drown last child, Wikipedia 

I also liked the story where Shiva tells Amba to slay Bhishma but she questions him because she is a woman and thinks she can’t fight. I think it’s interesting that she had to change form (into a man) in order to fight Bhishma. Couldn’t she do it as a woman?

The last story that I want to write about is Kunti and her son. She gives birth to her son (whose father is the sun god) and sets him in a basket on the river. He is protected and eventually found by Adhiratha and Radha, who adopt the baby. It is similar to a biblical story where Jochebed sends her baby boy, Moses, down the river to protect him from the killings of baby boys. He is also found (by the Egyptian royal family) and adopted.  

Bibliography: PDE Mahabharata

Feedback Focus

Some of the techniques turned out better than the others. I'd rank them in terms of usefulness as:

1. Copy and Delete

2. Reading out loud

3. using a timer

Copy and delete is good because it requires you to actively pay attention since you have to write notes after every paragraph. It forces you to look at writing style, as well as plot details. I realized that I naturally do a variation of this strategy when going through stories each week. Before reading about this technique, I would normally write notes as ideas or questions came to me. Copy and Delete is therefore a more organized version of what I'm used to doing. 

Reading out loud was less helpful than copy and delete because it didn't necessarily prompt you to think about the details as you're going through them. However, it was nice to hear it out loud, especially since I work best when information is read out loud to me. It was like having an audio book (well, except that I'm the one who is reading it). 

Using a timer set for 10 minutes is a good idea in theory, especially because these days people seem to try to be doing ten things at once. So limiting yourself to one task for a specified amount of time is ideal for studying. However, I found that this technique had too little structure for me. In the future, I'll probably continue using my technique of reading and simultaneously jotting down ideas and comments as I read. 

Source: Wikipedia

My favorite story to read was the one with the King and his bird. I like hearing about how sometimes animals have better senses than humans, and they have their own ways of communicating that to us. Like how they are sensitive to changes in atmospheric pressure, and therefore can sense storms. The King's bird's final act before dying was saving his master from the poison, which was both sad and uplifting. 

Story: Midnight at Perry's

It was 10 PM, and Devon had just set out the last of the coffee pots at Perry’s Convenience Store. He glanced up at the cameras he’d installed and tested out the new doorbell he had created for the store. Looked good. His solder work could have been better, but the bell worked perfectly just the same. He didn’t mind working the late shift. Barely anyone came in, with the exception of the occasional truck driver or student getting snacks before an all-nighter. Just then, Devon’s bell rang as two girls walked in. He quickly finished setting out the last pot of coffee before they approached. As they poured themselves drinks, he shuffled back behind the register.

“I can’t believe we waited until the last minute to study for calc,” the brunette one complained.

They came up to the counter, and he realized that they were regulars. Never had they actually exchanged words though. He felt them staring as he simply calculated the sum, including tax, in his head, promptly giving them change. He hadn’t looked at the register computer since he had started working there a couple of months ago.

“Maybe should be doing our calc homework,” The blonde one said. Apparently they had noticed his swift calculation.

He laughed. “I’ve been done with homework since I graduated high school.”

“Are you not a student?” the blonde asked. “We’ve always assumed you were.”

“Nope, just work here.”

“With your talent you should be studying engineering,” the brunette told him.

“Nah, I prefer to just learn and build things on my own, it’s more me. I’m not one for institutions.”

The blonde girl introduced herself. “By the way, I’m Beth, and this is Sabrina. We see you in here a lot.”

“Good to meet you both. Good luck with your studies.”

Beth turned back to look at him on their way out. “You should consider going back to school. You’d be good at it.”

“Thanks.” They left, but thought little of what they said. His parents had already expected him to study engineering the day he had shown them his first robot. Since then, he’d made it a hobby to take apart his family’s electronics and put them back together but with new improvements. They’d expressed their disappointment in his going against the norm. Sometimes his parents would stop in, pretending to say hi, and once they’d left he would look down and see a pamphlet from the nearby community college. Every time, he would throw it away. And now tonight when the girls came into Perry’s. He had to tell them the same thing he told everyone over and over again. He didn’t need the acceptance that a university education brought. To him, learning was spending his hours off comparing his schematics for automated doors with others on the internet. Learning was the joy of going to the library by himself, looking through a new subject he’d never seen before. Learning wasn’t turning in homework. It wasn’t pulling all-nighters. It was watching the sunrise and knowing which chemicals were responsible for the brilliant colors and looking down at his phone and knowing that electromagnetic waves were all around him even if he couldn’t see them. He didn’t need a university to tell him that.

