Reading Notes: The Mahabharata Part A

For this part of the notes, four of the five brothers in the Pandavas died from drinking in a water before answering the questions of Yama. The chapter represents Hell and is particularly interesting because the Death God, Yama, disguised himself in order to trick the family. There is a theme of hubris in the Pandavas as they seem like they are all too powerful to even heed the divine signs of nature. Only Yudhistera was able to overcome his own thirst and sorrow for the death of his brother to answer the questions of Yama. 

Once again, Narayan's writing style of this chapter is very brief and really more factual than emotional. He skips over all the philosophical hindu meanings of the conversation and just mentions in the footnotes that they are those types of conversations. I assume because he is appealing to a different and wider generation of people that most people would not understand the old hindu religion and so he chooses to skip over them. I think that by skipping over such key details and speaks of the philosophy detracts from how we can understand the text as a whole however and I would have really appreciated learning about what the encounter with Yama means philosophically as it seemed like a very deep part of the text.

Yudhistera standing over the dead bodies source

Famous Last Words: sick cold week

Last week was probably the weirdest week. On Sunday I bought some tortillas and got really sick the next day. Then on Tuesday, class was let out early and then no school after that. One thing that I really appreciated was sledding in my car. I ended up spending my snow day getting caught up on my reading for this class as well as my fate and the individual class. I finished Moby Dick and that was probably one of the coolest books I've read in a long while. I also finished the Mahabharata and I think that there is definitely going to be a lot of future stories coming from Arjuna and his stories. Lastlly, I did not get my hours of MCAT in this week and that is totally my fault. One thing that I will do better this week than I did last week is I will do my assignments a head of time and stick with the schedule that I have planned. 

Despite all this, the week was quite relaxing and all the tests I had last week, were moved to this week. I have a genetics test on Friday and a paper due for Fate. This is my first paper and I will write about Faust. I hope to finish everything by the time Thursday comes a long so I could spend the majority of my time doing my Genetics prep. Lots of cool things in store this week.

There is definitely a lot this week but I feel rested so it's all good. I also got to figure out how to do my portfolio and added a few lines of poetry so that is also really cool!

But the highlight of the day is watching the closing olympic ceremony with my family and that is the best ever.

guy falling imgur

Learning Challenge: Desk Workouts

I found the article about the yoga desk workouts really fascinating. After sitting upright at a desk for less than an hour I always feel like I have to get up or change positions so that I don't feel so strained. I'm always doing random shoulder roles throughout the day for like 5 seconds. Reading that article was really great because I might try the shoulder role excercise for 2 minutes and the neck stretch for atleast 1 minute before resuming my work. I think this might be a game CHANGER!

neck stretch excercise  yoga 

Reading Notes: The Mahabharata Part B

The second half of this week's reading was my favorite. It follows the story of Yuhidistra, the eldest brother of the Pandavas getting into a series of gambling entourages in which he loses everything. The first time, the stakes he bet were so high that he literally lost himself, until the good King Dhritarashtra gave everything back to them because of Panchali's virtue.
The theme of virtue and vice play a strong role in these scenes. Panchali would not give up her piety and Yudihistra engaged in a sin - gambling. Through both characters, the most extreme of the carrying of both vice and virtue were portrayed.
In the end, the Pandavas were exiled into the woods for 12 years with the 13th year to be spent incognito. There is something about exile that plays an important role both in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Furthermore, I appreciate how Panchali and Sita both depict scenes of losing hope faith. There is probably something there about women in these epics.


image of the Pandavas in exile form harekrsna

Bibliography:

The Mahabharata by R.K. Narayan

Reading Notes: The Mahabharata Part A

I found the reading for the Mahabharata to be a little bit more difficult than that of the Ramayana! With so many character names, I found myself flipping to the front of the page of my edition to maintain who was who. One thing I do really appreciate about Narayan's writing is how he is able to turn such epic poetry into a modern day prose, so that it is a little bit easier to follow.

