Week 7 Storytelling: Bullseye

                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

Week 6 Storytelling: The Monster in the Mountains

Duryodhana did not always consider himself evil. In fact, He thought more that he was just misunderstood. When he was little his parents abandoned him in front of a firehouse and he never saw or knew them. He was put in foster care and had never known anyone to be family. Every once and awhile a family would come along and they that he would be a good son for them but a few weeks after his adoption he always found himself back in a foster home and he that’s the way he liked it. He made friends with the other fosters boys and grew up as a normal kid until the age of eleven.

                On his eleventh birthday he was in a strange house because he had been recently adopted. He did not like it much and he knew if he acted up he would be back with his friends. He made a plan to punch a hole in the wall once his "family" got home and convince them he was uncontrollable. Once the mother and father returned from work he ran to the front door and threw his strongest punch but instead of making a small hole in the door he completely removed the whole front half of the house. He stared at his hands as the parents called 911.

The woods Duryodhana lived in.
Wikimedia

                Sacred of himself and police involvement, he ran into the woods behind the house. He had never run as fast as he was and he was shocked at his own strength. Duryodhana ran for three days without stopping. He finally stopped when he was by a stream so he could drink some water. He set up camp and swore to never return to civilization.

                Every year on his birthday for the next seven years, Duryodhana would find himself possessing a new supernatural power. He tried to master his powers with his time in the woods but with a new one every year he found it hard to keep up. When he would try to cut down one tree his powerful swing would knock down seven or when he coughed he caught fire to his clothes.

                On his eighteen birthday, a solo hiker found him in the woods. After a long time of Duryodhana explaining who he was and why he lived in the woods the man decided to stay for dinner. Duryodhana was happy to have company after all these year but also feared for the man's life. During dinner the man introduced himself as Karna and the two instantly became friends. Karna would visit Duryodhana once a week and Duryodhana told Karna all of his secrets over time.

                Karna was not afraid of him and believed in the good he could do. Karna would challenge him to hold his breath long, run faster, and jump higher. Duryodhana looked forward to hear the challenges that Karna would make for him because he had always been to afraid to challenge himself. One day, Karna challenged Duryodhana to run up a mountain and come back in less than 2 minutes. Duryodhana had never completed the task in less than 5 minutes but he was determined. At the beginning and end of every race Duryodhana would tag Karna's hand to tell him to start or stop the clock.

                Duryodhana tagged Karna's hand and took off as fast as he could, kicking up dirt with each step. He got to the top of the mountain in less than 55 seconds and turned around with a smile. He raced down the mountain almost flying and as he reached Karna he was so proud of himself he did not hold back when tagging Karna's hand. As soon has their hands hit together they both her a terrifying crack. Duryodhana had cracked Karna's whole arm right off his body. Horrified, Karna ran back the town and told everyone about the horrible monster in the woods and Duryodhana lived the rest of his life alone.

Author's Note:

This week I used very little real facts from The Mahabharata. I used Karna as Duryodhana's friend because Karna swears his allegiance to Duryodhana in The Mahabharata. I changed Karna to be afraid of Duryodhana at the end because I wanted Karna to join his brother at the end of The Mahabharata but he did not. Another thing that is true to the original story is that Duryodhana has supernatural power. In fact, that was my inspiration. I felt that in The Mahabharata, Duryodhana had a new power in each episode. For example, at the end of the battle he is able to hide underwater which was never revealed to the reader before. The rest of the story was made up by me with no real other inspiration. Since I did not like Duryodhana in the original story, I decided to leave in exile at the end of the story. I made the time line in the modern age where foster homes exist and I made the setting somewhere with a large amount of woods that he would be able to run away in. Lastly, I made Duryodhana think of himself as misunderstood because I feel that there are two side to every story and usually both side think there thought process is right.

All accounts of The Mahabharata are found in The Public Domain found below
Mahabharata Online: Public Domain Edition

Week 5 Storytelling: Ekalavya + Determination.

                When Ekalavya was born, his parents, Annabel and Samu, were overwhelmed with happiness for their new son. This happiness was short lived because ten minutes after birth the doctors had to take Ekalavya into surgery. When the doctor came back to the new parents, he told them that their son was going to be okay but he would have to live the rest of his life with only one leg. Annabel and Samu were just happy that Ekalavya was alive.

               Annabel and Samu raised Ekalavya just like any other child. He got no special attention from his parents for his physical handicap. In fact, he did not even think of himself as physically handicapped until he went to school. Some of his classmates made fun of him for needing a crutch and being deformed and others treated him with extra care. His teacher made him sit out during dodge ball because she thought it would put him in danger. He was very confused by his experience at school because he had never been treated like that at home or even with his cousins but at school he was an outcast.

