Story: Antonio and the Three Grandmas

Morningside Park, NYC: Biking in Manhattan

The first week of November in New York City had brought the beginnings of a harsh winter. Whereas the week before, natives wore light sweaters, now the strong wind demanded heavy coats to walk a couple of blocks. Antonio was making his daily rounds on the subway. He would get a free swipe and ride the train all day, collect some cash from a few people, and go back to the Morningside Park where he would distribute his earnings among his family. His family happened to be three old ladies he called "grandma", an old man who didn't like to admit that they were friends, and a teenager who was relatively new to the homeless world after realizing the cruel world didn't care about her dreams to be a musician. Every day, Antonio woke up, bought coffees for the old ladies so they could stay inside for a couple of hours, and then him and the teen would go to the subway station together. While the teen sat in the subway station playing violin, he would do his daily rounds on the train. They happened to be saving up for coats, since the supply at the local shelter had run out weeks ago.

On this day, it was particularly cold. Even the train was cold, so he couldn't imagine how cold his grandmas would be right now, outside in that park. At the end of the day, he met the teen at their stop and walked back to the ladies. From a distance, he saw one extra figure among his family. Who was this strange dark figure?

As he got closer, Antonio realized it was the cops. He began to run. The cops had noticed.

"Sir, please calm down." They didn't seem comfortable with anyone running towards them.

"They have done nothing wrong." he tried to explain to the cops.

"I'm sorry, but a new city ordinance requires that all transients be required to leave after 5 PM. It is currently 8 PM, and these women are here illegally now."

"Please, it won't happen again. Please let them go." The cops looked at each other and nodded.

"Just this once." They left and Antonio helped the ladies up so that they could all find a place to stay that night. He walked them twenty blocks to the nearest homeless shelter where he put their names on the list for a bed. After three hours waiting, they were given some soup and a place to stay. Unfortunately, they wouldn't allow all six of them to stay, so Antonio agreed to sleep outside.

It grew colder and colder until he was unable to stop shivering. The shelter owners recognized him as the caretaker to the old ladies and remembered how kind he was to them. They couldn't bear to see such a kind person die from cold outside, so they carried him into the shelter. It seemed that he had been saved just in time. After that day, his grandmas and teenager always had a place on the list because the shelter directors were so moved by his generosity.

A/N

This story was based on one from the book "Twenty Jataka Tales." In the story, a king called Brahmadatta ruled over a land that had an adjoining forest. A troupe of monkeys lived in some trees in that forest, and were always careful to keep their presence secret. One day, fruit made its way over to the town and the monkeys were discovered. The king came with his subjects to get the fruit and kill the monkeys by trapping them on a tree. To save his troupe, the chief of monkeys made a bridge with a branch, but it was too short to reach, so he had to make his back part of the bridge. His back was broken by saving the monkeys, but the king felt so bad for the chief of monkeys that he gave him a nice last day of his life.

I tried to create a similar troupe of people living in the streets of New York trying to lay low in the park. The police finding the homeless family is supposed to parallel the king's subjects finding the monkeys. The chief of monkeys died helping his family, so I wanted to have Antonio sacrifice himself to keep his family safe too. The only difference is that I didn't have the nerve to allow Antonio to die, so instead, he just suffers one bad night in the cold until the shelter workers find him.


Bibliography: Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor Inayat. Link to reading guide.

Reading Notes: Twenty Jataka Tales Reading A

In the first story, a king called Brahmadatta ruled over a land that had an adjoining forest. A troupe of monkeys lived in some trees in that forest, and were always careful to keep their presence secret. There were fresh mangoes on the trees and the chief always told them that if the stream carried fruit to the land where people lived, the people would come and take all their food. One day, fruit made its way over to the town. The king came with his subjects to get the fruit and kill the monkeys by trapping them on a tree. To save his troupe, the chief of monkeys made a bridge with a branch, but it was too short to reach, so he had to make his back part of the bridge. His back was broken by saving the monkeys, but the king felt so bad for the chief of monkeys that he gave him a nice last day of his life.

The other stories seemed very similar to this one. They're all about animals being killed or about to be killed until they are spared. For example, there was one involving two clans of deer that were not being hunted by a king because they were golden, and the king wanted to spare the golden deer. Instead, he hunted all the normal deer. The golden deer tried to save the normal deer by taking turns going where they might be hunted. One day, the leader of one clan, Banyan, took his turn, but the king would not hunt him. The king vowed to spare not only the golden deer, but all the other deer and animals in the forest.