One thing that really stood out to me was the story about how the Pandava brothers all got so powerful. The description of how strong the brothers were reminds me of how strong Rama became after training to Vishwamartha. There seems to be a strong parallel between this type of training and weapons that I see more in these Indian Epics than I do see with Western ones.

One thing I wish Narayan added a little bit more of is some more description into how all these characters felt at the time when this was hapenning. For example, we get a glimpse into how it must have felt for the family to crawl into the cave so that they could escape being burned alive, but we get no description of literally how any of them felt. Narayan's writing king of reminds me of Defoe's writing of Robinson Crusoe in that it all seemed to be facts and very little of how the characters felt.

image of the Pandava's escape from vyasaonline

Bibliography:

R.K. Narayan - The Mahabharata

Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe

Week 5 storytelling: Moby Dick - what it's all about

Call me Patrick. Some years ago, while I was was mingling at the Spouter Inn, I heard stories of great whaling adventures. I heard stories of great men who caught great whales and of great men who had lost great sons in such journeys. But particularly in this case, I heard one that struck me to the core and now I live to tell this story.

The date and time was April 20th, 1851, at 16:20. I arrived at the Spouter Inn thirsty for adventure. After retiring from my acting career, I decided to go into the whaling industry. Nothing at the time spoke of anything more American and masculine than some good ol' whale catching. Up to this point I read amazing books by one Herman Melville, such as Typee and my mind was filled with this romance of seatological stories of honor in whale catching. I wonder what ever happened to that guy. He seemed to have just fallen off of the face of the earth after the release of his last novel.

Anyways, upon entering the inn I saw a terrific painting of a devil sperm whale being stabbed through the masses of a giant ship. A foreboding image indeed is what that image was. Fast forwarding a few days, I was boarding my first adventure aboard the Pequod, a whaling ship which belonged to a certain Captain Ahab. Up until this point i have only heard rumors of the great accounts of Ahab and his undying attitude to hunt. There was no greater honor than whaling on the brinks of certain death and doom.

The story I share is one that brings lightning down my spine. After setting sale in the Pequod, Captain Ahab finally made his debut. Opening the door of his cabin, Ahab steps out looking like a devil or a fallen angel:

"Here is what its all about!" said Ahab as he revealed his fake leg.

Under Ahab there stood two legs - 1 fake and 1 real.

"A certain DICK of a WHALE bit off my leg! And I am here to get it back! In this journey it does not matter where or when we find Moby Dick, but we are all in this together! I don't care if it takes me one year or fourteen years but I will get him!"

The crew cheered but some started bawling.

"WHY ARE WE ON BOARD FOR THIS MAN'S VENGEANCE!" said one crew member

"I never expected our captain to be such a nut! God help us!" said Starbuck, another crew member

Being a person of sense, Starbuck went to persuade the senile Ahab,

"What good is it to pursue such whale? Would it not be better for you to go home man and take care of your family! Can no reason persuade you anymore?"

Ahab looked at the member with glaring eyes.

"Oh please come home Ahab! We all will surely die for your personal vendetta against a dumb brute!"

"Dumb brute?! That brute is the epitome of what I HATE! I will hunt, kill, and scout all the whales in the world for the rest of my life if it means I can kill that whale! Leave this ship! Your senses need you more than does my senselessness!" harked Ahab

With that Starbuck grabbed his things and proceeded to get off the ship, when all of a sudden the white fiend, Moby Dick, burst out from beneath and knocked Ahab off of the boat with such force that his fake peg leg fell off fell right next to me. With Ahab nowhere to be found, I decided to take command of the Pequod.

"WITH THESE FAKE LEGS I WILL LEAD YOU SHIP MATIES!"

"AYE AYE PATRICK AYE AYE PATRICK!"

Vowing to never return home without until Ahab is found or Moby Dick is killed, Patrick assumed the senile persona of Ahab and continued his vendetta.


image of spouter inn painting by Aaron Zlatkin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Notes:

In my class Fate and the Individual, we are read Moby Dick this week.

