Storytelling for Week 3: The Voice of Vali

Finally, after 28 months I have destroyed Mayavi. That demon! For a year I had to stay hidden in that dreadful tunnel waiting for my time to strike. Today was that day. I was finally able to return to my land Kiskinda, and go home to my throne.

But what do you know; my devious brother was at it again. After 28 months! 28 months of me working to get rid of Mayavi, and my brother traps me in that cavern. He caved in the whole entrance, but he obviously forgot how strong I am. How could he? He just wants what I have: my throne, my people, and my strength.

I walked up to that puny rock pile, tapped it with my toe and it turned to dust and watched it crumble to the ground.

“Oh, Sugreeva, how could you betray me?” I yelled at the top of my lungs, and the whole land shook as I stepped from the cavern entrance. He had to know I was coming to ruin him. He’s no brother of mine. I took off at a sprint toward Kiskinda and of course he was there being protected by his bodyguards. They were my bodyguards! Oh how loyalty works… There is no such thing as loyalty! I saw him sitting there on my golden throne, my precious throne, oh how I missed it. I stormed right up to Sugreeva, grabbed ahold of his shirt, and shoved him against the wall.

“How could you?! I trusted you to protect my kingdom until I returned,” I roared at him!

“You are my brother! My brother! I leave for 28 months a mere 28 months and you take my land, people, and title! We are done; you, you are done!”

“But… I did what you said,” Sugreeva whimpered to me. Oh how dumb is he to think I would believe him?! Nothing, nothing he says will change my mind, I know what he did!

“Ha! You imbecile! I saw how you covered my only exit… You thought that would stop me? You were wrong!,” I snapped back at my younger brother.

“Vali, you must listen to me,” Sugreeva waved his arms at me. “I did what you asked and protected the lands until you returned. When it hit 28 months and we had not heard anything I wanted to look for you, and I tried. You were nowhere to be found! I was forced to close off the cavern so Mayavi would not come out if he succeeded instead of you.” Sugreeva wailed at me.

“Brother, what faith you have in me. I applaud your courageous acts. What is it you have been doing since I was gone?” I questioned my dear brother. “Sitting here plotting my demise, I assume.”

“Every minute of every day I thought of you dear brother. I only did what I believed was best,” protested Sugreeva.

“Oh poor Sugreeva. What a hard life you’ve had since I’ve been gone,” I retorted. “Was it you who stayed hidden for years? And when you weren’t hidden did you fight for your life? Oh sweet brother, my sweet fool of a brother…”

“I would run now…” I warned Sugreeva, “I would run far and fast, because when I catch you I will end you!”

“But…” Sugreeva whimpered, as he slowly backed up looking for an escape.

“RUN!”

Have you ever seen a mouse run from a cat? That moment when the mouse realizes it won’t escape. You see the fear enter its eyes, that incredible moment of pure terror. Well, I love that moment. I love watching their eyes search for an escape. Sugreeva was the mouse, and I was the cat. He ran and I chased him…

Authors Note: For this story I chose to take a quick scene from the Ramayana, and make it longer and more detailed. In the story it does not give details about how Vali feels when he leaves the cavern, so I added what I thought he would be feeling. I also added some dialogue so we could see what a conversation between the two brothers would have been like when Vali came back. My main goal was to show Vali's perspective, since Hanuman who was on Sugreeva’s side told the whole story in the book.

Bibliography:

Narayan, R. K. (1972) The Ramayana.

Image Information:

Vali and Sugreeva fight, Source: Wikipedia

Vali's Death, Source: Wikipedia

Week 3 Reading Diary B: Saving Sita

Ravana and Sita- Ravana was trying to break Sita’s will and make her become his mistress. She refuses him over and over again, but is frustrated that Rama has yet to come and save her. She threatens to kill herself, which is something we have heard many people threaten throughout the story. Pg. 122

•  I find it weird how often people say they are going to kill themselves in this story.

Hanuman is saved- Hanuman is saved by Ravana’s brother Vibishana. Ravana sets fire to Hanuman’s tail, Hanuman then runs through the city setting fire to everything. Pg. 123

• ·      Hanuman ruins everything in the city with his tail that Ravana set on fire. It’s entertaining how Ravana was messed up by his own torture.

Ravana’s council- Many of Ravana’s council tries to get him to fight back against Rama by telling him how great he is and how strong he is. His brother Vibishana reminds him that he is not immune to humans and monkeys. Instead of heeding his words Ravana becomes mad and believe that Vibishana is in love with Rama and Lakshmana. Pg. 124-129

• ·      Vibishana travels across the seas and meets with Rama.