Ekalavya going swimming
Wikimedia

                In middle school, Ekalavya met the Pandava brothers. The Pandava brothers were strong, athletic, and popular. These five brothers were the first people in school that did not treat him differently than they would anyone else and Ekalavya enjoyed their friendship. The boys would play sports or go swimming and Ekalavya felt normal again.

                When the Pandava brothers got to high school, they decided to take karate classes to make themselves more disciplined and strong. Since the brothers and Ekalavya did everything together, they invited him to class one day and Ekalavya absolutely loved it. He observed the strength and agility of the instructors was more than he had even seen. The friends took karate classes for three years, all the way up to senior year. The Pandava brothers had become almost experts in the sport but Ekalavya had to work every day to modify every move so that he could accomplish the same level of talent.

                One day the Pandava brothers decided to move to a more advanced studio. Ekalavya wanted to join his friends but was worried about the studio's competitive tryouts. He practiced during every free minute he got and on the day of the tryouts he was confident. Karate students came from all around the country to have the opportunity to be taught by the famous Drona, one of the most highly sought after karate instructors. When Ekalavya hopped into the building, he immediately got strange looks from everyone around him. He heard the laughs from the other competitors but tried to ignore them.

                After each of the five Pandava brothers had their turn on the stage, the crowd cheered and a judge came up and gave them a letter of acceptance to the elite studio. When it was Ekalavya's turn, his heart pounded but he tuned out the skeptical stares and put forth his best performance.  He felt great about his performance and he was proud of the work he had put in. The skeptical stares were replaced with expressions of shock when Drona himself came on stage to hand Ekalavya his letter of acceptance. Ekalavya had never been more proud of himself.

Author's Note:

For this week's storytelling post I decided to base it off of a character that is not a main character from the reading. I got all of the names from The Mahabharata but I changed the background of each of the characters as well as the setting of the story. My inspiration of this post was the Karate Kid because I watched that on TV the other day. In The Mahabharata, Ekalavya is an outcast due to his family's origin and he is not physically handicapped until the end when his thumb is removed but I wanted to give the story a twist so I made him an outcast by physical handicap from the beginning. I also kept true to Drona being the highly sought after teacher/instructor. Overall, In the original story Drona rejected Ekalavya but then Ekalavya trained to a statue that looked like Drona. Ekalavya became very good. He came back to Drona to show off his skills. Drona is impressed but in order to keep his image he demands Ekalavya to take off his thumb in punishment of going against his word. I completely changed Drona to make it a happier story. I went against the original story by making The Pandava brothers and Ekalavya friends from the start and my reason for this was to make the story more upbeat than the original. The Pandava brothers do not have individual names because I wanted to make them seem like a unit or a well oiled machine. I did this to take the focus off of them and keep it on Ekalavya. As for Ekalavya's parents I made up their names because I am a little confused as to who actually are Ekalavya's parents in the original story. I wanted to keep the main character's mindset always positive.


All accounts of The Mahabharata are found in The Public Domain found below

Mahabharata Online: Public Domain Edition

Week 4 Storytelling: Jennifer's Luck

For Jennifer, if something could go wrong it always did. She was beautiful and kind but she had the worst luck. When she was five years old broke her mother's vase, at ten she lost her dog, at fifteen she knocked over the cake at her cousins wedding, and a seventeen she managed to lose her job at a law firm because she was too clumsy. Her father was her favorite person in the world because he looked past her luck and saw a determined and fun young lady.

                Jennifer hated the idea of an arranged marriage but it was a tradition in her family for the father to pick out his daughters suitors when they turned twenty. Since her father loved her, he search for years to find just the right person that he thought would love his sweet daughter. When Jennifer woke up on her twentieth birthday her stomach dropped because she knew it was the day she married a stranger. When she walked down the aisle she was pleasantly surprised because he was a handsome man. Once they were married she learned his name was Richard and they had a lot in common. Jennifer thought to herself how happy she was that her luck had changed.

Jennifer's Pearl Necklace before she broke it off.
Source: Pixabay

                Jennifer grew to love Richard and she thanked her father often for matching her with such an amazing man. One of their favorite things to do together was hunt in the woods with the golden bow that was gifted to them at their wedding. One day while hunting Richard went off to chase a deer and when he got back Jennifer was missing. She had been taken by an evil hermit in the woods who admired her beauty. Jennifer knew her bad luck would return one day but she wasn’t going to let this separate her from her love. When she was taken she broke the string of pearls Richard gave her and left of trail of pearls for him to follow. Even though she left a trial, she feared Richard would not come for her because her unlucky nature would be too much work.

