Story: Thataka's Beginning

There was a paved road that connected two great cities, but many travellers chose take the short cut through the forest since it had plentiful fruit from trees, animals to catch, and various branches of the Sarayu River along the way for water. A beautiful mountain overlooked this forest. This is where a beautiful woman named Thataka lived with her family, until she was doomed to demonhood. The wild energy she had as a demigod turned into anger as she changed form, but she sought to control it. Before her transformation she was a beautiful and pure individual and did not harm (unlike her sons and husband). Now a demon, she hid out in the mountain over the countryside to hide herself away from the travellers so that she might not kill them involuntarily, for since her transformation she craved animal and human blood. She was scared what she might do if she saw one of these travellers. Additionally, Thataka had raised a portion of the mountain to go higher than any animal could climb so that they might not tempt her. One day Thataka sat on her rocky home atop the mountain and watched as some travellers walked through the forest below. She thought nothing of it until she heard a loud crash come from the forest below. The five men now held giant axes and began cutting down the trees of the forest. Thataka was immediately reminded of the crime her sons and husband committed. She no longer saw three men trying to find wood for a boat. She saw her gigantic, terrible sons pulling out trees from the roots for fun. Something in Thataka snapped and for the first time since her transformation. Before she realized what she was doing, she bounded down her mountain and in her rage attacked the five men with her giant fangs. She ate them in two bites. Her anger had made her so hot that she found the river branch and started drinking it until it had drained. However, she still felt as though she was on fire. She stomped and stomped in frustration. As she stomped, she forgot her great size. The ground around her had crumbled and created long cracks. All plants and fruit trees had turned to dust. Her beloved mountain fell into one of the large cracks. Deer tried to jump over the cracks but got stuck on islands of the dirt. Thataka had survived all those months on the mountain, distancing herself from the animals, but now she saw the deer and ran toward them. Pretty soon, she was unable to stop her hunger for the land. From then on, she lived in the desert keeping watch for any travellers or the odd animal that walked through. No plant ever grew in the land after that. Thataka’s rage made the land permanently dry and terribly hot, and breathed out this rage in the form of fire. Once everything in the land had been eaten or destroyed, Thataka stopped and looked around at her new home. And now, she was okay with it.

A/N -  I decided to do a story about Thataka (the demon) from Reading A of Raraya's Ramayana. Rama and his brother were traveling through the desert when they hear her story and meet her. It seemed weird to me that Thataka could go from being a virtuous and pure woman to a demon, so I wanted to show that she tried to stay her original self as long as she could control herself. 

Bibliography
Narayan's Ramayana, link to Reading Guide A

Image: pixabay

Reading Notes: Narayan's Ramayana, Part B

Reading A stopped at a cliff hanger. Rama was sentenced to exile in the forest while the town lamented over his departure. I was anxious to hear how Rama was going to get along in the forest (of course he survives, he’s defeated demons so he can handle the forest). I like how his wife Sita goes with him with jewelry on and dressed up. I imagined a wealthy girl from the Upper East Side putting on her jewelry and make up to go camping. It would make quite a reality television show.

Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana in the forest, wikipedia

Another impressive part of their exile is the fact that Rama’s brother makes a hut made out of clay, thatch, and leaves look nice and homey.

One recurring motif in this section was disguise. First was Kamavalli changing herself from a demonic looking presence into a maiden to try and get Rama to fall in love with her. The next part that involved disguise was when Ravana turned himself into a golden deer. He uses this disguise to get Rama to chase him while Sita is left unattended, therefore stealing her from Rama.

The scene of Ravana commanding the weather and elements was entertaining to read. Especially since he kept changing his mind about being too hot and too cold. He commands the summer to leave, thus leaving winter. But this is too cold for him. He asks to bring the moon, and for a good paragraph simply insults the moon for not brining enough light. The moment when night became day sounds really funny. I can just imagine everyone dropping their liquor bottles and getting out of bed, utterly confused. 


Bibliography
Narayan's Ramayana, link to Reading Guide B

Reading Notes: Narayan's Ramayana, Part A

Reading Notes A: Ramayana 

Several different parts of the reading really caught my attention. I was fascinated especially by the settings of each story, and how the tales explain the existence of various bodies of water and parts of the kingdom. For example, when Bhagiratha’s ancestors dug the giant holes to find the horse, they were cleansed by Ganga and their giant holes turned into the oceans.

The first setting that caught my imagination was the Ganges, which seemed a little like a cemetery, haunted by many demons that aim to destroy people who perform sacrifices. In my mind, it looked dark blue and foggy, a really gloomy place.

The setting for the dramatic encounter between Rama and Thataka was another favorite of mine. The author sets up this scary, desert otherworld with animal bones everywhere, which makes you anxious to meet the demon even before she appears. Thataka is described as not being a woman anymore, because she has deviated so far from her original form. Now she has large fangs and breathes fire into her surroundings.  It was interesting how the presence of the desert has been explained by her breathing fire into the land. I especially liked this image I found of her in which she’s wearing a necklace of animal skulls. 

