As the Story Will Tell Itself: To Become the Mouth Which Holds the Universe

An interesting contraption: A bow sitting on a pedestal a fish-like contraption on the ceiling that always rotated and created an image of a fish in a pond below What kept it rotating? Was it wind, the motion of the earth, or even electricity? I like the image of Arjuna during the swayamvara: a "handsome beard", and "hair flowing down his shoulders". That is my kind of man. Have I tried applying my computer knowledge to my storytelling? How would I even do that in a subject like this? Did I choose the wrong reading if I really wanted to do that? Who are Jatilaa and Prachetasa? I admire them for having multiple husbands. What if Draupadi and the Pandavas were gender-bent? Note that Krishna repeats that Draupadi is born of fire, a righteous one. There are occasionally examples of diction that relate to this. Going back to the loss of the gambling game, what if Krishna had given Draupadi the power to unleash the strength of the fire from which she was bor...

Shiva After not seeing this series in a week, Shiva looks like a tragic character, though I know he is not meant to be one. Nonetheless, this story about how his first wife, Sati, was killed at a sacrifice he was not invited to is beyond depressing. I think it is understandable that he would choose to avoid letting his heart be torn apart like that again. Rejection is painful on its own, but utter loss is world-shattering. As out there as Shiva is, there are some endearing parts of his character and stories. Sati being reborn as Parvati and seeking him out as her husband again is a sweet story, even if Shiva only accepted out of grace. It is an example of where love transcends lifetimes kind of. Shiva's lack of knowledge of and possible refusal to conform to groom standards is a bit humorous. I heard a version of Shiva drinking the poison to where doing so was actually killing him. To save him, Parvati squeezed his neck to keep it from doing any more harm. But why did he drink...

Desolation stretched across the land from horizon to horizon. A barren forest still remained on this dead land. In the center stood a decrepit castle surrounded by ninety-nine bodies impaled on pikes, some still alive. Who could still live in such a place? Who could do such a thing to these people? The answer was simple: Count Jarasandha. Count Jarasandha walked about his victims with a goblet in hand. Every wriggle of pain and moan of agony filled him with euphoria. At random, he chose a victim, gave his wounds a squeeze, and let the blood drip into his goblet. He took a sip. Tonight he was especially parched, for he had recently escaped from a man named Krishna and his friends who had been hunting him. If the Count was going to face them, he also may as well do so with the home ground advantage. A racing chariot sounded in the distance. It was them: Krishna, Bhima, and Arjuna. They had found him. The three jumped from the chariot, weapons in hand. "It is over, Jarasandha,...

Here there is a story of a fruit that a king got from a sage, which would make his queen pregnant when she ate it. He split it between his two wives, and they each gave birth to half a lifeless child. One could change the fruit, the setting, what happened to the child, and so on of this seemingly common fruit-pregnancy scenario. Jarasandha starving his defeated enemies and eating feasts before them gives me a similar image of Dracula. In Dracula's case, however, he ate while watching people slowly die after being impaled on pikes. Both are sadists. Write Jarasandha similar to Dracula and Krishna similar to Van Helsing and gang who defeat him Buddha, according to one tradition, was an incarnation of Vishnu. That is interesting. Ooh, how interesting that Krishna taught some women how to use his altered version of the boomerang. That is quite progressive for the time. "Nothing is impossible if you are ready to accept the challenge." So even the author, narrator (...

The darkness, emptiness, and unable-to-observe imagery reminds me of the Hindu Calendar Art videos in the extra readings. By this, I mean the lack of the ability to observe and lack of life does correlate to the end of the universe, that is Vishnu closing his eyes. And in a senses, Vishnu's eyes were closed in his incarnation as Krishna right before his death. I still do not understand why piercing Krishna's soles would result in his death. Explore the curse given to the Yadava clan by the insulted sages. Explore how the clan's wealth and power destroyed them. Narada as one who relays news sounds like Mercury. Narada can cause quarrels among gods and goddesses, spreads gossip and rumors, and spins tales... Is he a good choice to use in a story one writes as the one who starts a quarrel, directly or indirectly? Krishna is a more rebellious and well-rounded incarnation of Vishnu. Perhaps one can look at his rebellious nature in a story: Krishna the bad boy; Krishn...

Where I was about to note a comment, the video beat me to it. They ways in which the world and ideas are represented, like in a balance of male and female, are interesting ways of viewing them. However, culture takes this and corrupts it. Sexist values and power-hungry politics choose to take some of these things literally to justify the oppression, persecution, and abuse of certain groups of people in society. Being all too aware of this practice, that makes it hard to objectively look at and think about these concepts without reminders of said corruption from society. If he banyan tree provides shade, then we both have a lot in common. Ha! It is interesting to think of a snake, especially a cobra, something so venomous, as a symbol of fertility, something to create rather than destroy life. Red as potential energy; green as realized energy: that sounds like a stop light. Now white meaning stillness and black meaning movement seems opposite to what I would have expected. White wou...