The scene is inspired from Bharata's conversation with Rama about who is more fit to rule the Kingdom. After Rama made it clear that he will not come back to rule until he is done with his 14 year hiatus, Bharata said he will only rule for 14 years and while ruling, he will use Rama's sandals as a symbol for when Rama will be back to rule.

In order to emulate the scene, I took an iconic exchange in Melville's Moby Dick between one of the Nantucketeers, Starbuck, and the Pequod's captain, Ahab. The conversation between the two characters maintained the same exchange of sentiments of Starbuck trying to persuade Ahab to drop his vengeance for the whale just as Bharata wanted Rama to drop his self-imposed exile. Both Ahab and Rama depicted similar level of this 'search for meaning' and I wanted to portray that in my story.

What I changed however, is of course, I replaced the narrator of Moby Dick, Ishmael, with...Patrick. And I changed the scene up entirely, allowing Moby Dick to show up and knock Ahab off of the ship so that Patrick could use Ahab's peg leg to lead the crew just as Bharata used Rama's sandals to rule the kingdom.

Bibliography:

The Ramayana by R.K. Narayan
Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Week 5 Planning: The Battle Between Moby Dick and Ahab

For my next story, I will incorporate Melville’s Moby Dick into The Ramayana or The Mahabharata. This week in my Fate and the Individual course, we are reading Moby Dick and will be done with the book by Thursday. By that time I expect to have enough background information from my lectures and from reading the story itself to form some type of love-obsession battle story behind Ahab and the Whale… I plan to discuss with Dr. McClay about what was happening in America at the time of Melville’s writing and describe all these events in a story where we have Ahab’s obsession with taking down the whale – just as Rama’s obsession with finding Sita, and somehow juxtaposing that to America.

Another thing that I realized would be great to incorporate into my final project is to have Auden guide Patrick through Hell, just as Virgil Guided Dante through Hell. The difference between my blog and the Inferno will be as Patrick is going through hell, he encounters all of the literary characters – both villains and heroes – and he will listen to how they all got sent to hell. The storybook/portfolio will follow Patrick in 4 days going from the top of the earth into the very core of hell where in those 4 days he will encounter characters that represent the 3 main sins – incontinence, violence, and fraud. I have not yet decided who ALL will be in hell.. but I definitely want to include Goethe’s Faust, Melville’s Ahab, and… maybe William Blake?..... I’m not sure yet. Then, at the very center of hell, I will include Albert where he is eating all of the bad guys in Hell. SO Albert will be like a superhero-good guy in hell where all the literary western bad guys will be dying. Anyways, All battle scenes and drama scenes will be taken from The Mahabharata and The Ramayana.


The 9 circles of Hell from Dante's Inferno image from abc.net.au

Bibliography:

­­Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The Ramayana by Dharma

Reading Notes B: Rama's sorrow - pat's view

Once again, Dharma's version of The Ramayana is way better than R.K. Narayan's version. Pertaining to the depth of the character, whereas in Narayan's version, the author really just explained what happened quite dryly and then moves on, Dharma actually focuses on the anguish and hurt that the character's face.
Specifically, I really like the part where Rama realized that Sita is missing. Having realized his mistake, the author describes Rama running and crying all over. The author even went as far as to assess that if Sita were to be dead, Rama would surely want to kill himself. Such scenes of grief portray Rama less as a deity and more of a human being. The mood of human weight really fits well and connects with me.