A/N

I based this off of a story from Ganesha Goes to Lunch. Guha was an unconventional man who had a lot of tatoos and lived in the forest. Instead of worshiping statues of gods like the nearby townspeople did, Guha worshiped the forest. He believed the best representation of God was in a tree, since it was alive and gave air and food to those around it. The townspeople would always place statues near the tree to try and get him to change, but he never stopped worshiping the way he believed was right. I wanted to capture the same kind of feeling, except instead of the topic being God, I chose knowledge. Devon is also an outcast, since he chose not to go to college like all the other young people around him. His parents, like the townspeople, constantly try to get him to go to college and change his ways, but it never works. They don't realize that Devon is truly happy in his freedom to learn what he pleases. He sees learning not as an institutionalized thing, but as a personal pursuit. 

Bibliography: Kapur, Kamla K.. Ganesha goes to Lunch.

Image: Wikipedia 

Reading Notes: Sita Sings the Blues

Sita Sings the Blues, Vimeo

The film Sita Sings the Blues was such an entertaining retelling of the Ramayana. There were elements of humor in it, which made the film more enjoyable to watch. It is told in three different ways. First, there is a group of characters that are independent from the story discussing it, then there's the modern day story with Nina and Dave, and finally the animated Ramayana. The director switches back and forth between the three perspectives, which is great for modernizing the stories. It started with Rama's exile into the jungle, and they discussed Sita's unwavering devotion to Rama. It gives a pretty condensed version of Rama's time in the forest, depicting Rama killing various demon-looking things (the whole time, Sita's singing). When Sita sings and dances in the forest, the film seems similar to Disney princess films where the princesses do the same thing. I like the funny parts, like when Ravana's sister is describing to him how Sita looks, she compares her hands, her eyes, everything to lotus flowers. All this time, a picture of Sita is being populated by random lotus flowers. I also liked the animation style a lot. It looks like they took classic pictures of the Ramayana and then updated them by adding modern accents to the figures. It's also funny because the figures move like a little kid is playing with them, since their legs aren't separate from their bodies when they walk. What's nice about the film is that it continues where my version of the Ramayana left off. My version ended when Rama takes Sita back from Ravana, but the film goes on into the part where Sita is pregnant. 

Sita Sings the Blues, a film by Nina Paley, Link to Reading Guide. 

Reading Notes: Ganesha Goes to Lunch

For my reading this week, I read two stories from the Ramayana as told by Kamla Kapur in the book Ganesha goes to Lunch. The introduction to these stories gives a short description of the plot to the Ramayana, emphasizing that Rama was "aided by all the forces of the universe, including some animals" in his quest to defeat Ravana. I am going to talk about my two favorite stories out of the five presented in the book.

The first is about Guha, who was not mentioned in the version of the Ramayana that I first read. Guha was an unconventional man with tattoos all over his body. He lived in the forest, and worshiped trees in place of stone figures. The people from a nearby town always tried to get Guha to change his ways. They constantly worshiped in his forest, and chanted loudly for him to hear in the hopes that he might join them. It never happened. So, they placed a figure of Shiva by Guha's favorite tree. Guha kicked it every single day until he died. When he was judged in heaven, Shiva protected him from death, and sent him back alive on earth to protect the forest and the people in it (including Rama, during his exile). I really liked reading about Guha's explanation of why he worshiped the trees and plants instead of the rocks. He explained how the tree is more alive than any stone will be. The tree gives him and the animals food, fresh air, and wood for fire and his home. He believed that God was the jungle, which is beautiful.

Pond similar to one in "The Toad who didn't croak", Wikimedia Commons

The second story I liked was one called "The Toad who didn't croak". It takes place when Lakshmana and Rama are exiled in the forest and looking for a lake. Lakshmana has a breakdown in which he loses trust in Rama for the first time. As they are walking, they come across the lake. The frogs are singing loudly and the lake is so clear that patterns of the pebbles on the floor are visible. Lakshmana immediately feels peaceful once he submerges his head into the water. The story starts off so hopeful and happy that the reader isn't prepared for what happens next. It turns out that when Rama sticks his arrow into the ground to keep it standing up, he had hit a little toad. So Rama holds the dying toad as it struggles to breath (the moment I actually started crying). He asks the frog why he didn't croak to signal his presence, but the frog says he couldn't since he usually calls for Rama while he's dying. He says to Rama that "to die in Rama's hands" is the sweetest thing.

Bibliography: Kapur, Kamla K.. Ganesha goes to Lunch.