To preface, I feel like the title of this blog might be a little misleading. I think I have been fairly productive this entire week, but I have been bad at doing things that should be pretty high priority. By this I mean, say, studying for my Operating Systems and my Theory of Computation exams I have this upcoming week. Now I have been trying to get ahead in the assignments in this class so that I can focus on those things, which I am proud of what I managed so far, but the problem still is actually sitting down to study... And here I am writing for my blog. The main reason I wanted to do this kind of blog this week, besides getting some extra credit, was for something I discovered on my day off yesterday (Saturday). First of all, that was the first Saturday I have had off in months thanks to the OU vs. Texas game. I decided to spend it leisurely, instead of studying, by visiting my old roommate and her cat that lived with us. We went to a little store called Craig's Curiosity E...

I have seen reference to the Ocean of Milk many times. Why milk? Is it in reference to the Milky Way? Or is it something to do with cattle in that because the cow is sacred and valuable, so too is the milk in every aspect? There is something terrifying about the thought of a god closing his eyes and going to sleep, which then results in the end of the universe. But I guess, like said in the videos, it is only terrifying because the I culture I grew up in has always taught this sense of limited time and finality. The uncertainty of what happens while Narayan is asleep, the requirement of an observer to allow something to be observed and, therefore, exist: that sounds a lot like Schrodinger's cat. Did the ancient Hindus have uncertainty principles figured out before the West? But this makes me wonder if there is any significance to what Narayan dreams of when he sleeps. Or does he just reside in a dreamless state of sleep? Do the other Gods and Goddesses experience the lack of ...

Some music to help set up the atmosphere It was a dark, stormy night. Lightening flashed across the heavens. Thunder roared over the land. Wind howled through forests. Trees creaked and moaned. A blind noblewoman's screams from childbirth could be heard echoing among castle walls. Her nurse stayed by her side trying to soothe her and help her along in the process. Finally, something slid out with a loud glorp . No sounds of a crying child could be heard. The nurse stared in horror, for her lady had given birth to a putrid mass of flesh. She fainted. "Nurse? Nurse?" cried the woman. "Why is my child silent, nurse? Please, tell me it is not stillborn. Where is it? Let me hold my child!" She reached towards the foot of the bed. Feeling around, her hand finally found the mass, and she recoiled in disgust and horror as it pulsed and writhed at her touch. The noblewoman broke down. She could not keep such a monstrosity. If anyone knew about this, shame would b...

Bearing the children of the gods is instant? There is no need to worry about the nine months of discomfort and possible death from childbirth? Plus you end up with amazing children? That sounds like a sweet deal if you want children. I thought the sage did tell Kunthi that the mantra would summon a god of her choice for pleasure. Did she not use it because she was not sure if it would work? If the people of the forest thought Pandu and his wives were deities, those three could easily have taken advantage of these people. This could have resulted in a different curse cast upon Pandu but still lead to similar results. Okay, but partially jokingly, someone could, and probably has, write some crazy smut about Kunthi and the gods. The twins did not train with Kunthi's sons. I swear, the twins always seem to get the short end of the stick throughout the epic. Narayan's version of the epic did not mention how Gandhari had one hundred sons, and I can see why. To give birth to a p...

The animation of the videos really helps in visualizing the story. The drawing style is cute, too. This brings a thought to try to write and draw a story in the form of a comic. Unfortunately, this may take too much time to do. It still may be fun and worth a shot. I had completely forgotten about Bhishma was given a gift to choose his time of death. That would have the ending part where he lay on a bed of arrows until the end of the war make more sense. You could write about Devavrat (Bhishma) making his vow of celibacy to bring the fisherman's daughter to his father. You could use imagery of the world shaking, sky darkening, lightening striking, thunder sounding, and so on to all the more highlight the doom that would come. The three Amb- sisters were stolen away? Was that part of a war that was waged to get them or something else? Write a more in-depth story as to what happened when Amba went to go see her love, King Shalva, and he rejecting her. Even better, explore Amba...

Looking at my current progress, I seem to be a small bit ahead, which is great! I have been managing to finish almost every assignment so far at least a couple of days before they are due, so I would say I have a good routine. Out of everything, I think I enjoy the readings the most. They are entertaining as well as informative about mythology and culture. Reading what we have so far also gives me something more productive to do than scroll through social media while riding the Lloyd Noble shuttle to and from campus. I have been making some use of the weekly extra credit but not as much as I should. I tell myself at the beginning of every week that I should do them, and then I don't. For the second half of the semester, I want to take greater advantage of the weekly extra credit and try to work further ahead than I have been managing before. While I enjoy being able to take things at a kind of leisurely pace, it would also be nice to try to finish a couple of weeks early. In...