Vibishana- When Vibishana visits Rama they are afraid to let them in, but Hanuman sees that he has a pure heart. Vibishana also saved Hanuman when he faced Ravana so he trusts his heart. They later crown Vibishana as the king of the land. Pg. 131

(Rama fights Ravana, Image Source: Wikipedia)

Rama gives Ravana a second chance- When they are batteling each other Ravana is beaten down and runs out of weapons. Rama gives him a chance to get more weapons and come back the next day. Pg. 136

Week 3 Reading Diary A: Rama Meets Hanuman

Hanuman- I really like the character Hanuman. When we first meet him he is hiding his true self, but he immediately trusts Rama. Right away Hanuman sees how important and special Rama is. When he was younger Hanuman’s father made him dedicate his life to serving Vinshu, and Rama is the incarnate of Vinshu. Pg. 91 and 94

Vali and Sugreeva- An interesting scene to me was when Vali finally defeats Mayavi and tries to leave the cave. I thought this was interesting because the cave was blocked and Vali immediately believed that it was Sugreeva’s fault. Vali believed that Sugreeva was trying to take over his position as king. Pg. 93

Vail is defeated- I thought this was interesting because Vail was known for his superior strength and, “he felt admiration for the unknown assailant.” Pg. 100

Vail and Rama have a heart to heart about why it was right for Rama to just kill Vail. In the end Vail accepts it and understands why Rama did it. Pg. 104

Rama sends Lakshmana to Sugreeva- Rama is very upset that Sugreeva did not send his army right after the rainy season, so he sends Lakshmana to Sugreeva. Rama is so upset at the beginning that he is very harsh when he says he will destroy all the monkeys if Sugreeva does not come to help. After he is done speaking his tells Lakshmana to be patient and nice to them. Pg. 110

(Rama and Lakshamana confer with Sugriva, Image Source: Wikipedia)

Lakshmana is homesick- It is interesting to see this young man who gave up his whole life to be with Rama affected by homesickness. When he sees Tara and the other women he is consumed by these feelings of homesickness and misses his mother dearly. Pg. 112

Week 2: Famous Last Words

Well it has been a very busy week for me in all of my classes. This week I believe that I did my best writing, in this class, in my storytelling post. It is enjoyable to be able to write something that is fiction instead of the normal academic writing we are all used to. I enjoy writing in this class because it gives me an opportunity to work on my writing skills, which is an area that I have always struggled with. I also enjoy that it gives me a creative outlet that relaxing but also challenging.

 

(Writing Pen, Source: Wikipedia)

I found that if I just sit down and think for a while I come up with more ideas. It’s nice to just spend some time at home and focus on my writing. I find it easy to get in a groove if I just plan out my story and then write it. This week in my storytelling post I tried to put more dialogue and description into my story. I knew I was lacking it in last week’s post, but this week I tried to add some more. I also tried to stray further from the actual storyline to make it more of my own story and not just a rewritten piece from the Ramayana. I believe this experiment was somewhat successful. I still need to work on my description of scenes and people.

I find that when I’m reading other people’s work I find a ton of different techniques, and some people in this class are really amazing at this creative writing. I like to see how people take a story from the Ramayana and create something totally different. I believe that this is really hard, and takes a lot of creativity. That is something that I really admire in other people’s work. There area few writing styles that I would like to try in the future. I want to try to use varying lengths in my sentences, which is something I see and like in a lot of peoples writing. I want to stray from such a formal style of writing.

Possible Storybook Topics

Possible Topic 1: The Sidekicks. For this I would focus on the main sidekicks in the Ramayana: Hanuman and Lakshmana. I know that both are major characters in the Ramayana, but I see them as the sidekicks to Rama. I would like to maybe write a storybook featuring these two as the main characters completing their own quests.

Research so far: So far I have clicked on the two Wikipedia pages for Hanuman and Lakshmana. I know a little bit about each of them, but I know more about Lakshmana because he has been a more prominent character in the book so far. I know that they are both very devoted to Rama, and I was interested to read about Hanuman ripping open his chest, and showing that Rama and Sita were in his heart.

(Rama Feeds Hanuman)

Possible Topic 2: Animals. I was immediately drawn to the topic of animals. A possible topic would be to research and talk about the different animal incarnations that Vinshu came to earth as. I think it is interesting that different characters could change their appearance to look like certain things. The storybook could be about Vinshu’s life as he is incarnated over again. Like he is reliving his life over and over, and he remember’s his past lives, and has to do something different each time he is incarnated.

Research so far: I have read about the different incarnations of Vinshu. I found the one about Matsya to be very interesting, because I noticed a similarity between that story and the story in Genesis about Noah’s Arc. I have also researched into Narashima, and know that he is one of the most loved gods, he is known as the ‘Great Protector.’ I still need to do some research on the other incarnations and see how I could create stories from these.

Possible Topic 3: Animal Vahanas. I found this topic to be very interesting to me. I love animals and think of them as great companions. When I was looking at the animal section I noticed this topic and found it to be right up my alley. Many gods used these animal vahanas as vehicles to move around, and I found this to be interesting to research. I could potentially write stories about the Vahanas as the main characters instead of them just being associated with a certain god.

Research so far: So far I have looked at the Wikipedia website for Vahanas, and the specific Wikipedia websites for Airavata and Garuda. A vahanas for a god is an animal that the gods are known for riding, or are used as the symbol that represents the specific god. Both Airavata and Garuda are the Vahanas for great gods. Even though each of these is connected to certain gods, they also have their own great stories where they are heroes in their own way.

(Airavata, Vahanas for the god Indra)

Possible Topic 4: Gurus. For this topic I was interested in the guru’s because they are seen as teachers. I wanted to look at potentially focusing on stories where the guru’s pass on their knowledge to their students. Or tell stories of specific teacher student relationships.

Research so far: So far I have the example of Vishvamitra teaching Rama the knowledge of weaponry. Another example I read about in Wikipedia was the relationship between Rama and Hanuman, who teaches Rama some oral history, but I need to look into this more. For this, I learned more about Visvamitra and Rama’s relationship on Wikipedia.