My favorite story was about a man who wanted to make his family rich so that his daughters and wife would be spoiled. Unfortunately, a fairy turned him into a golden goose. He visited his family so that they could sell his golden feathers. His wife thought maybe the goose would stop coming, so they plucked out all of his feathers and always had money. However, his wife kept the poor goose (her husband) in a barrel with no food. Soon, white feathers grew on the goose and it flew away "far away to a forest where every bird was happy."

Image: Webshots

I tried to read the story about the swans, but I kept imagining different colored swans living in a pretty lake and the story seemed lame in comparison to the picture I was constructing in my mind.



Bibliograpy: Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor Inayat. Link to Reading Guide.

Reading Notes: Sacred Tales of India Part D

The first story was called "The Fatal Oath" and to be honest I did not completely understand it. Up until the part where Bijaya comes home and cries upon hearing the death of her mother, everything makes sense. However, after that, Bijaya swears by something (perhaps the goddess?) and therefore her family dies. She searches out to find the goddess Sashthi, whom her mother worshiped on a regular basis. It was now her turn to continue worshiping Sashthi, and so she found the goddess and performed a sacred ritual to bring her family back from the dead.

The next story was very strange. It was about a grandfather who wanted to have a pond, but no matter how far deep he dug, there was none. He had a dream in which the only way to get water was to cut up his infant grandson into pieces and bury them where he wanted the pond. He told his son about the dream, and so his son sacrificed the grandson without telling the mother of the child. The next day, plenty of water came to the plot and so the mother of the child cooked for a feast celebrating the water. She didn't think anything about her child being missing, as he probably was with his grandma or aunt. After doing her daily worship of Sashthi, the goddess appeared holding her son, who had been sacrificed the night before.

Another one of the stories was about a grandmother who was looking for her grandson, who was stolen by a cat after being born. So she went to find goddess Sashthi, in case she would help find her grandson. Along the way to Sashthi's house, she found a cow, a carpenter, tree, and stream that were wondering why nobody milked them, picked their fruit, and drank their water. They asked if the grandmother could ask Sashthi when she found her. It turns out that they all had refused service to a Brahman when they needed it.

The last two story, "The Banished Girls," an evil stepmom send her step-daughters away after convincing her husband that the two girls would bring about trouble. So after they are banished, the goddess Lakshmi took pity on them and sent them husbands.

                                                                 Lakshmi, Wikipedia


Bibliography: D.N. Neogi. Sacred Tales of India. Link to reading guide.

Extra Reading: Sacred Tales of India part C

Sacred Tales of India Notes (Reading Part C)

In the first story of the reading, a king had no children and, as a result, everyone (including his court) believed him to be evil. Apparently, childlessness was considered a bad omen. One day he heard the sweeper talk about how he eats early because if he sweeps and sees the king's face, he has a bad breakfast. The king went to his rooms and cried, until a holy ascetic came and predicted he would have many children if the king promised to give him one of them. Unfortunately, the son that was given to him was the one that the third wife gave birth to (Sankata-Narayan, which means he who was born in a conch shell). The ascetic took the son and told him to stay in the forest but not go South. The Prince decided to go south anyway and a beautiful woman he found there told him that the ascetic was going to use him as a sacrifice. So, he created a diversion and cut the ascetic's head off. He returned to his mother.

Vishnu and a Conch Shell: Pinterest

The other story that I liked was about Indra, the god of heaven. A Brahman was in the middle of blessing him, but Indra threw flowers at him, so the Brahman changed his mind and cursed Indra instead. Indra had been turned into a cat, and Sachi, his wife, was unaware of this. She tried to find the Brahman who had cursed Indra, but when she found him, he said that the curse could not be reversed. Thus, he would have to stay a cat in the house of a huntsman for 12 years. However Sachi started to worship the goddess Kalika and so the goddess felt bad for her and told Sachi that she could make the 12 years less terrible by letting Sachi and the cat sleep through the remaining years. They both woke up after the time was up and lived happily ever after.

In the last story, a Brahman is traveling. While he's hitchhiking through some land, a guy stops him and tell him that he wouldn't have to rely on charity if he started worshiping Satya Pir. The Brahman is used to worshiping Narayan. So the Brahman did the sacrifice as instructed and suddenly became rich.

