Week 6 story: Reincarnation of Draupadi

Before Draupadi was born she was a reincarnation of Nalayani, who was a women happily married to her husband Rishi Maudgalya. They were know to be the most loving couple in the universe. When they got married they vowed to be with each other for all the seven cycles of rebirths. Rishi was into meditation and he wanted to be one of the best Rishi's out there so one day he went into the mountains to meditate. He spent almost a week by just meditations, until finally Shankar came down to visit him.

Shankar: Why have you summoned me?

Maudgalya: I want to be the best Rishi, who can get powers through meditation.

Shankar: Why you wish for such, only the gods can have such power.

Maudgalya: I will only use the power for the common good, help people around by spreading positivity. If you see me use it for evil, you can avenge me.

Shankar: I will only be able to grant you such a boon, if only you leave your loving wife forever.

Maudgalya: WHY? We have vowed to live together for 7 cycles of rebirth. We have been together since the very beginning. She is my destiny.

Shankar: I did not say this was going to be easy, if you want power then you must earn it.

As Shankar was almost about to leave. He hears Maudgalya shout.

Maudgalya: I WILL DO IT!

Therefore, Shankar granted him the boon. However, Maudgalya certainly felt guilty of such deeds. He meditated more to get power. Until He was so immense in meditation, he finally forgot his wife Nalayani. 

Nalayani looked for her husband for days. The forest was so big and since Maudgalya was meditating in a secret spot, she never found him. Nalayani spent rest of her life in sorrows, until finally one day one of the gods visited her and asked what she wanted. This is where Nalayani asked god for a happy marriage life, where she will always be taken care off and never left alone. As always there was a twist, god did not just give her one loyal and caring husbands, but five. She was assured that in her next birth cycle, she would be queen Draupadi and she will marry five princes.

Bibliography: PDE Mahabharata

Rishi meditating to get power

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Author's note:
Originally this story starts with the Rishi wanting to focus more on meditations and Tapas, giving up his wife and life. His wife Nalayani gets upsets as she is not satisfied with his love and want him to be there for her throughout the many cycles of rebirths. However, her husband just leave and she starts meditating, where she gets visited by god, who grants her five husbands because she says I want my husband five times. I wanted to make it more interesting, on why Rishi wanted to leave her and how he is granted the boon of power. I changed up the story by flipping the point of view.

Reading Notes: PDE Mahabharata Part B

For this part of the reading I liked the story of Draupadi, how she was married to a man, who never loved her so she prayed until one of the gods promised her five husbands, even though she only wanted one. Then later, she is shown to become a wife of five Pandavas brothers, which was shocking. Later in the epics there comes to dice battles, which is one of the significant battle of Mahabharata as the oldest Pandava brother Yudhishthria looses everything over a con game, he even ends up losing his wife. Then later when the king finds out he grants Draupadi two boons for all the troubles she went through, where she only used one to exile to forest with Pandavas. I was thinking about re-creating a story based off the dice game. Maybe come up with a different game, where they do not give away Draupadi.

Bibliography: PDE Mahabharata 

Draupadi's fate due to the gambling game 

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Reading notes: Mahabharata Part A

I choose to read the PDE Mahabharata for this reading. When I first started reading this story I was a little confused on some of the character's birth, especially of Vyasa's birth. I had no idea how this could be real, fish getting pregnant with two babies from swelling a semen that fell from the sky.  I have never heard of this part of the story as I am familiar with Mahabharata. It was also interesting of how the king Shantanu marries Ganga, who throes away all her babies until the last one because king asks her not too. This is where she leaves the king because he breaks his promise of not getting mad at her. Later on, she brings the last son to the king. I liked the part where king Pandu marries to two wives Kunti and Madri and they go to forest, where Pandu kills the sages disguised into a deer form and the sages comes to his real form, cursing the king that he will die similarly with one of his wife in the forest. This resembles the story from Ramayana and I want to recreate it. Maybe in a different context. I think reading all these stories from Mahabharata is more intense than Ramayana. This focus a lot on the Pandavas and Kauravas, who basically turn on each other, creating many battles. There were so many characters in this epics that it was hard to keep track of each individual, I can only imagine how much others struggles as they have no background in Hinduism.

