Hi my
name is Arjuna and I am a junior in high school. I grew up in Hastinapura and I
have always been intrigued by the way the kingdom works. My father says that we are lucky to live here
because it is the best place in the world. I come from a big family so chaos is
something I deal with everyday in my house. I am the middle child of five boys
who are always getting into trouble. Even though they can drive me crazy
sometimes I still love them and would do anything for them.
At
school, all of my brothers are very popular because they are so good at sports.
Yudhishthira and Bhima, the eldest twins, play football and are the star
players at our school. Yudhishthira is the quarterback so at the beginning of
every game the entire school chants his name. My younger brother, Nakula, is
amazing at soccer and the youngest, Sahadeva, excels at basketball. Even
though they are both only in middle school I think they have a lot of
potential. Then there is me, I do not have the same athletic ability that my
brothers have but I have a feeling I will find my sport one day but for now I
will be the brains of the family and focus on school.
Today
is special because Draupadi, the kings daughter, is coming back home to
Hastinapura. Draupadi is one of the most famous movie stars in our kingdom. She is also beautiful. Her hair is dark and long and her eyes are as blue as the
sky. Her poster is hung on the wall of every teenage boy's room for miles. She is
coming to town to celebrate her seventeenth birthday and this is not just any
celebration. When King Drupada became King, he promised to marry his daughter to
one of his people when she turned seventeen. He planned to have his daughter's
husband chosen by a contest that was unknown to the people.
Draupadi
is amazing. She is nice, funny, and companionate. I would love to win her hand
but if the contest is testing strength then I know I will fall short of my older brothers'
abilities. Even though I am disappointed in my chances, I decided to go to Town
Square anyways to at least cheer on the twins. To my surprise the King has
announced that the contest will be in archery. I have never picked up a bow in
my life but looking into Draupadi's eyes I grabbed it in my hand. My older
brothers and ten other young men also grabbed a bow in hopes to win the heart
of the King's daughter.
As they
bring out the targets, my heart drops because they are so far away but I won't
lose hope. The twelve others and I pull back our strings and I hear the
announcer counting down. I focus on the eye of the target and try to slow down
my heart beat. When the announcer says, "One" I hear Draupadi yell, "Good
luck" as I let go of my string. Everything is in slow motion as the thirteen
arrows are in the air. When I open my eyes I see my brothers running and
lifting me off the ground. I look to my target and see that I have hit dead
center and almost faint. I have not only one the hand of the Princess but I
have also found what I am good at.
 |
| The contest set up Flickr |
Author's Note:
I made Arjuna the center of my story because he is good at
archery and I wanted that to be the base of my story. My inspiration for this
story was the Disney movie Brave. In that movie, the princess is supposed to
marry the best archer as well. I kept his Arjuna and the name of his four other
brothers true to the original story as well as Draupadi. The setting of the
story has the same name as the one in The Mahabharata but it is different
because The Pandavas are not royalty in this town. Another thing that is
similar to the original story is that Draupadi is considered one of the most beautiful
women in the land. I strayed from the story by having Arjuna be the only one to
marry Draupadi. In The Mahabharata, Draupadi is required to marry all five of
The Pandavas. I decided to change up this week's story by writing it in the
first person. This way we can see the inner thoughts of Arjuna instead of just
hearing the story told by a narrator. I do not particularly like writing in
this style so I do not know it I would do it again.
This film of The Mahabharata was made by Epified
This film of The Mahabharata was made by Epified
Good job with your story this week Sara! I really loved the changes you made. I have also done a story similar to this with Brave as my inspiration. However, I like how you make Arjuna's archery a surprise factor instead of him already being the best at the sport. I also appreciate how you made him the sole husband of Draupadi. To me, this makes since because he did all of the work to win the contest in the first place!
ReplyDeleteHi again Sara,
ReplyDeleteI wrote about Arjuna this week too! It's really nice to see how people can have completely different stories about one person. I wrote about Arjuna and Ulupi. It was fun reading about him with a different wife. Your inspiration from Brave helps the story out a lot, in my opinion. You did a great job with this story! Keep it up. :)
Hi Sara!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your story. First of all I want to commend you for attempting to write the story in first person which is difficult, and second for using the actual names of the people in the original story. Those names are so hard for me to say and spell that I find it hard to keep those details in my stories. You did well at both things that were tough. Well done.
The author's note is interesting too. I like how you explain using the "Brave" story as part of the inspirations. I would not have known that without you saying so. I really like the way you did the two for one at the end, he gets the girl and finds himself in his ability to do well in archery. I love happy endings.
The color and background really adds so much to the story too. It goes well with the photo of the archer. Nice image too! Thank you for sharing this wonderful story with us!
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great choice of setting in this story. I haven't seen brave, but if it's anything like your story I'm sure it's great. Arjuna as a junior high student was a fun character to read about.
Thanks so much for sharing your work so far, I really enjoyed reading it. Good luck with the rest of this class and the remaining semester.
Andrew
The story is good, but I don't like how your story starts. The whole "My name is...." Is not a great hook, no offense. It's always a good idea to consider your FIRST line. It is the first entryway for your reader. So you got to hook that reader in in that first line.
ReplyDeleteOther than that I liked that you gave this character a modern setting and problems. I thought you did a really good job. Additionally your image was good, and there weren't a lot of issues other than the first line. The only other thing is that it is good to vary paragraph lengths short and long!
Hey Sarah!
ReplyDeleteI love the character Arjuna and I really like that you centered your story around him. I also really love Disney! The story Brave has always been one of my favorites as I am actually from Scotland. Brave is such a unique story and I love the ways in which you incorporated little titbids of personality traits from Merida and her family.
I think that your story is very well written and you did an excellent job conveying the story of Brave through these epics characters.
I think it was a unique idea to convey the Pandavas as not being Royal but I also think that it worked very well and made your story have a good flow to it.