Bibliography: D.N. Neogi. Sacred Tales of India. Link to Reading Guide.

Story Planning: "The Mouse and the Farmer"

I think I'd like to do a story based on "The Mouse and the Farmer" from my reading yesterday. Unfortunately, I'm not used to simple stories after reading the Ramayana and Mahabharata, so this week's readings have been a strange experience for me.

In "The Mouse and the Farmer," a mouse lives on a farm in a little hole. The farmer was always nice to the mouse (like sometimes he would throw Mousie a piece of cheese during dinner) Fortunately, the farm was built on land that had buried treasure, so one day the mouse gave the farmer a gold coin, and, in exchange, the farmer gave the mouse a good piece of meat to eat. This started happening on a daily basis for a couple of weeks. Soon, a cat named Grimalkin started to notice the mouse since he had gotten fatter. The cat threatened to eat the mouse unless the mouse gave the cat the nice meat. The farmer started noticing that the mouse kept getting skinnier (this was because Grimalkin was eating all of his food). Mousie told the farmer what was happening. The farmer gave him a clear inkwell or similar container, and when the cat came to eat the mouse, it saw the mouse through the inkwell and didn't realize there was a barrier between them. Grimalkin choked on the inkwell and the mouse crawled out of the dead cat's throat.

Brainstorming for plots:

Image: Public Domain Pictures

1. A girl is walking home and always passes by a group of cats and pets them every day when they're laying on the porch of a nearby house. One day, someone walks behind her and tries to attack her, but the cats have come to trust her, so they attack her attacker and nearly kill him/her. Every day after that, the girl keeps bringing the cats food and pets them. Obviously, I'm adding a bit of material as an epilogue but it might work! This version is switching the victim from an animal to a human and I love stories about how animals know more than their human counterparts sometimes.



2. A variation on the tale where Grimalkin sees that the farmer does not feed the Mouse, so instead of the farmer giving the Mouse food, Grimalkin (who is already on the farmer's good side) decides not to kill Mousie and instead gives him food.

I need to start changing up my writing style because I tend to stick with modern storytelling techniques. More ideas?

On a side note, Grimalkin is an old name for "grey cat" so I think I might use a name that translates to a characteristic of a character's personality or appearance.


Bibliography: W.D. Rouse. The Giant Crab and Other Tales from Old India. Link to reading.

Reading Notes: The Giant Crab

For this week, I branched out and read some short children's stories from "The Giant Crab and Other Tales from Old India." The first one was called "The Crab" and was about a crab (surprise) that lived in a lake and sat at the bottom waiting for animals to come to the lake so he could eat them. Soon, he becomes huge from all the food he's getting. Mr. and Mrs. Elephant soon become tired of the crab eating all of their animal friends, so they come up with a plan to kill him. They end up cracking his giant shell, and when they become Queen and King of the animal kingdom, they use the giant shells as drums in war.

The next one I liked was called "The Hypocritical Cat." A family of rats lived in a hole by the river that a cat liked to watch. The cat eventually tricks the rats into thinking he worshiped the sun and ate air, and that was why he always faced towards them. The cat made them think they were safe walking past him, since he didn't eat other animals, and so the cat kept eating rats that passed.

In "The Crocodile and the Monkey," a crocodile was persuaded by his wife to capture a monkey so that Mrs. Crocodile could eat its heart. Mr. Crocodile pretended that he wanted to help the monkey cross the wide river, but really he was going to drown him for his wife. However, the monkey convinced the crocodile that the figs hanging in the tree on the other side of the river were the hearts of monkeys. So the stupid crocodile believed him and helped the monkey across the river.

I have nothing to say about "The Wise Parrot and the Foolish Parrot" because it broke my heart to hear that a poor parrot was plucked by that horrible maid.

There was one story that I liked called "The Mouse and the Farmer." In this story, a mouse always gave the farmer a gold coin, and, in exchange, the farmer gave the mouse a good piece of meat to eat. Soon, a cat started to notice the mouse since he had gotten fatter. The cat threatened to eat the mouse unless the mouse gave the cat the nice meat. However, the farmer helped the poor mouse. He gave him an inkwell and when the cat came to eat the mouse, it swallowed the inkwell and the mouse crawled out of the dead cat's throat.

