Indian Epics Blog

 The danger of a single story: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED talk provided greater insight on the meaningfulness of storytelling. Her speech highlights how one story can dominate our understanding of people and places, although both are very complex and nuanced. It's crazy how limited the conventional American perspective is when discussing Africa. The diversity across African countries is often completely ignored in American discourse, and the poverty and violence are the main focuses of stories told about Africa. It's also interesting how the speaker focused on a classist lens too by recognizing the single story she was told of Fide. Oftentimes, poverty can become the dominating source of identity for lower-class individuals, and it ignores the redeemable and important qualities of these people. Chimamanda was not afraid to critique her own perspective, as she was in the position of power by basing her understanding of Fide's family on one story of their poverty. I a...

 For this week's reading notes, I went to the Wikipedia page on Sita to learn more about the character and refresh myself on the Ramayana. The article mentioned Sita choosing Rama from the crowd of suitors and their exile into the Dandaka forest. I wanted to learn more about this forest, and it led me to my second Wikipedia page on Dandakaranya . This is a historical region in the central-east part of India, and it spans across a variety of states. This area is considered a sacred land for Hindus, and exiled people had to cross it in order to reach the Vindhya Mountains. I was curious on what the Vindhya mountains were as well as their significance, which led me to third Wikipedia page on the Vindhya Range . This article described it as a complex chain of mountains in west-central India, and they play a significant role in Indian mythology. The mountains were described as dangerous and inaccessible, and there were a variety of stories about the mountain. One story that caught my e...

 These reading notes are over Part D of Tiny Tales of Ramayana which is written by Laura Gibbs. One of the interesting things I noticed when reading Part D and reviewing over Part C was that the battles in the Ramayana come in waves, rather than one complete battle. In Part C, the initial battles begin and both Rama and Lakshmana were struck and paralyzed by serpent-arrows, but they survived through Garuda's intervention. Throughout Part D, the battles are close and threaten Rama's life, such as Indrajit's Brahmastra. I appreciate the plot moving past the major battle and analyzing the consequences of the war. It's interesting to see how the rumors affected Rama and caused him to make a mistake in exiling Sita. This post-war narrative adds a lot for world-building, and it avoids the cliche of a "happily ever after."  The Ramayana had a very interesting parallel between Rama and Sita's experience with faithfulness. Sita was initially questioned of her comm...

 These reading notes are over Part C of Tiny Tales of Ramayana which is written by Laura Gibbs.  Plot Notes: Part C connected previous a range of previous storylines and “loose ends” to the larger battle between Rama and Ravana. Hanuman’s backstory was solved as he learned of his true powers and Jatayu’s sacrifice was contextualized through his brother, Sampati. Hanuman’s adventure across the ocean produced a smaller narrative within the larger goal of reaching to Lanka. His journey reminded me of Odysseus, with various temptations and monsters threatening him. Part C was dominated by Hanuman’s journey, and it’d be interesting to re-tell one of Hanuman’s many stories and experiences in his travels of reaching Lanka. As previously noted, shapeshifting continued to play a role within the larger narrative. For example, Benjakai shapeshifted as Sita’s corpse to trick Rama, but her plan failed. When Hanuman warned Ravana, it was typical of Ravana to respond with violence by ...