Thataka, Wikipedia

                                               

The colorful city of Mithila was my favorite place to read about. What a heavenly place it seems like: women singing on balconies, pools with colorful fish swimming in them, and multicolored flags hanging on the buildings. The most unique thing about the city is how random odds and ends of jewelry that people drop are never picked up, adding a playful element to the city. It reminds me a little of the town of Spectre from the movie Big Fish. It has the same charming, fairy tale feel, plus its own quirk. In Spectre there’s a string running across the main street holding everyone’s shoes. So, everyone just walks around barefoot. This theme of the perfect city seems to repeat in many films and stories.  

Bibliography
Narayan's Ramayana, link to Reading Guide A

Growth Mindset: Love a challenge

                                       

Normally, I'm not one to research ways to improve my education. I've always just showed up to class and simply did what I needed to do for the class to get a good grade. It made sense when Carol Dweck mentioned that kids these days just want the A and don't truly want to learn. I feel like this happens a lot in college. We want good grades on transcripts but forget that we came to college to train for a career. 

One part of the video that caught my attention was when Carol noticed how kids who had the attitude of "I like a challenge" could solve problems better than others. That's why I found the picture above and put it in my blog. Engineering students have to deal with problem solving all the time. Last semester in our electronics lab, there were hours and hours of troubleshooting our circuits. The ones who stayed in lab and had a good attitude are the ones who succeeded in lab. They learned to experiment, test, and change things until everything worked. Next time I'm in lab, I want to remember to enjoy a challenge. 

Image: Cheezburger.com

Starting the Semester

                                            Study Tips 

Here's a list of things that help me!

1. Study somewhere other than your room

2. Don't study for more than 2 hours at a time without a break

3. Get a planner and write down assignments and deadlines

4. Carry a book that has poems and quotes for encouragement

5. Exercise when feeling stressed

6. Make time for fun things 

7. If it's too loud in the room you're in, put on headphones and listen to music 

8. Study in groups only once you understand the material a little 

photo: flickr 

Reading Options

I've decided to read R.K. Narayan's Ramayana because it uses modern language as outlined on the website. I am already having trouble with name recognition since I have limited experience with Eastern cultures, so having modern language would be helpful. The only experience I have exploring Indian culture was in my film class a year ago. We studied the films of great Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray, and watched his film Jalsaghar (The Music Room). 

In going through the information on the page for the Ramayana, I am nervous since each section contains so many names.  I have only a few questions: First, are all the people in the epic connected or are they in completely separate stories? I saw that there's chapters, but wasn't sure if each one connects to the rest. Another question: I found this picture:

Why are some of the people blue and some aren't? This is something I saw in many of the pictures on the website. 

Storybook Favorites

Storybook 1

Project Runway: Indian Epics Edition

                                                         Image Credit: rohitbal

The title of this blog caught my eye since I love the show Project Runway. The introduction was a clever use of the opening of Project Runway, which probably only people who had watched it would understand. I liked how the author of this page used runway looks to represent phases of each character's life. For example, the first collection was "designed" for Ulupi, the Asura Princess, so one of the outfits is a mysterious black dress to represent her trying to lure Arjuna to marry her (shown above). The design of the website was very easy to navigate, and I like how the author put all the image citations on one page so that they didn't distract from the pictures. I want to make my project similar to this one, but instead of using just runway looks, I'm thinking about making a fake "tumblr" page for three different characters.

Click here for link to this storybook

                                          Storybook 2

                                                  Indian Horror Story 

Again, one of my favorite storybooks is based on a popular television show that I watch. This project is a collection of stories that the student wrote inspired by Indian epics. They call the collection of stories "Tales of the Lingering Souls", a modern retelling of stories with a horror twist. There's a total of five parts to the collection, each inspired by a different epic. However, each part is a continuation of the same story that the student has written. The introduction does a good job of giving an overview of the project, and the title of the blog is attention-grabbing. More pictures would have been nice to see, but the pictures chosen go along with the dark mood of the story, as does the background of the pages. 

Click here for a link to this storybook

                                           Storybook 3

                                                    Law & Order: SSU 

To go along with the television show theme, the third storybook I've chosen is inspired by the show Law & Order: SVU. This is my least favorite out of the three storybooks. The introduction explains how the project is to tell the stories of three "Agents" in the SSU, or "Shape Shifters Unit." Each page describes a character from Indian epics. It includes a list of crimes committed by the character and a list of powers. The idea is good, but doesn't turn out as interesting as you'd expect. The design is successful in mimicking the style from the show, but long explanations make for a boring read sometimes, especially if you're not familiar with the show and notice the clever additions. 

Click here for a link to this storybook