Bibliography: PDE Mahabharata

Ganga bringing back her last son 

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Week 5 Story: Cleverness over Foolishness

Dhobi as an evil rat, as cursed by Rama

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Rama and Sita re returning from Lanka to Ayodhya. All the people are so happy for Rama killing Ravana and returning back safely. His brothers were so happy to see him and Lakshmana. Eventually,        they all crown Rama as a king. Soon, Sita is pregnant and she goes to the dhobi to get her family's Laundry.

Dhobi: How are you dong today queen?

Sita: I am really happy, what about you?

Dhobi: I am doing well, What's the occasion behind the happiness?

Sita: I am going to be a mother soon.

Dhobi sees this opportunity and spreads the rumors all around the town of Sita carrying Ravan's kids. All the town's people find out and believes his rumors. They are furious and goes to the king Rama and advise him to exile Sita so the town is not in future danger. Rama gets angry and asks them who told you all this rumor. Eventually, Rama figures out it was Dhobi, who was spreading the rumors. Rama goes to the laundry mat, where Dhobi resides and curses him to be a rat. 

Sita and Rama have ceremonies to decide on the name for their child, where they invite many respectful sages. The sages tells them they are going to have twins, they will be named Love and Kush according to their fate. The sages also tells Rama that they is going to be an evil force, which will try to harm your kids. Rama and Sita becomes petrified so as soon as the twins are born they are protected by many soldiers. As the twins are growing up, Rama prepares them for a possible war between them and a evil force. 

One day, when the twins are playing alone in the backyard the rat decides to sneak up on them and try to poison them with his bitting. The twins realize, he was the evil force that would try to destroy them so they get their bow and arrow to kill him. The rat is sneaky and roams around and hides from them until Kush finally grabs him from his tail and change the rat into a person. 

Dhobi: Please, do not kill me

Kush: Why should we not, you have caused many trouble to out family and us.

Dhobi: He distracts the boys by making up a clever story, but the kids are intelligent and realize that he is lying and just trying to escape from him. (Dhobi makes a run for his life)

Love: Grabs his bow and aim it at the dhobi with his arrow. He shoots and kills the Dhobi.

The Twins rush to Rama and tell him what happened in the garden. Rama and town people are happy and realize how bad the Dhobi was. They all cherish the deeds of the twins and celebrate with a big Festival of greatness over evilness. 

Bibliography: Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley

Author's note: Originally, the second part of the movie started with Dhobi spreading the rumors of Sita carrying Ravana's sons. Rama is furious and believes the town people and exile Sita to the forest, where she has the twins and sings for her love, Rama. I did not like the way Sita was sent away so I made it into a happy ending, where Rama would not treat Sita so ruefully. Also I wanted to punish Dhobi for starting this so I made him into a rat and killed him by the twins.  

Week 5 Planning: Cleverness over Foolishness

It is hard to come up with a story for this week so I decided to work on brainstorming and planning before I write out the story. I was thinking about writing about the second half of the film, Sita Sings the Blues. I was thinking about not letting Sita go to the forest since I did not really like the way it was played out. I could retell the story from where Rama and Sita returns to Ayodhya. I was thinking about punishing the dhobi for his wrong doings to Sita, so maybe I can talk about how he tries to spread rumors about Sita to the whole town, but Rama finds out he is lying so then he is cursed by him. I was thinking about making him into a pet, rat. The way Pettigrew disguise as a pet rat to Ron in Harry Potter. Sita is not sent to the forest as Rama proves them the babies does not belong to Ravana. Sita is happy that her true love believes in her purity and localness. They have a big ceremony with many sages, to decide what to name the kids. The priests tells Rama and Sita that they are having twins, who will be names Love and Kush. They also tell them about an evil force, who will try to kill them. Rama prepares the kids for future once he realizes someone is after them. one day the rat comes in their home and tries to kill them. However, the babies are smart and realize the doings of dhobi and they bring him to life to understand why he was trying to kill them. The two boys get in a fight as the dhobi tries to deceive them again, where they evetually end up killing him before he can escapes. They kill him with bow and arrow as they are experts in using them. Rama thought them very well on how to use it, he sent them to trainings just like the way he was sent when he was little. At the end, everyone is happy and celebrates Rama and his family. 