Are we sure this is a children's collection??

Picture illustrated by W. Robinson.

Bibliography: W.D. Rouse. The Giant Crab and Other Tales from Old India. Link to text.

Story: Waitlisted

Kaitlyn woke up on the couch that sat in her mother's hospital room as she heard the door opening. A figure wearing a white jacket strode in with a handful of papers and no discernible expression on her face.

"Katherine Meyer?" Kaitlyn sat up straight to answer the doctor.

"I'm her daughter, I'm allowed to know." Kaitlyn responded. She still couldn't determine what kind of news the doctor was about to deliver. Her mother had been suffering through the middle stages of liver failure and was awaiting test results to see whether a liver donor was required.

"I'll come back later to talk to your mother myself, but it looks like she is going to need an immediate liver transplant. The scarring is too severe to treat." Kaitlyn fought back tears.

"But I-I'm not a match for her blood." Her voice cracked.

"Yes, your mother will be placed on the transplant list until a match becomes available." Kaitlyn wondered how someone could be so robotic in delivering news like this.

"But she needs one now." Kaitlyn couldn't help raising her voice slightly at the disappointing news.

"Until a match becomes available, which can take up to several months, your mother will have to be monitored closely and need to stay as healthy as possible, which means eating a balanced diet and cutting out alcohol completely. It looks like it'll be your job to make sure these things are carried out." The doctor looked at 20 year-old Kaitlin with almost a hint of sadness, but it disappeared quickly.

After the doctor left, Kaitlyn fast walked to the bathroom on the fourth floor and immediately starting crying in a stall.  Why couldn't she save her own mother? And how long would her mom last without a transplant? She was barely awake most of the time due to her illness, and when she was awake, she was nauseous and had no appetite. Other time, she was completely confused and called Kaitlyn by her brother's name.

Then it came to her. Her brother! He could possibly be their mother's donor and save her. Her older brother had been long gone. Right after college, he left for a manager position at a big technology company on the west coast. After their mother's long struggle with alcoholism, he didn't want anything to do with her. Kaitlyn decided to call anyway.

Surprisingly, the phone picked up.

"Hey Erik, it's Kaitlyn."  A long pause.

"What do you need?" he asked, sounding inconvenienced.

"It's Mom." Another long pause.

"You know I can't deal with her addiction anymore. I did for ten years and I refuse to put myself through it again."

"Erik, she's dying. Her only hope is a transplant and she's on the list for one but it might be months and I don't know if she'll last that long. Please, Erik, you might be able to save--" The dial tone sounded.

Kaitlyn sat down on the toilet and cried again. Erik was the only one who could save her in time and he had refused. Their mother was in so much pain and all he could think about was himself and her past mistakes. Now, their only hope was someone on the list.

------------------

Six months later, Kaitlyn sat in the same hospital, two floors up, helping her mom pack up her stuff to leave. Her mother ended up getting on the list, and an anonymous donor gave their liver a month and a half after calling her brother.



A/N
This story is based off of a story I found in Sacred Tales of India called "The Wife of Yama". So in the story, there's a brother and sister named Kausik and Bijaya. Kausik and Bijaya had performed a special ceremony to Parvati that gave them each one wish. Kausik had wished to be a king so it happened, and Bijaya asked to be the bride of one of the ghost beings from the land of the dead. She married Yama, the prince of death. One day, she was strolling through the forest and saw her mother among the souls suffering in hell (because of a sin her mother had committed), so she asked her husband to get her mother out of there. He said he could not, and her last hope was if Kausik, her brother, gave up his wish. He refused because he did not want to give up his throne. Eventually, Bijaya found a woman who also performed the ceremony and had one wish given to her. This woman was kind enough to give Bijaya's mother the wish and so her mother was released from hell.

I wanted to modernize the story, so I made "hell" a sickness that their mother was dying from due to her own choices in life. So, I chose Cirrhosis of the liver since alcoholism would put her at risk of liver failure. The estranged brother in my story represents Kausik, who was unwilling to leave his job on the west coast to give part of his liver to his own mother. The anonymous donor plays the role of the woman who, although she didn't know Bijaya's mother, gave her life anyway.

Bibliography: Sacred Tales of India By Dwigendra Neogi. Link to reading guide.

For Liver info: Web MD

Image: Wikimedia Commons