Story: Rainy Season

Maureen sat at her desk and counted the minutes until she could leave. It was 8 AM, so there were 8 hours left, which was 480 minutes. She had just arrived, but before she could start up her computer (which took 2 minutes out of her 480 remaining), and then put sugar in her coffee (another 3 minutes), she noticed that Darren was making his morning walk through the office.

“Hey, Maureen, we need that story today. Have you edited it yet?” Her boss had tried to use a fake happy tone, something that Maureen sometimes appreciated since everyone else in the office was so serious and cutthroat all the time.

“Yeah, it’ll just be another 2 hours,” she said as Darren smiled back and kept walking among the cubicles. Maureen had never thought writing could ever be a chore, but since she started working at the newspaper two months ago, she had been miserable. She thought moving to the big city and working for an elite news company was a good move for her career, but she missed seeing her husband, Luke, and her son, Aidan, who were back home in the Midwest. Writing news stories used to give her a high. Her husband would often have to force her to stop writing a particularly exciting piece to eat dinner, because she would write and edit for hours straight. She had followed her dream, but now was stuck in this terrible cubicle with serious people and dim lighting. Back at her old job, people would walk out together and make plans to get dinner or set up play dates. Here, it was different. A line of business suits paraded out of the doors and went straight home. She’d go back to the apartment she rented and call Luke.

“Hey, how’s work?” he would ask. He sounded so encouraging so Maureen couldn’t tell him how miserable she was without him.

Only 2 hours left now. She had finished the story, sat in the dingy break room at lunch and now was back at her desk, absentmindedly finishing up another edit, while glancing up at the pictures of Aidan. Only 4 hours until she could take the plane back home. Her friends back home would be oohing over his newest pictures, but here, nobody cared. It was all about the work, and the place reflected that attitude. Nobody else had pictures on their desks. Instead there were stacks of papers.

3 minutes left.

People bustled around the office, not realizing that one of their own co-workers was leaving. Maureen had her desk cleaned off and sat at her desk as she was at the beginning of the day except now she would never have to stare at the clock again. She was now leaving the gloomy, white-walled room.

Upon turning in her badge and leaving the building for the last time, Maureen felt the clouds part and the sun shine down on her. For the first time the daisies blooming in front of the building didn’t seem fake or remind her of a hospital. She noticed the vibrant yellow was the same shade of their kitchen walls. The gray buildings in the city seemed to shrink, and she could finally see the whole of the sky.

A/N

My inspiration for this week was the story of Rama during the rainy season. Narayan describes how dark and depressing the months were, and I tried to create a modern version of that in the form of a gloomy workplace. It is described in the Ramayana that all animals disappeared and the land seemed lifeless. Similarly, Maureen’s co-workers were robotic and emotionless. Rama was thinking about what his plan was to find his wife, Sita (who was taken by Ravana), during the months, so I created a parallel with Maureen and her husband. However, there is an end to the rainy season in the Ramayana. The animals returned to the land and the flowers bloomed and the sun came out. In my story, once Maureen leaves her workplace, the same thing happens. The world is now beautiful and there is hope that she will return to her husband and Aidan. 

Image: Wikimedia Commons 

Reading Notes: Narayan's Ramayana , Part D

When Sita is imprisoned on the island with Ravana, the first thing that comes to mind is the story of a prince who crosses a bridge haunted by a dragon to save a princess. In this case, the water around the island is the bridge. At the end of the last reading, Rama sends Hanuman across the water to give Sita a ring as a symbol of him being alive and coming to get her. Just as Sita is about to kill herself, Hanuman presents the ring to her, and she in turn asks him to send Rama a piece of jewelry that she has kept hidden for a while. I like how the use of jewelry reappears in this section, and again saves Sita's life. First, the trail they followed was because Sita dropped jewelry. Now, she is about to commit suicide, but is presented a ring by Hanuman.

                                                   Hanuman presents the ring, Wikipedia

Another part that I really liked from this section was the crossing of the sea. It was inspiring how all of nature helped Rama's troops build a bridge over to the island. The birds and squirrels brought little stones, and larger animals brought mud and pieces of mountains. All the while, Rama and his troops were gathering large rocks as well. It reminded me of fairy tale movies where the birds and woodland creatures start singing with the princess and help her make a cake or something.

Then there was the part with Kumbakarna. When Ravana sees that all of his defenses against Rama are failing, he wakes up his gigantic brother, Kumbakarna, who is a great destructive force. I imagined they kept him in a huge dungeon (like Fluffy from Harry Potter) and sang him lullabies to keep him from waking up and eating everyone. How Rama defeated Kumbakarna is amazing, especially since he looks pretty terrifying.

                                                           Kumbakarna, Wikipedia 

Narayan's Ramayana, link to Reading Guide A.