dhobi cursed into a rat form

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Bibliography: Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley

Reading Notes: Reading Notes: Sita sings the Blues Part B

Hanuman setting Lanka on fire 

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I was not really aware of the part B of the story, all I could remember was that Sita had two sons named Love and Kush. I had no idea that she had to go through so much after returning back to Ayodhya. I was upset to see Nina reading the email from Dave. I would not be okay with receiving those kind of emails. I thought Dave could have been a little gentle with the break up. There was so much going on in this part, especially when a Dhobi beats up Sita. Dhobi believes Sita was carrying Ravana's babies and tells rest of the town. He spread rumors and was the reason Sita was exile in the forest again. On the other hand, Sita thinks she is getting cursed from her past karma. I could not believe that Rama would just send her away because he was the king and wanted to protect his reputation. Then Rama knows he made mistake and tries to get her back, but this time she leaves them forever. I think Rama should have stood up for Sita instead of making he go though struggles every time someone says something negative towards her. I did not expect Sita to leave Rama that was shocking for me, especially since she spent most of her time singing about her true love, Rama. In the story, I would make it opposite and make Sita be the one who judges Rama and Steps up for her girl power.

Bibliography: Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley  

Reading Notes: Sita sings the Blues Part A

Sita in front of all the creators 

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In the first part of Sita sings blues, it is mostly a short summary of the Ramayana. I liked how this was more comical based. Some of the parts were really funny rather then serious. I also liked how there were parts of Nina and Dave in the movie. There was a part about how the bridge was used to connect India to Sri Lanka and how it still exists today. Many people would not believe that Ramayana happened, but there are so many evidences in India that shows the correlation between

 real life and the story. Ayodhya is an actual city in India, where many people go for religious ceremonies. I was not a big fan of the part where Rama refuses Sita because she had been in other man's house. Ram does not trust Sita, he blames her for being beautiful and prolly getting "rapped" by Ravana, even though it does not happen. Rama is finally convinced by her, when she almost burns in the fire and then asks for forgiveness. One of the best parts were the narrators, who were arguing about small details and also adding other extra details to the story. I think the topics they argued over are actually worth considering. I was a little confused when they talked about Ravana playing the Veena with his intestines, I do not remember reading about it. They also talked about Hanuman, arguing if it was half monkey and half man. Overall, this was a good film to watch 

Bibliography : Sita Sings the Blue by Nina Paley

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Week 4 story: Life of Kumbhkarna

Kumbhkarna, destroying the town Danville

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Once upon a time, there was a big monster named Kumbhkarna, who lived in Danville. He was known all over the town as the biggest evil monster and everyone feared him. He goes around the town messing up people's lives by eating their food, messing up their houses and also eating some of the people. Many people were tired of his behavior so they all decided to go to the king's palace for some help.

People: "We are tired of Kumbhkarana and all his evil doings, can you do something about it."

King: "I know his deeds are getting worse day by day, I will come up with a plan to defeat him. Just be patience my people."

People: "We can not wait any more, that evil troll is eating people. We are all going to die soon."

The king was furious and had to come up with a plan to kill the beast. One day he decides to call a meeting with all the nearby kings. They eventually end up confronting a brave man, who decides to take on the challenge. The brave man, named Indra goes and tries to destroy the monster, but before he could Kumbhkarna takes all away all his weapons. He is helpless so the monster ends up killing him. The great being is mad at him for doing such and destroying many other innocent lives so he curses Kumbhkarna, who will sleep for six months and eat for six months. However, when the monster is awake, he causes more trouble then ever. The god is mad and finally sends Vishnu, as a form of Rama to earth. Rama is destined to go to Jungle for fourteen years due to a boon that his father was responsible for. While in Jungle, one day Rama is passing by the town and he hears people talking about this evil monster. He feels like he can help the people so he goes up to them and talks to them about it. Eventually, Rama finds about more about the monster. Where he stays and when he will be up. Rama and his brother both goes to the monster and see him sleeping. They try to wake him up, but they had no luck. Then one of the townsman, hit a rock into Kumbhkarna's eyes and he wakes up.

