Indian Epics Spring 2018

I think the topic I would most enjoy for my storybook would be supernatural characters of the Ramayana. I had mentioned writing of rakshasas/rakshasis, and have already read Goblin City  and written my own story involving rakshasis. I found The Wise and the Foolish Merchant  and thought this might be fun to rewrite. It involves rakshasas as well, but I like that here the man outsmarts the demons instead of being rescued. The Terrible Bell  is another rakshasa story I'd be interested in. It reads more like a false ghost story, reminding me a bit of Scooby Doo. Another supernatural character would be the mermaid Suvannamaccha, who I mentioned writing about for the love stories topic. I really enjoyed the story of Hanuman and Suvannamaccha  and would love to work with it later for my project. Mermaids have always been of interest to me and I enjoy love stories.  I would also like to write of yakshas.  The Princes and the Water-Sprite (Devadhamma) ...

        I have a hard time shifting my views and behavior when it comes to praise. I've lived with praise my whole life, and I like it. It feels good to be told that you're smart or good at something. In fact, when I was very young and first learning to speak, my aunt pointed to a picture of me and asked who it was. My response was, "that's a good girl." The article I read called The Difference Between Praise and Feedback  suggests telling them they're good is one of the worst things you can do to your children. It's hard for me to decide to just stop doing this. I think I'll try to adopt Carol Dweck's approach of praising processes.         I find that it's also important to praise specific things. Instead of saying someone is a good writer, I might praise them for their word choice or how they ended a story. This is kind of what the article Specific Feedback that Helps Learning  is talking about. It's necessary to point out s...

        Once, there was a farmer and his wife. On this farm, there were cows, horses, chickens, and pigs, but there were no children. The couple found happiness in their work and had great love for one another, but there was a gap in their lives that they could not fill. Try as they might, they could not have children. The wife was especially depressed by this. She longed for the joy of motherhood. The farmer wished for a child as well, but he also worried who would take care of them when they grew old. They experimented with many natural remedies and prayers to all kinds of gods of different religions.         On a particularly dreary morning, an old witch wandered out of the woods and knocked on the couple’s door. The farmer’s wife, a very kind woman, allowed her in and offered some food. The witch gratefully accepted. When she had finished eating, she looked gravely at the wife’s stomach.          “Something is...

Bharata is furious with his mother for her actions and immediately plans to set out to bring Rama home to sit on the throne. Rama refuses to come back because it would be against what his father commanded. Bharata argues with him but Rama remains strong. I felt like Rama was being kind of rude about this. Everyone wants him to come home, but he's stubborn and trying way too hard to be this impossibly and annoyingly moral person. I would rewrite the ending for this. I'd have Rama put up a bit of a fight, like he doesn't want to steal his brother's thunder. But, after Bharata's insistence, I would write him coming home and taking over the throne. Rama's wife, Sita, tells her birth story of how she is born from the ground when her father was ploughing. I would like to make a story from this. Maybe a couple has trouble with having children, so they pray to a god and are granted a child which is grown from the ground like a plant. This could even be combined wit...

A king is unable to have children with any of his three wives, so he calls for a sacrifice of a horse. I'd never heard of a horse sacrifice before, so I think I would enjoy playing around with the idea a bit. I could tell the story from the horse's point of view. It wanders for a year, doing as it wishes, all the while knowing that at the end of the year it will be killed. A female demon is fought by two boys who are reluctant to kill her because she is female. I could write something similar where the demon is not slain but continues to pursue the boys until they are dead. A man disguises himself as a woman's husband, but she discovers the truth. Her husband is furious and kills the man and curses his wife. As a present-day rewrite, I could have the husband murder the impostor and frame his wife for the crime. She would go to jail and that would be her curse. Two young princes discover a king's beautiful garden. The princess is wandering around and sees...