                Richard went to his house and gathered as many arrows as he could. He then set out into the forest to follow to path of pearls. As soon as he started his search he found a dog trapped underneath a fallen tree. He rushed over and helped the dog to freedom. As he walked on the dog followed behind keeping him company. Richard enjoyed having the dog around but never lost sight of his ultimate goal to find Jennifer.

                One night while Richard had gone to sleep the dog saw a fire in the distance. The dog licked Richard's face until he woke up and then it guided Richard to the fire where he saw Jennifer tied to a tree and the hermit by the fire. Richard pulled back his bow with all of his strength and killed the hermit with one arrow to the chest. Jennifer was overjoyed to see her long lost love and knew that she would live happy with him or the rest of her life no matter how unlucky she was.

Author's Note:

                This story is very different than the plot from the video (Sita Sings the Blues). First of all, I changed the names in the story which I have not done before but since the film made the Ramayana seem more modern I wanted to use names that were more familiar to me. In this story I changed Sita's name to Jennifer and Rama's name to Richard. I named Jennifer after a friend of mine who seems to be very clumsy. I made Rama's new name Richard because they both start with the letter R.  I also changed Sugriva the Monkey-God into a dog who follows Richard and helps him find the hermit who took Jennifer. In this story the hermit represents Ravana. I also gave Richard a golden bow which is true to the original story. Since the film did not emphasis Rama's brother, I did not include him in the story. I also ended the story in a happier manner like I have in the past because I like a happy ending. Another way I stayed true to the video is when Richard goes to chase a deer. Rama is away from Sita getting a deer when she is taken too. The rest of the story was made up by me in my own interpretation of The Ramayana video named Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley.

This story is based off a film reinterpretation of The Ramayana. The films name is Sita Sings the Blues. It is written, directed, produced and animated by American artist Nina Paley.

Storytelling for Week 3: Rama's Victory

As we last left our hero he was in search of his captured love, Sita.

In search of Sita, Rama and Lakshmana found a monkey lying injured on the ground intertwined in a thick bush of thorny vines. The two ran to his aid and helped remove him from the wicked thorns. They provided him with medicine and bandages. After they had helped him, he revealed himself to be Sugriva, A Monkey King of the Monkey Kingdom.

 He told Rama about his evil brother, Vali, who had taken over the Kingdom and left him for dead. Sugriva then told Rama and Lakshmana that if they would help him defeat his brother and regain his crown that he would grant them one favor of anything they needed.  Rama had heard of the Monkey Kingdom before, a beautiful place filled with waterfalls of glistening blue water and trees full of the sweetest fruit, but knew that none of this would aid in his search for Sita. None the less, Rama decided to help the desperate monkey.

Vali Wikimedia

Upon arriving at the palace, Sugriva masked the men in a monkey disguise in order to be able to walk through the city without causing a scene. They pretended Sugriva was their prisoner and took him to the palace where Vali lived. As soon as they saw Vali, Rama pulled out his golden bow and shot Vali before his guards could defend him. The monkey kingdom was once again in the hands of Sugriva!

Since Rama found no need for Sugriva's favor, he and Lakshmana packed up their things to go. As they were about to leave, Lakshama overheard Sugriva talking about how pleased he was with his growing army that protected the city. Lakshmana ran to Rama and told him the great news. Rama was thrilled and immediately went to the king. The king was more than happy to send his army to help Rama in his search. Rama thanked the Gods for his good Karma and went on his way.

When they found Ravana's Palace, the two brothers and their army planned an ambush. They surrounded the city and attacked. As soon as Ravana realized the war had begun, he sent his powerful brother with their army to fight Rama's monkeys. The epic war commenced and many lives were lost.

 Rama did not want to lose any more lives, so he marched to Ravana and challenged him to a duel. Since Ravana had powers beyond Rama, he knew that there was a possibility that he would die but he knew it was the only way to free Sita. As the fight progressed, Ravana delivered some bad attacks. Rama was near death when a God who was watching over him delivered a weapon from his own armory. Rama mustered up all of his strength and used his new weapon to fire a flaming arrow into Ravana's eye and through his head. The two fought for their armies with all they had but in the end Rama was victorious! He found Sita and took his queen back to his village where he was named King once again!