Kumbhkarana: His eyes are red and smoke is coming out of his ear, "Who dares to wake me up, while I am in my hibernating period."

People: In fear, they all rushed to their home

Rama: "It was me, you big monster. I am here to put an end to your evil behavior."

Kumbhkarana: "HAHAHAH, No one can defeat me. I would like to see what you got.'

Kumbhkarana throws a big rock towards Rama and his brother, which luckily they pass by. Rama was furious too now so they start fighting. Rama knew he was in a big danger as he saw what the monster was capable off. They go through many rounds of throwing things at each other. Gods are seeing that Rama is struggling, so they send a fire weapon for him to use. Rama uses the weapon, which eventually ends up killing Kumbhkarana as the fire weapon passed through his head and body.

The king is pleased with the Rama's deed so he ends up crowning him as a prince for the town of Danville.

Author's note:
This story was actually about Kumbhkarana, who is cursed by Brahma when he defeats lord Indra. Therefore, he is a monster, who sleeps for six months and eats for a day. I wanted to make the story into a children's version so I added extra details. Rama kills him in the actual story and I wanted to keep it same because I like the way he defeated him so I used the same story line.

Bibliography: PDE ramayana, Kumbhakarna Link

Reading Notes: Ramayana Part D

One of the story that I was interested in was the one about Kumbhakarna. I always use the name for people, when they sleep a lot. This has been a common word to use in our culture for lazy people. Kumbhakarna is basically a big monster in Ramayana, who defeated lord Indra and he got cursed for doing so by Brahma. He was cursed to sleep for six months and only wake up to eat one day. I have always learned the story in a different way like he slept for six months and ate for six months. I know it sounds like a life you would like to live. However, he was evil and ate anything he could chew with his teeth even humans. I could make this story into almost children's storybook version. I could use him as a big monster, who goes around the town harassing people. I can talk about how when he gets super hungry, he goes into random people's house to steal their food and sometimes even ate the people. Then came a hero in town, who was known for defeating many monsters, this is where I can introduce Rama. Then with is powerful weapon, bow and arrow he is able to kill him bringing peace to the town.

Another story, I could talk about is Rama's return to Ayodhya. Rama returns to his hometown after defeating till the evil monster Ravana. When he returns he gets a big welcome and also gets crowned the king. It's one of the happiest ending in the story. I can make it like a disney movie, Jungle book. It can be set like the movie where Sita goes to the jungle and finds his prince and they fight the monsters for fourteen years before returning. Once they return, they are greeted by everyone and they get married. Rama gets crowned and they live happily after. I can also then talk about Diwali, which is the festival celebrated for returning of Rama. It is the festival of lights, which shadows the overcome of darkness with light. It is celebrated with lots of fireworks, foods and gifts. It is kind of resembled to Christmas. It is one of the biggest festival in Hindu religion.

An image of Rangoli, decorated during Diwali 

Credits

Bibliography: PDE Ramayana, Part D Link

Reading Notes: Ramayana Part C

One story that interested me was about Hannuman, how was he was born to be one of the most powerful creature. I remember some vague details about his birth, when I first watched Ramayana. As I read the story, I understood it completely. The story says, he got his form due to Hanuman going towards the sun to eat it because he was really hungry. He gained so many boon from the gods form the heaven, making him really strong and powerful. I could change the reason behind why hanuman decided to eat sun, make it more dramatic by making it a challenge for him. As he eats the sun, he is visited by other gods, as they are all astonished. I was also thinking about adding a twist to it, like create one of those ninja turtle movie scene, where they are faced with a villain.

