Epics from India

The Golden Feathers                                                                Image Details: Golden Feather, Source: pixabay   There was once young couple who lived with their three daughters. Although they lived happily, they were very poor. One day, the father decides to leave his daughters and wife in order to gain wealth for his family. He promises his wife that he would come back after he is successful. He sets out on a long journey and meets a fairy in his travels. The fairy asks him where he is going and he replies that he is seeking fortune. The fairy is impressed by his blunt answer and decides to help him. She raises her wand and turns him into a goose. The man is shocked by her actions and flies off. He debates about what he should do as he can no longer provide for his family if he is a goose. As he gazes into a pool of water, he realizes that his feathers were made of gold. He flies back to his house to meet with his wife and children. Although he doe

What is a Measure of rice?                                                         Image Details: Rice, Source: Public Domain Pictures In this jataka, a dishonest king calls a valuer to his court in order to set prices for specific commodities such as horses, elephants, gold, etc. However, the valuer was an honest man which upset the king as he wanted to gain more riches without paying as much for them. So, the king fired the honest valuer and appointed a peasant man in his place as he thought that he could manipulate him in order to gain more riches for his kingdom. Since the peasant did not know the value of the commodities being sold, he chose whatever price he saw fit and the people had to sell their items at that price. One day, a horse seller comes to the kingdom to sell five-hundred horses. The peasant tells him that they are worth a measure of rice. The horse seller is shocked at the price and visits the honest valuer to see if he could help him.   The honest

                                                                Image Details: Gandhari, Source: Wikimedia It was a cold, bleak day. The cold air seeped into my lungs and I could see my breath linger in the air as I walked through the forest. I could hear the grass crunch underneath my feet and the chirp of the birds echo through the thin air. “Where is he?” The thought echoed through my mind and was driving me crazy. I knew that they were on the battlefield and I could image the tragedies  occurring. Then, I heard the sound of a cannon and my heartbeat quickened. Terrible thoughts began to pour through my mind. “He’s dead! No, no he’s not. He’s smart and strong. He can protect himself.” Tears began to fall off of my cheeks as my pace became faster. As I gazed ahead, I saw the edge of the battlefield. My feet broke out into a run as I ran towards the field. The wind struck my face and I could feel the edge of my sari pull me back as if it didn’t want me to see the

                                                         Image Details: Death of Drona, Source: Wikimedia   For this week, I read the comic book, “ Drona: Valiant Archer, Supreme Teacher .” This comic book discusses the origin of Drona and his importance in the Mahabharata. Drona was born to the sage, Bharadwaja. Drona becomes good friends with the son of the King, Drupada. Later on in the story, Drupada promises Drona that he will allow him to live with Drupada in the palace. Drona becomes married and has a son, Aswatthaman, whom he adores very much. Later on in the story, Aswatthaman is tricked by his friends to drink powdered rice water instead of milk, mocking his status and poverty. Drona goes to Drupada to help him, but Drupada act indifferently towards him. This causes Drona to vow revenge against Drupada. Drona possess great military skills and this impresses Bhisma. Drona tells Bhisma that he wants to train pupils in order to gain revenge against Drupada. Arj

Week 9: Reading                                                                  Image Details: Gandhari, Source: Wikimedia For this week, I read the comic book “ Gandhari- A mother blinded by love.” The comic book focuses on who Gandhari was and what events led to the demise of her children. The comic book begins with princess Gandhari receiving a blessing of having 100 sons. Gandhari marries Dhritarashtra; however since her husband is blind, she wears a blindfold over her eyes to respect him. When Gandhari gives birth, it is in a form of a shapeless lump. The sage, Vyasa, tells her to prepare one hundred jars of ghee. Then Vyasa cuts the lump into one hundred pieces and placed each piece in the jars. After two years, the children take form. After Dhritarashtra’s brother dies, Kunti and the Pandavas come to Hastinapura. Although Gandhari and Kunti have a wonderful relationship, their children do not get along. This is due to Duryodhana’s immense jealousy for his cousins

                                                        Image Details: Motivational poster, Source: Wikipedia  Looking at my progress so far in class, I am pretty happy with my performance so far in class. I am pretty introverted person, so I think that I am really proud that I can easily post my thoughts and stories for others. The class assignments that I enjoy the most would be the storytelling assignments as well as the stories for our storybook assignment. I have not used any of the extra credit assignments so far, but I think that for this week I might try and complete some of these assignments. I think that moving forward; I need to begin building my website as there are grammatical errors in some of my stories. Also, I need to add more information about some of the stories that I have in my storybook so far. Overall, I am happy with the progress I have completed so far and I am looking forward to working more on my storybook.

                                               Image Details: Feedback Cats, Source: cheezburger   The feedback that I have been receiving on the work that I have been completing in class has been very helpful for me. I find that comments which explain how I can change or edit my story are very helpful for me in future writing. Also, I do enjoy getting positive comments as it allows me to move forward and write better stories. When I give feedback to other students, I use the WWW feedback strategy. This strategy allows me to praise other students, but also lets me criticize portions of the story that I feel needs to be changed. I definitely enjoy reading other people’s stories as I am exposed to other stories and writing styles that I can use in my own stories. Also, I do like blog comments as I get to feel like I am in a class environment. I think that looking forward, I am pretty content with feedback assignments we have for class.

Image Details: Gold earrings, S ource: Wikimedia Looking back at the readings and my blog, I am satisfied with the work I have done so far. I like the storytelling assignments that we have in class as it is a creative way to gain more in-depth knowledge about the characters that we are learning in the epics. The website is really fun to create and edit; however, I think that I need to work on some of the technological aspects on the website. I think that for my blog, the story posts have been improving every week as I am trying to add more simplicity, flow, and dialogue in my stories. For this class, my biggest accomplishment would be designing the storybook for class as this is a completely new experience for me. So far, my favorite reading has been Ravana’s story in the Ramayana. I think that my reading notes are definitely helpful with my story posts as I can write down my notes and choose the best theme that I will use for my story. Overall, I am pretty content with the