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