Hanuman showing his love for Ram and Sita

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Another story that I could possibly use to retell is Hanuman getting captured by Indrajit. Indrajit figured out how powerful hanuman was and used his brain to capture him without using any ordinary weapons. He captures him by the Brahma's shaft, which was one of the strongest weapon. Therefore, hanuman could not be free and ended up being captured. I could talk about few battles they go through before hanuman is captured. How Indrajit got hurt and got really angry so he decided to call for help from his kingdom, who gave him advise about hanuman's weaknesses. He then used the shaft acquired by his father through hard work to get him. He then ends up taking him to Ravana, where he asks him to kill him but somehow hanuman escapes it. 

Bibliography: PDE Ramayana Part C, Link

Feedback Strategies

In Be a Mirror, Goldberg analyzes the theory of Carol Dweck to foster a growth mindset. I think it is important to pay attention to what is there instead of what is missing. It was one of the key item, she mentioned to foster growth for the students. It gives people a positive attitude, which can help them further by believing in themselves that could lead to further improvement. Another thing that I liked about the article was to take yourself out of the feedback. I think that is important because it can help the student focus more on the problem because when you say "I think..or I believe.." they take it as more of an opinion rather than feedback.

Another article that I read was Presence, Not Praise, Popova uses theory from many researchers to show how hard work is really important rather then just praising them for being clever. They show how students perform better, when they are told good job for the hard work rather than good job, you are so smart. When students always get compliments on their cleverness, it hinders them to push to their abilities. While the students who are praised for their hard work, they show a creative style towards solving a problem. They typically figures out a new route, when they are challenged with difficult tasks.

Always be open to challenges 

Growthmindset cats

Topic Research: Reincarnation

I have decided to do my project over Reincarnation as the topic most intrigues me. Reincarnation is one of the major part of Hinduism. I would love to use stories from the epics to analyze it. Three stories that I have chosen so far are:

Vishnu as Rama
Avatar of vishnu, In order to defeat Ravana, Vishnu as agreed to take a form as a human. Ravana can only be defeated by a human so god comes to earth to fulfill his duty. It is said in our religion that once Kalyug (age of darkness) increases beyond limits, god will come to earth as form of a human to defeat it. I would like to make my plot related to today's world and talk about god coming to earth to fight the evil.


Dasharatha's Karma
Karma, which I could incorporate into the story as well. I can talk about how his Karma affected his death. Then go further and talk about his life after death. what he can potentially be reincarnated as in the next birth cycle. I would also like to incorporate the Karmas of this ongoing world and talk about how it will affect people in their after life.

Sita as Lakshmi
Birth of Sita, I can use this to tell a love story. I can use Rama and Sita as a pair and then Vishnu and Lakshmi as a pair. How true love can be reincarnated together for next birth. We do rituals in weddings, where we make seven rounds across fire as family throws rice or flowers at the couples. I can talk about why that ritual is done and how it is meant for the couples to stay together even in the after life.

Souls are being transformed into many forms

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Week 3 Story: Karma

Priest telling King the reason for his misery

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One day the king of Ayodhya, Dasharatha went hunting with is sons in a nearby forest. It was time for his sons to learn archery. As the royal family, the sons will have to be trained in numerous aspects to not only protect themselves, but also for the purpose of defeating evil for the common people of the Ayodhya. The king taught few lessons and later they practiced it on the tree. While practicing they heard a weird noise from one direction of the forest.

Rama: "Pita, Did you hear that?"

Dasharatha: "Dear son, what are you talking about?"

Lakshmana: "There is a noise coming from that side of the forest" as he points in that direction

Rama: "It almost sounds like a beast is growling in the water"

Dasharatha: "Do not get hesitant, I will take care of it now"

He then takes out an arrow and lines it up with the bow and shoots in that direction. In few minutes the noise had disappeared. The kids asks him to go see what it was, but as soon as they were about to go look, a server comes to fetch king to return back to the palace. The server specifies, there is a highly praised priest, who came to visit you.

They all return back to the palace, without knowing that king has taken a life of an innocent.

Few Years later:
King Dasharatha has to send his beloved child Rama to forest for fourteen years, which was a wish from his wife. He did not know why she would do such a thing or why was this happening to his life. The king was depressed and could not bear sending Rama, Lakshmana (who decided to join his brother) and Sita (Rama's wife) to the forest for 14 years. He thought this was too cruel and no parents should be faced with such agony. He calls priests, thinking his wife was possessed to ask for such a dreadful thing. Priests performed many rituals, where they find out the real reason for Rama's exile.

