Indian Epics Blog

Part B of the reading starts with a conversation between Duryodhana and his father. They are discussing the Pandavas, who have just married Draupadi, the daughter of Drupada. Duryodhana, who thought that the Pandavas had been killed when their house was set on fire, is quite mad when he learns that they are still alive. He and his father disagree as to how to handle the situation. Dhritarashtra does not hate the Pandavas and wants to bring them back, so he gives them land in his kingdom. This difference between Duryodhana and his father is a major focal point. Duryodhana wants to crush the Pandavas, so he tries to circumvent his father. Duryodhana is made fun of by the Pandavas when he is in their palace and is tricked by the optical illusions that they have placed there. This only fuels his anger for them more and he schemes to destroy them. He and Shakuni plot to use gambling to destroy the Pandavas. They challenge Yudishthira to a game of dice, and he accepts because for some reas...

I read R.K. Narayan's version of the Mahabharata for this week’s reading. I really enjoyed reading his version of the Ramayana and thought it would be fun to continue to use his work for this and next week’s reading. Jumping into reading the stories it was like seeing an old friend. The style felt familiar and it made it easy to get back into it. The story starts out with the tale of a king who has no wife. He meets a woman by a river and immediately falls in love with her. This woman turns out to be Ganga, the earth goddess. They have eight children together, of which she drowns seven for crimes they committed in a past life. The eighth is allowed to live, and Ganga leaves. The king, now without a wife, happened upon a beautiful girl in the forest. He wanted to wed her, but her father demanded that he make their son the heir. The son of the king visited the fisherman and made a promise to be celibate. The king was thus allowed to marry the daughter of the fisher man. The k...

Rama looked out across the swollen river from the underneath the overhang. The rain slammed into the ground and drowned out most conversation.   Rama sighed, angry about his inability to act. Sita, his love, sat far in the custody of a detestable rakshasa. Rama closed his eyes and imagined Sita kicking and screaming as she was carried by a crazed demon with ten heads. As he sat, he could feel the rage building within him. His blood pressure increased, and his vision tunneled.   He could bear it no longer, so he stood and paced. He got so worked up, that he walked straight up to a tree and slammed against it.   This shock snapped him out of his rage fueled trance. He realized how fixated on this he had become and decided to meditate. He walked out into the rain and sat down near the edge of the river. He watched the currents, carrying trees, sand, and debris, sweep by him. The confusion and restlessness that Rama felt, was mirrored in the turbulence of the river. He th...

The second half of The Divine Archer continues the trend of the first to present a story that is short and to the point. This telling of the Ramayana has far less exposition and description. Instead, its main goal is to retell the story while maintaining the key plot points. It does dispense with some of the nuance found in R.K. Narayan's version of the Ramayana. One point at which this is quite clear is after Rama kills Bali. In the other version I read he was decried for killing Bali from the shadows instead of facing him. He dispelled these thoughts though and the reader believed more in the righteousness of Rama because of it. In The Divine Archer Rama's actions are never questioned and thus his character is not developed as much as in the other version. Another point at which Rama's actions were not questioned was when he required Sita to undergo a trial of fire. In the first version I read Rama was criticized for applying different standards to Sita as he did to other...

 The Divine Archer is one of the reading for week 5. This is a retelling of the Ramayana that differs a decent amount from R.K. Narayan's version that I read these past two weeks.  One of the main differences is the length. It is about half the length of Narayan's version of the story. It achieves the reduction in length by reduces the steps required to reach the main plot points. Another difference is that some of the names lost the "a" at the end. The story starts with King Dasaratha and the city of Ayodhya celebrating the birth of his sons Rama, Bharat, Lakshman, and Shatrughna.  Rama is the son of Kausalya. Bharat is the son of Kaikeyi. Lakshman and Shatrughna are sons of Sumitra. Rama is an incarnation of Vishnu and is marked with signs on his feet.  The first big plot point is when Visva-mitra goes to Dasaratha and asks that he have his son Rama help him ward off the furies and demons that are molesting him. Lakshman also goes with him and they fight the de...

Growth Mindset Cat. Source I chose this cat because I have often been stumped by problems. When I take a a step back and try to re-envision the problem, I can usually figure it out. Growth Mindset Cat. Source I think this speaks to me because I play golf, and the only way to get good at golf is to hit thousands of balls and work on your swing.

Storybook Site Kerala Before and After flooding. Lauren Dauphin