Then again, I wouldn't know too much. I am made of wood afterall~

- pat


taken from sagarworld

bibliography:

The Ramayana by Krishna Dharma

Reading Notes A: Krishna Darma's Version of Bharata as King

What most surprised me from Krishna Dharma'a version of The Ramayana is the detail that he goes into as to how each character felt. The focus on Bharata's anger and Dasaratha's sorrow is awesome and really added a new layer of depth to the story. My favorite part, was when the messenger came back he saw Dasaratha fainted on the floor, only to wake up and die again. In R.K. Narayan's version of the story, Dasaratha was only viewed to be in total silence and sorrow, but Dharma portraying how Dasaratha was passed out on the floor portrays a deeper sense of sorrow. I very much appreciate Dharma's more detailed depictions of the characters emotions and that really adds to me understanding of the Rama as a character.
Lastly, I like the depiction of Bharata's insisting that Rama should rule and the tone that Rama replies to him. At one point, the author used the word 'love' to describe how Rama looked at Bharata. Little details and nuances as to how the characters interact with each other make the story a lot more compelling and drawing to the audience it seems.


a photo of Bharata and Rama's sandals king bharata

Bibliography:

The Ramayana by Krishna Dharma - the ramayana

Comment Wall

Here's the link to my portfolio! Feel free to comment!

Fate and Patrick

Week 4 Story - Pride and Prejudice's Darcy and Patrick team up to write a letter to win Elizabeth back from Wickam!

Fitzwilliam Darcy, a very handsome and the rich man who owns and manage the Pemberley estate in England recently had his crush, Elizabeth Bennet, kidnapped by the infamous womanizing militia man known as George Wickam. The tale tells of how, Darcy in an attempt to reclaim Lizzie (Elizabeth) sought a clearing for his head in order to write letters to Elizabeth so that she might fall in love with him and run away from Wickam. Darcy decides to go to one of his estates in Pemberley in order to write letters in private. However, while wondering through his house, he ran into an old gardener whom he had never seen before.

"who are you?" asked the astonished Mr. Darcy.

"Patrick." replied the man

"I must apologize for my rudeness, but I do not think we have ever met before, were you perhaps a retired gardener brought in from the time of my father?"

"no."

"okay cool, well I will see you later then, good sir" replied Darcy as he walked away~

"you came here for a purpose." said Patrick right as Darcy was leaving.

The handsome Darcy looked back at him and whispered coyly

"how did you know?.."

"I have had  prophecies of your coming here" replied Patrick.

He then transformed into his true form - a 6" wooden figurine and smiled sharply at Darcy. Darcy, astonished, was about to retreat in the opposite direction and yell for help when suddenly, patrick POUNCED ON DARCY and said,

"I CAN HELP YOU FIND WICKAM!!"

He then assisted Darcy through his thoughts and how to eloquently portray lay out his feelings towards Ms. Bennett in his letters. Through Patrick's guidance, Darcy was also able to lay out a clear guide as to why Wickam was a terrible match for Elizabeth.

"the man is nothing but a blowhard. Hardly a man of stature, he has no money, and is hardly a gentleman."

Darcy wrote his heart out on paper - telling how contemptible Wickam truly was.

Patrick smiled and flew away~~

photo of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy taken from amazon

Author's Notes:

I got the idea for this production from the scene in The Ramayana where walks up a mountain and encounters Suhgreeva in disguise. Suhgreeva then tests Rama about what his purpose is and then tells Rama of how Vali had committed evil against Suhgreeva and how he cannot go down the mountain anymore.

I really liked the idea of Rama running into a disguised Suhgreeva and it tied in perfectly with what i read this week - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I figured I could write a little fan fiction of how Darcy writes his letter to Lizzie and figured it would be a lot of fun to add Patrick into the mix as well.

I took the same plot of Rama going up the mountain and replaced it with Darcy walking around his Pemberley estate. I also replaced Suhgreeva in disguise, with Patrick in disguise as a gardener. The twist comes from Patrick helping Darcy out instead of vice versa. I basically changed the ending of what happened up there in the mountain in The Ramayana and created this masterpiece.

thanks for reading~~

pat

Bibliography:

- Narayan, R. K., and Kampar. The Ramayana: a Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic (Suggested by the Tamil Version of Kamban). Penguin Books, 2006.

- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Reading Notes: Ramayana Part B

The ending of the book portrayed Rama defeating Ravana and freeing Sita! Sughreeva was crowned king of his land and Sita cleansed herself in the fire. What I found most amusing was Rama's piety. He knew that having been away from his wife for so long, that it would be unjust for them to go back into regular marriage again so he freed his wife. Sita chose to burn herself in the fire and she came out free.

The language of redemption in the story is quite entertaining. Redemption seems to be a primary theme of death as everyone that died was somehow redeemed - from Dali to Ravana, everyone was redeemed through Rama. The idea perpetuates thoughts in my head about my own qualities. Being a wooden figure, I revere to my creator everyday.

Lastly, one of my favorite things about Rama is the fact that he is still inherently human and still face the temptations that humans face. When Sita burned herself it pained me to think about how Rama must have felt.

image taken from youthekiawaaz

Bibliography:

Narayan, R. K., and Kampar. The Ramayana: a Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic (Suggested by the Tamil Version of Kamban). Penguin Books, 2006.

Reading notes A: Ramayana

Suhgreeva was pretty cool this week. I find the story of Vali and Suhgreeva quite original. I don’t know of any other myths that involve this type of familial betrayal. One thing that stood out to me though was that Rama delayed shooting the arrow at Vali until Suhgreeva basically thought he was going to die. The whole scenario of Rama coming out as the savior in the final moments right before Vali’s death seems like a spiritual awakening moment part of the story. The scene is similar to how in Christian stories, God would usually test his believers in some manner before revealing that he was there the whole time. The theme of omnipresence and faith seems to revolve around the character of Rama since he is the avatar of the ‘protector’ Vishnu. Furthermore, after Vali’s death, I like how the book portrays the incident as a blessing and redeeming moment for Vali who was wrong the whole time about his brother purposely wanting to overthrow him for the kingdom. The story is overall very interesting and makes me think about the spiritual commonalities of faith in polytheistic cultures and monotheistic ones in that the gods or God always seems to ‘test’ his subjects in some way.



Image taken from Pinterest

Bibliography:

Narayan, R. K., and Kampar. The Ramayana: a Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic (Suggested by the Tamil Version of Kamban). Penguin Books, 2006.

Famous Last Words: busiest week of the semester so far

This week has been quite a doozie! I think this was actually my most busy week yet! I did not get in my 20+ hours of MCAT prep for the week, but I am not beating myself up over it or anything. One thing I am proud about is that I kept myself on a really good sleeping schedule this week and did everything I could to get to bed on time. I was also able to volunteer on Saturday as well at a clinic called Manos Juntas!
Anyways, even though last week did not go quite as planned, I am expecting this week to go smoothly because I am choosing to fail-forward! This week I have my first test in genetics and my first test in Latin. I am feeling kind of anxious, but I feel confident that if I keep my studying consistent, by the time the test comes i will have no problems.

Other reflections on the week are... the readings! I love The Ramayana by R.K. Narayan! I actually finished the rest of the book earlier today! I am very excited to start on my writing assignments soon for next week and have got great plans for my story! This week I combined Don Giovani by Mozart, an opera, into my retelling of the story of the Ramayana. After I did some blog commenting today, I realized that other people have really great stories as well so this week I plan to make the story a lot more original and inventive!!

Lastly, my final reflection is on today. Earlier this afternoon I went home to do some laundry and for the first time I was really happy to see my mom and dad. They were working on a project and I just had an extreme moment of thankfulness for everything that they've done for me.

Don Giovani image from lincolncenter

Feedback Strategies: Pro-praise - Pat's thoughts

I chose to read an article about the language that helps kids grow, preshoolers and praise, and then another article about the negative consequences of too much praise, criticizing praise.

I found both articles really interesting and the article by Alfie Kohn , criticizing praise, brought up an important issue that I never considered before when I praised others. Kohn's idea basically states that feedback, if given too much in our culture, can become superficial and is meant to bring elicit a certain response rather than train the mind. The author further extends that our culture indulges too much in praising for things that people should already do. Although I am a proponent of praising, I do see Kohn's point in superficiality. I realized that during the summer time Albert is in charge of giving feedback to other students based upon their nightly reports of how they did during the day. Based upon what I have witnessed, I think that praising people opens up their minds to feedback and is therefore effective when getting the message across.