Priest: "oh king, your wife is not possessed, but it is Karma that is causing you the suffering. You killed an innocent man, while hunting. The man was getting water for his blind parents and you shot him with your arrow. The boys blind parents waited for his return and they found out from a bird that their only son was killed. The parents were furious with such injustice that they cursed the person who killed their son with a life full of sorrows like their. They cursed you with not being able to see your beloved son for years so you can feel their pain."

King had no idea he created such a big crime and he wept for days. He lived last few days of his life miserably, which lead to his blindness and eventually death.

Author's note:
The story is based of King Dasharatha's hunting scene in the jungle. He kills an innocent man, who is getting water for his blind parents, thinking it was a deer. As king approaches the pond, the innocent man tells him to go get his blind parents and tell them what happened truthfully. As the blind parents find out the story from the king, he is cursed. I changed the story by putting it into a different context, where king did not find out till later that he was cursed for his deed. I wanted to emphasize on the meaning of karma and how it lead to Rama's exile and therefore, king's sorrows.

Bibliography: PDE Ramayana, Dasharatha's karma Link

Reading Notes: Ramayana Part B

The Golden Deer:
It was interesting how Rama faced so many demons, while exiled in the forest. One of the demon he faced during his time in forest was Maricha, who is the son of Thataka. Ravana is trying is to meddle with Rama so he does not destroy his kingdom. He uses Maricha to transform him into a beautiful deer to fool Sita. The plan works for Ravana, as demons can easily disguise themselves into many forms. I would change the way Maricha is disguised, maybe make her into an old lady that Sita goes to help. The lady asks for a favor like picking apples and at the end makes it a poisonous apple and make her eat, but Rama saves her from eating the apple and kills the old lady.

Sita and Ravana:
The way Ravana tries to steal Sita by disguising as a sage is a good story. I would maybe turn the story around the way Ravana falls in love with her. He is trying to win over her, but Sita is faithful to her love,Rama. I would try a different plot, where Sita is wondering into the forests and Ravana has a magic powder. He uses that powder on Sita to make fell fall in love with Ravana, which changes the scene completely. She agrees to go to Lanka with ravana and live with him. Eventually Rama figures out his plot and then tries to rescue her before Ravana does something bad to her. Rama and Lakshmana comes up with a clever plan to go to Lanka with the help of sages, where they will disguise themselves to get into the castle with their weapons and rescue Sita.

Ravana and Sita meetup in the forest 

Image source

Bibliography: PDE Ramayana Part B, Link

Reading Notes: Ramayana

As I read the Part A of Ramayana, I felt nostalgic as I reminisced the time I had to watch the series of it during my elementary school years. I remembered vague details about the full stories, but as I read more I got to grasp the full picture. I learned something new along the way of reading that I have not previously encountered. As for my stories, I would like to talk about one on this topics:

Dasharatha's Death:

Maharajah Dasharatha's death was something that intrigued me. He accidentally killed a young hermit, who was solely trying to get water for his blind parents. The story is really sad on how the king was cursed for his mistake. I would change up the way he is cursed. Maybe something like he heard a voice in forest while hunting so he shot an arrow in that direction, but not knowing he killed someone he leaves the place happily once the noise goes away. Later in his life, he is suffering and has to send his beloved kinds to forest for fourteen years. Not knowing why he has to go through such thing he calls priests and sages to explain his sorrowfulness. The sages and priests tells him about the time he went hunting and accidentally killed an innocent, who was bringing joy to his blind parents. You took away the happiness not only the child, who like serving his parents but also the parents, who were born blind. Therefore, you are being punished by you dealing with pain. The priest then informs him of how he will never see his beloved children again and die in tremendous pain.

