Week 2 Topics: Continuing my previous storybook

So I'm pretty sure that I want this storybook to be a continuation of my previous storybook about a time travelling alien: Constellation Stories: Facts or Myths? In this storybook I have a time travelling alien who likes to experience the world by living in the sidelines of good constellation stories (or in this case, Indian epics). She meets a man and tells him all about some of her past lives and they fall in love and live happily ever after. In this storybook, I'd like to have her telling him more stories, you know, they're just walking along one day and he says "Tell me a story," to which she replies, "What kind of story would you like to hear this time?" Maybe they're on a vacation to India or something, or maybe that's where they live as the location of the story was never revealed in the last storybook, so he wants to hear about Indian epics. I'm not sure what kind of Indian epics I want her to tell him though, or how I'm going to work her into the sidelines of these stories, but whichever way I decide to go, he'll say something like "Oh I don't know, tell me stories like ours, about great loves in history," or maybe it will start out with a love story and morph into something different if I don't want to do it all about love stories.

image information: screenshot of my other storybook's title page taken 1/25/15

So the topics I am considering for this storybook are Love Stories, Animal Characters (in the last storybook, my character was a mermaid type so it wouldn't be unusual for her to assume the shape of a non-human), Karma, and Geography Stories (especially if I go with they're travelling around India when he asks for a story).

For love stories, the only one I know so far of course is that of Rama and Sita, which would definitely have to be included even though I'm not a fan of the ending. So further research would include finding more love stories to write about. On the course website about love story storybooks, there are several names mentioned including two other couples that I recognized from my reading thus far: Keikeyi and Dasaratha and Mandodari and Ravana. I haven't read these stories yet, so I don't know if they will catch my interest and go with the flow. I might also not want to do just love stories, I might start with the story of Rama and Sita and let it morph into another story about how Rama wasn't always right (killing the monkey king who had done nothing to him), or maybe even some of the other incarnations of Vishnu. At this point I'm not really sure but it certainly fascinates me.

For Animal Characters, she could be a monkey in the monkey kingdom and be watching as things unfold there, from Sugreeva's story all the way up to what happens with Rama and even thereafter if I can find stories from after the assassination. Or she could be a squirrel who just follows Rama around out of curiosity and tells about everything that happened to him, including my other story from Thataka's point of view. Maybe that's where the squirrel first encountered him, she'd been observing Thataka's misfortunes for some time and then decided to follow Rama around after he killed her?  There are many other animals she could be, she may be an animal even if all of the stories are about Rama, for example, or she may be an animal that is deeply embedded in the story, though that one would be a little tough to explain as she tries very hard not to get involved in the world's goings on.

For Karma, I'm not sure how I would insert her into the stories yet, perhaps she'd be an animal in one and a more vital character in another, as she was in the stories of her last storybook. All I know is that I would tell stories that, like her last storybook, illustrated how getting involved was bad for other aliens or maybe how not getting involved was bad (since now she believes that she should be living life to its fullest consequences be damned). I'm not sure which direction I'd go with this but it would require some research about the different stories and how they tied into the idea of actions and re-actions. 

For geography stories, I'd start the storybook right where I left the old one off, with them just leaving the cave in which they'd taken refuge from the storm. For this, I'd need to do some research on hilly or mountainous parts of India (if there are any, I have no idea) and rainy parts of India, then follow them on a journey around India, since he is showing her how to live he has to show her where he lives and has lived, etc. All the while, she is seeing the land through eyes that have seen it all before in the very very distant past and telling him all about what's different and what happened there to cause that particular feature (such as the story of the river Ganga's origin that we read about in the Ramayana). 

So far, I have no idea which of these appeals to me the most, so if you've read my other storybook (and if you haven't you definitely should!) and have a favorite from above please comment and tell me why that one appeals to you. Thanks!

EDIT: I've just thought of another great possibility by reading through other storybooks: she could be telling these stories to her and her true human love's kids as bedtime stories! But I don't want it to seem like I'm just stealing someone else's idea, so let me know if that's not okay!

Storytelling Week 2: Thataka's Tale

My name is Thataka and I am a royal princess, daughter of the great yaksha Suketha. I am also wife to Sunda, a powerful chieftain, and mother of the mighty Mareecha and Subahu, as well as mother of the beautiful Kaikesi, who is the mother of Ravana. As you can tell, I am quite an amazing demigoddess. I’m so powerful, in fact, that I’m quite sure you’ve heard of me and mine before this, but I’m here to tell you that if you heard your story from anyone who took Rama’s side in this whole affair, then you heard wrong. It’s okay though, I will set you straight just like Maleficent set everyone straight about why she cursed that charming princess, who woke said princess up, and how much love there truly was between them.

First of all, I was married at a very young age to the man of my dreams, who I loved very dearly - my husband Sunda, sometimes known as Sumali. I was his second wife and he had ten sons and four daughters by his first wife, Ketumati. As you can see, I had a lot to live up to. To please my husband, I started having children. Eventually, I gave birth to Mareecha, Subahu, and Kaikesi. When she was old enough, my husband and I arranged a meeting between Kaikesi and the Rishi Vishrava, who ended up leaving his wife to marry our daughter. They had Ravana shortly thereafter and you all know how powerful he became. I loved my grandson very much and was very pleased with how much he accomplished, if only he hadn’t thrown it away on that Sita girl he might have been happy forever, but I can see how he might have wanted to do something to provoke Rama and give him a reason to avenge my death.