The next article,  preshoolers and praise, is really fascinating to me. I really like the idea of replacing 'generic praises' with more tailored phrases according to the individual. These concepts will serve me well during the summer time as I think about positive things to tell Albert on his attitude. I think that both articles are useful, and that to praise genuinely and tailored to the individual is the most effective form of feedback.

image taken from giphy

~pat

Topic Research: A portfolio of Western Literature meets Eastern Indian Mythology with Patrick ALSO IN IT

So after reading through the project choices of Storybook or Portfolio, I am still not sure where I am leaning to go! However, for the past three weeks of school, I have really enjoyed reading books in my Fate and the Individual Part II class which is based off of a syllabus by W.H. Auden when he taught a course that involved over 6,000 pages of reading in a semester. I love both parts of the class at OU. Anyways, currently my ideas are leaning toward continuing to reflect on the Indian stories and doing a Portfolio...unless I find something else that I think is funnier.

Here's what I got so far:

The Ramayana by R.K. Narayan

The Mahabharata by R.K. Narayan
And a collage tales either from the Jatakas and other tales read online in the extra credits: thejatakas

The overarching theme will be W.H. Auden's ghost guiding Patrick through his thoughts about the  Indian Epics and Tales by retelling the story where Patrick is inside the stories along with different heroes and villains accumulated in the books that Auden suggested in his original syllabus. The heroes and villains will probably include Faust from Goethe's Faust, Elizabeth Bennett from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and whatever else I decide on as the semester continues. The final project will also include quotes from poetry by W.H. Auden which I will attempt into being the overarching message of the story (more on this later) - kind of like how in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated TV show had a message at the beginning of each episode to guide the plot.

                         here is the syllabus by Auden. picture taken from theparisreview

Week 3 story - Don Giovani in the Ramayana with Patrick as the sage

One day a sage named Patrick Startrick arrived into the Kosala country from far away. He traveled for 10 whole weeks without taking any breaks. The legendary sage was originally a sea star, but through sheer will power and determination, turned himself into wood. Dasaratha, the emperor of the Kosala country, who governs and protects his people heard the prophecies of the legendary star who will one day come and train his son Rama to bring justice to the land.

Upon landing, Dasaratha greated the wise Patrick and offered his kingdom as refuge from his travels. The wise Patrick replied he did not need any rest as his sage status does not require him to perform any external bodily functions - thus he does not need to eat, sleep, or defecate (also, being made out of wood helps out with this too). After refusing the hospitality of the king, Patrick mentions the real reason why he is there - to bring and train the young Rama to become the strongest person in the universe.

Dasaratha, surprised, quickly tries to turn Patrick's mind away from that possibility of bringing the young Rama out into battle, and instead offers his own personal body and army. Patrick refuses and instead starts to leave immediately. After a few thoughts and considerations, the emperor finally orders his advisers to bring the young Rama forward and prepare him for his training. 

Patrick then trains Rama until Rama's adulthood and then brings Rama back to the Kingdom. By this time Rama had become a strong and handsome man, in fact the most handsome out of all the lands. Both men and women all were swooning over the thoughts of Rama. Particularly one individual in particular, a gay (gay as in homosexual) demon disguised as an aristocrat who lived in the forest named Don Giovani.