The comments and feedback I have been receiving from other students in the class have been overall positive. Sometimes I get vibes from some people's comments like they are not sure what to say and are trying to wing it. That is totally fine, though, for I tend to be and feel that way sometimes as well. Especially when there are more than a couple of comments on a post, some comments feel repetitive. This can be helpful, however, like when working on the class project. If several people are mentioning the same thing, then there is an obvious problem with a higher priority to address. I think I have only once gotten conflicting advice when it came to suggestions for the writing in my storybook, where one person said to try to increase paragraph size and another said they were already a good size. I feel like I am getting better at commenting and giving feedback, but I still do not feel like my comments are of the best quality. I admit there are times when I am not sure what to say...

I have been enjoying the reading and writing assignments so far. My classes usually involve a lot of technical stuff that lacks a lot of creativity, so it is nice to have the chance to break that monotony with a chance to read a be creative. My favorite reading so far, which was not exactly reading, was for Sita Sings the Blues . I thought that the variety of animations were amazing, beautiful, and fun to watch. It was also nice to have something that kind of gave a different opinion and point of view as to what happened in the Ramayana . When it comes to my reading notes, I feel like they are somewhat sloppy and all over the place. As well as commenting on what I come across in my readings, I am also jotting down ideas for different possible stories for the week. Posting those ideas in a place where everyone can see may be a bad idea, but I guess it does not really matter to me. My notes are meant for me. As for my project, I am having fun writing my storybook. Initially, I was not lo...

The story of the mango and the race between Ganesha and Kartrikeya: I am surprised at what Ganesha did and said. It was more endearing and wholesome than I expected, especially after reading more cruel things in other stories. It is interesting that he comments on the subject of mythology, this case Hindu, as being beyond rationality and something to approach with an open mind. I know that even in the early days before being in this class, I always thought it was strange the way the Hindu deities were depicted, but the polytheism and interconnection of  everything was fascinating. Now in this class, I look at all of these things like "wow!" I like the idea of multiple incomplete beings encompassing different aspects of life and the universe. Sometimes I look at monotheistic religions and think it is unreasonable to stow so many qualities, virtuous or not, into one being. If you have a being that is so vast, a typical mortal will easily lose sight of this being. Where al...

Young Prince Uttara walked haughtily around the palace. "By the gods, I am bored," he sighed. "I wish to be out fighting in campaigns! But alas, there are none for me to take part!" The prince moped. "If I could go out right now, I would tear through our enemies with the fury of a hundred tigers! I would level them with the strength of a thousand elephants! I would-" he continued to rant and brag about himself. King Virata, Uttara's father, overheard all of this. He knew that his son seemed to be capable of the feats about which he kept bragging. The king decided to test his son of his capabilities. "Uttara, my son," Virata called, "come before me! I have a mission for you." The prince started at his fathers voice, but he obeyed. "One of the neighboring kingdoms is causing trouble for us. I wish to send you out to go and deal with them. Take Himmat as your charioteer." Uttara tried to give a reason as to why he could no...

Dhritarashtra is a weak leader. If everyone has been saying since the beginning to get rid of Duryodhana, then he should have. This whole war could have been avoided if he had just done so. Consider a story taking place in the past when Duryodhana was born. Take a route where he is left to die of exposure and either leave it at that or have him survive and cause this was out of revenge for leaving him. Is it really fear from which the Pandavas are speaking? U think it is more of a decent thing to try to avoid this war. Where the conflict really is between the Pandavas and Kauravas, there is no need to drag millions of others to their deaths. What if one of the pleas for peace works? What if the war was only fought five versus one hundred one? "Many of you will die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make." -Lord Farquad Why is Krishna aware of his divinity whereas Rama was not? Is this a difference in circumstance? Duryodhana is described as a snake with ey...

Duryodhana sets up a camp near Kamyaka, but a full-on battle was started with some nearby gandharvas. This results in Duryodhana's capture and the Pandavas coming to rescue him. Expand upon the dialogue and whatever else that starts the scuffle. Add detail to the part where the Pandavas save Duryodhana (how, when, etc.). What happened to the deer? They went to hunt it down, got thirsty, and were distracted by the whole encounter with Yama, but is the rest of the hunt going to be glossed over? Add more detail to the hunt like another mishap. Poor Draupadi... The women in these epics tend to suffer such unfortunate fates. But when you consider the times, women were viewed as nothing. Write about Draupadi's and Bhima's plan and execution of Kichaka and his army.  To watch "lynx eyed": what an interesting metaphor. Lynxes have pretty eyes. Livestock are valuable, and cattle are highly revered. It is understandable why the Kauravas would try to steal...