Mareecha and Subahu were very strong and handsome, as well as very powerful and I do suppose I might have spoiled them from time to time because I loved them so much. They were lovely children, if a bit rowdy at times, and grew up quickly, as boys so often do. My husband and I noticed that they stayed rambunctious for a time when they were young men, rather than growing out of that, but we simply chalked it up to “boys will be boys” and moved on with our lives. My husband occasionally liked to spend time with the boys and they sometimes would get themselves into trouble with a particularly devious prank or two here and there, but they never did anything too terrible. One day, however, they pranked the wrong neighborhood and came to the attention of a very self-righteous and sanctimonious savant, Agasthya. Agasthya decided to teach them all a lesson and I don’t know if he planned it or if it was an accident, but my poor Sunda ended up dead. I, of course, was furious and distraught and I and my boys went after Agasthya for justice for his terrible crime. He was more powerful than we were, however, and he turned I and my precious lovelies into demons rather than the demigods we had been before!

I was devastated, to say the least. I had done absolutely nothing wrong and had been punished by it by losing everything I had ever held dear (my boys fled after being turned into demons and I never saw them again). I decided “to hell with it all” and began to be the demon Agasthya had accused me of being, after all, if I was to be punished for a crime I might as well commit the crime I had been punished for. This is where the famous Rama enters my story. I had been roaming around my desert home, doing just as I pleased whenever I pleased to do it, when up comes Rama and his entourage who encourage him to kill me simply because I was a demon. Nobody asked why I was a demon or if I had done anything wrong, they just assumed that because I was in this situation, I was completely evil and let me just say, who made him judge, jury, and executioner?! Who gave him the right to come into my home and slay me with no warning and no chance to redeem myself? Does it seem right or fair, the way I died? Some may say that I attacked first but I would say that that accursed Viswamithra is to blame as he is the one who discussed my impending doom with Rama right in front of me! So you see, you needed to know the whole story, not just the “hero’s” version of it.

Image Information: Image source: Rama battles Taraka

Author’s Note: I decided to tell this story from someone else’s point of view, because if you’ve ever seen the movie Maleficent then you know that sometimes the hero’s account of what happened may be a bit different from the “villain’s” point of view. Typically speaking, demigoddesses probably don’t often “turn to the dark side,” so I wanted to show the reader that perhaps Thataka was just a misunderstood woman who put too much stock into familial loyalty. Sure she was a powerful and maybe stuck up princess, but that shouldn’t necessarily mean that she was evil, just that circumstances made her appear that way. I didn’t make any major changes to the story, except mentioning that she was the grandmother of Ravana and pointed out that although in the story Thataka struck the first blow and Rama was only defending himself, she more than likely overheard his conversation with Viswamithra and knew that he was there to kill her, so she reacted to that by defending herself against him.

Bibliography:

Narayan, R. K. (1972) The Ramayana.

Wikipedia about Thataka

Wikipedia about Sumali (Sunda)

Week 2 Reading Diary A: Starting the Ramayana

pp. vii-53

I liked reading the introductions, though they weren’t technically part of the reading assignement since they were before page 1. I liked that it gave me an overview of what was going to happen, which I’ll put in here so I can look back at it and remember what’s coming next: Dasaratha gets his wives pregnant after a sacrificial ritual; he chooses Rama as his successor but his second wife is jealous and gets him to banish Rama and make her own son king instead; Rama and Sita, his wife, and his half-brother (from the third wife) Lakshmana travel away from their homeland and encounter many adventures; a demoness Soorpanaka tries to get Rama to marry her but he won’t so she tries to attack his wife out of jealousy but the half-brother stops her and wounds her; she goes to her brother the demon Ravana and complains, so he lures Rama and the brother away and kidnaps Sita; Rama pursues them and meets Hanuman the monkey, his greatest ally; eventually he kills Ravana and co., but suspects Sita has been fooling around with Ravana while in his captivity so forces her to undergo tests, which she passes, but he still isn’t entirely convinced; after he is crowned king he believes rumors that he hears about her chastity and banishes her, at which point she dies after childbirth and he is distraught and follows her into the afterlife. There, that was a pretty succinct version of the whole book which I believe will help me keep things straight while I’m reading.

I also like the first part of the story which is of Dasaratha getting asked by Viswamithra to give him his young son Rama as a guard for some religious activity he wants to perform. This reminded me of general themes in mythology and folklore when men had to give up their firstborns for great and terrible tasks to be named later, or else bad things would happen to their kingdom. It wasn’t said that bad things would happen here but I kind of got that impression when everyone would freak out that Viswamithra was leaving without getting what he wanted.

Viswamithra and the boys travel across a great desert, and when Rama asks why it is so barren Viswamithra tells him the story of Thataka who was a beautiful demigod who married a chieftan named Sunda. They had two sons who were arrogant and awful and liked to destroy everything around them. Their father took great pleasure in this, probably thinking something along the lines of “boys will be boys” and joined them in their destruction. The savant Agasthya lived in the forrest they were destroying and cursed them, killing Sunda and making the boys and their mother demons instead of demigods whenever they came for revenge for Sunda’s death. Thataka became a drain on the land, destroying everything living around her and creating a desert, so when Viwamithra and the boys came upon her, Viswamithra instructed Rama to kill her and end her terrible reign.

I will probably write about this story because I like that it is the first time that the young boy Rama gets to show his strength and morals by fighting the demon who is destroying the land. I will probably either do something from Rama’s point of view or maybe from Thataka’s point of view, because she wasn’t always evil and it might be nice to remember that things can go wrong in your life because of the choices you make in difficult times. Below is an image of Rama battling Thataka (who I guess is the same as Taraka?).

Image source: Rama battles Taraka