Don Giovani is perhaps one of the most powerful of all gay demons in all the land, who had a specific character of being the opposite of a womanizer, he was a man-izer. Don Giovani would seduce young men in all the Indian kingdoms to be his husband. The story goes that once Don Giovani heard about the handsome Rama, he scheme his brother in law, Leporello, into trying to bring Rama into woods. Leporello, famous for being the master of none, then devises an intense plan to bring Rama into the woods, by disguising as one of Dasaratha's wives, Kaikeyi, so that she could force Dasaratha's hands into exiling Rama. Long story short, Leporello, who is now disguised as one of Dasaratha's wives casts some magic onto Dasaratha so that he would announce his retirement from being emperor. Leporello then trick Dasaratha into believing that he owes him a favor and that Rama must be exiled if Dasaratha were to be a man of integrity. Shocked and frozen, Dasaratha goes into an intense mode of weeping and silence, forcing everyone to worry about the state of the emperor. 

Leporello then seizes this opportunity to bring the young Rama into the woods!

Skipping a few key events, Rama ends up fighting Don Giovani in a semi-epic battle of good and evil with the climax being Patrick cutting off Don Giovani's nose, ears. arms, and legs. Don Giovani then now only a body figure with no arms and legs still challenges the heroes to further fights, but the young Rama and Patrick go somewhere else.

image take from thingsthatmadeanimpression

Author's Notes:

The original story had the sage named Viswamithra who was legendary and could control all of his bodily actions through sheer will power. I replaced Viswamithra with Patrick because Patrick is made out of wood and therefore does not need any bodily actions. Furthermore, the blog is meant to reflect creatively Patrick and his thoughts into the Indian Adventures.
I got the idea of Don Giovani being a bad guy in my spin-off of the story because this week we read the opera, Don Giovani by Motzart, in my Fate and the Individual Pt. II, and my professor Dr. McClay really got me excited about the Don as a character and villain. He was famous for being a womanizer so in my spin off I made in really really gay so that he would have to face Rama. I did this by replacing Soorpanak, the demon in the forest, with Don Giovani. I also put patrick in the fights as well. I also thought it would be funny to make a Pony Python reference by having patrick cut off all her arms and legs.

Bibliography:

Narayan, R. K., and Kampar. The Ramayana: a Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic (Suggested by the Tamil Version of Kamban). Penguin Books, 2006. 

Reading Notes: Part B Ramayana - Patrick's Discoveries

So far the Epic follows Rama's adventures in the woods. Rama just ran into Soorpanaka who, madly is love with him, tries every method of deceit in order to win Rama's love. Rama, however, did not yield to the demonic creature. The depiction of Rama here is fascinating as he is the embodiment of human completeness - winning the love of unearthly beauty and feigning off the deceit of demonic powers. The story continues with Soorpanaka being devestatingly mutililated by Lakshmana who detected Soorpanaka's egregious plan a mile away.  Soorpanaka eventually tries to grab Rama by force and her army is defeated, in which case she turns to the aid of her her brother, Ravana. Ravana intercedes under the pretense of attaining Sita as his divine love, being that she should desires him first before desiring any mortal, makes it his plan to capture Sita and avoid direct conflict with Rama at all cost. Ravana succeeds in his endeavor to capture Sita.

Perhaps the most interesting theme of the depiction of the gods in The Ramayana is the fact that all these gods are struck by earthly appetites. Such feelings of pleasure, anger, jealously, and revenge affect humans as much as they affect the gods. The theme of appetite in supposedly immortal figures seem to exist not only in western pagan views of gods but also eastern ones. It brings up speculation that perhaps the eastern powers were exposed to the west's oral stories of their gods.

Another interesting concept is the language that the author uses to describe confrontation with the gods - particularly when Jatuya obstructs Ravana's getaway by presenting what he calls a 'challenge.' The use of the word "challenge" is powerful because it connotes a theme of justification for action - just as it is worthy to challenge somebody to a dual and to win something as a prize, the idea of challenge seems to be an important concept of for justifying actions. 

Ideas for my story would perhaps involve some type of story where Patrick is taken away as a prize or Ravana goes mad because of patrick's form and figure.

Mareechi being shot by Rama - image taken from asuras anonymous

Bibliography:

Narayan, R. K., and Kampar. The Ramayana: a Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic (Suggested by the Tamil Version of Kamban). Penguin Books, 2006.