Rama and Sita's first meeting:

I liked setting, where Rama and Sita met, which was in the garden of king Janaka. I was not a big fan of how they fell in love. I would make it more dramatic, maybe like Rama and Lakshmana entered a completion on the street for archery and by mistake Ram's bow fell into the garden of king Janaka. Where they both go to get it and Ram sees Sita the first time as she is holding the bow. Give it more love at first sight feeling to the story. Then Ram is challenged by her father for crossing into his garden and if he wins the challenge he wins Sita. 

Manthara:

I was not a big fan of her character. She was portrayed as someone, who was hideous and evil but we really don't get to know why. Something that I would talk about is how she has been serving the Dasharatha's family for years and during one of those years she was treated badly. Therefore she got the personality to feed Kaikeyi some evil sayings to put the family in misery. Her motive was to destroy the family once she was humiliated by the king. 

Rama and Sita in love 

Wikicommons

Bibliography: PDE Ramayana Part A Link

Feedback Thoughts

As I read Using Harsh Feedback to Fuel Your Career by William Treseder and Why rejection hurts so much-and what to do about it by Guy Winch, I understood how feedback really changes the way a person receives it. Most of us love positive feedbacks, but when we get negative feedback we feel aggressive or attacked. It is common to feel such way at the beginning. Treseder shows us how to take in the negative feedback and use it for the growth. First thing a person should do is Embrace the emotions you feel when you receive the feedback, then think about it calmly to see how it could benefit you, and then commit to the changes you have to make. I like how Winch also explained in his article of why rejection hurts us so much. It was an interesting read especially since we all face rejection, whether it is our personal relationships or professional. He says not to over criticize yourself, boost your self-worth by making lists of things that you have to offer and to boost feelings of social connections. However, I do not think that it works all the time. I think if you criticize yourself, then it helps you to work harder. It makes you want to change, whatever the thing you have been critiqued on. Boosting your self esteem defiantly does help you from hurting, but you have to think that pain is temporary and growth is forever. It does hurt when someone makes a negative comment on you, especially when it comes from your loved ones, but if you do not improve then what is the point of making a list of all the qualities you have to offer. The pain is going to hurt, but if  you work on your weaknesses it will only help you grow and get further in life. Lastly, he talks about making social connections when you feel left out, like if you are not invited to an event that most of your friends are invited to, go with other group of people to different events. As humans I agree that we all do have a need "to belong"whether that's with friends, colleagues, or family. However, we are not always guaranteed that especially if the person is anti-social or if they only have few friends. We do feel neglected when the closest to us deceives us, but to solve that I think you should distract yourself from hurting by picking up different hobbies, that can help you improve. Calmly examine the situation to see if it's worth fixing it and just try making new friendships by joining different clubs.

Positive outlook on negative comments 

Image: Cheezburger

Topic Brainstorm

Lord Krishna with his mother 

Image: Commons

Reincarnation:

This topic would be something that I would be interested to write about. Throughout the epics of Hinduism, we learn that many gods and goddesses are reincarnated from previous lives. For example, many believe that Lord Krishna and Lord Rama are all incarnated form of Lord vishnu. I would like to understand the cycle of rebirth and how it all relates to the Karma, Moksha, Samsara and Nirvana. I have basic understanding to the theory of reincarnation, but I would like to further ponder on why it's part of the religion. 

Mahabharata:

I have previous knowledge of Mahabharata, which makes me more interested to read and write about the fights and wisdom that is given inside the book. Lord Krishna's birth and his childhood is one of my favorite stories from here so I would love to understand more about it and make my project over it. The war is also one of the most important epic battle for Hinduism, how Krishna guides Arjuna through out it really interesting. I have forgotten some details about it so I would love to refresh my memory over it.

Saraswati:

Saraswati is known to be a goddess of wisdom. It is said that she was created by Lord Brahma from a river. I do not have that much information on how she got to be known as the goddess of wisdom and learning. I would like to read about the birth and how she was known to be by doing the research. It will not only help me gain some knowledge, but also get me to write about my findings.

Food and Festivals:

Hinduism has lots of festivals, some that even last nine days. I can talk about all the festivals and the foods that are served with them. Also, help give meaning behind why the foods are related to the each particular festival. I celebrate almost all of festivals here since I am from a Hindu religion background. This project would be fun to correlate it with my experiences for each festivals.