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Author's Note:

This post is a continuation of the story I told from Week 2 The Golden Bow. The two heroes are the same and they are still in search of Sita. The story line follows the story of Ramayana pretty well but omits some things that I didn’t like such as the controversy of the way Rama killed Vali. I wanted the hero in this story to be unblemished or almost God-like because, after all, he is an avatar of Vishnu. I also changed the scene of the brothers finding Sugriva. I gave the brothers disguises when they go through the monkey kingdom because no humans are in the monkey kingdom. I wanted to change the story line of Rama helping Sugriva twice, instead of just once, in order to justify asking for an entire army because that is a large request. I also left out the ending of the story where Sita is cast out, Lakshmana dies, and Rama becomes Vishnu again because I wanted more of a happy ending story. The names are once again true to the actual story. In order to follow the suggested topic of a descriptive setting, I added much detail into the place that the heroes found Sugriva and also the Monkey Kingdom.

All accounts of this story were from Ramayana Online: Public Domain Edition

Story Telling for Week 2: The Golden Bow

When Rama was just a young boy he used to dream of a day when he would be strong enough adventure into the jungle with his bow and arrow by his side. He would run around his house with a play bow and arrow and shoot it at bales of hay. When he grew up he took his childhood dream with him and practiced shooting arrows into a target until his arms gave out. Rama was a handsome man that ever girl in the country would find themselves lucky to be with him especially since he was the Kings eldest son. He never found interest in any of them until one day he came across a girl named Sita. She was elegant, beautiful, and fond of him too.

                While dating Rama and Sita were inseparable and everyone in their families loved them except Ravana, Sita's Uncle. When Ravana found out about his niece relationship he put a curse on Rama which forced him into exile in the jungle. When Sita found out she ask Lakshama, Rama's younger brother, to help her find him. They took Rama's bow and arrow and journeyed into the jungle.  

Rama, Sita, and Lakshama
Source: Wikimedia

                Once they had found Rama they decided to stay with him in the jungle. Lakshama was a good brother and refused to leave his brother alone in exiled and Sita loved him too much to leave his side. They set up a camp in the middle of the jungle where they lived for a long time. Each day Lakshama and Rama would adventure through the jungle to hunt for food. Rama enjoyed his time with his family and also was happy to fulfill his childhood dream of adventuring through the jungle.

                When Ravana decided to check on his exiled hostage he found that he was not a miserable hostage at all. He spied on their camp for several days and after the third day he made a plan. Once the brothers had gone out to hunt we would capture Sita and take her away. The next morning he followed through with his plan. When the two brothers got back from their hunt Rama searched in a panic to find Sita. When he couldn’t find her he ran off into the trees to morn for his lost love when he found a sage that stopped him in his tracks. The sage told him of what had happened and the trials and tribulations that were ahead of him but Rama did not care about the hardships because he knew he had to get Sita back.

                Rama ran back to the camp site to tell Lakshama the news about Sita. Rama then made a plan for them to go through the jungle to find Sita. Rama knew that Ravana would have set traps and sent demons to stop him but he was prepared. In his bag he carried a golden bow that the sage had given him and in his heart he carried love.

To be continued…

Authors Note: For this story I used the real names of the characters from Ramayana and all the relationships between the characters are also true to the original story except that Ravana is not Sita's uncle but instead a nemesis of Rama's. The golden bow in the story comes from the golden sandals in the original which was a symbol of Rama. Another part of the story true to the original was the capture of Sita. Rama was truly exiled by his stepmother but in the story I combine the stepmother's character with Ravana. The rest of the story is my own imagination.

Ramayana Online: Public Domain Edition

Week 1 Storytelling: The Search for the Hidden Cabin

The Search for the Hidden Cabin 

Tom was always one for adventure so it was no surprise to Jenny when he asked her to go hiking through the woods to find a "hidden cabin" as he called it. Jenny and Tom's tenth anniversary was coming up on the 14th of November and Tom had been planning their getaway for weeks.  One of their favorite things to do together when they were dating was going hiking but because of their busy schedules they hadn’t gone in over five years. Tom worked at a law firm and had become one of the most sought lawyers for law suits dealing with property and Jenny was always on the go managing her owe party planning company called Let's Party. On the night before their anniversary Tom asked Jenny to help him find the hidden cabin and Jenny was overjoyed at the thought of taking a break from work and going hiking. Tom had thought everything out. He took of work and asked one of Jenny's managers to watch her shop, packed all of their clothes into hiking bags, prepared food, printed out a Google map of the land, and reserved the cabin for a whole week. The one thing Tom had not planned was the path they were going to take to get to the cabin. The man who rented out the cabin seemed very nice. He told them the beautiful view it had and the amazing wildlife but what he forgot to mention was that having the map he made was very important to their travels. 

This is the map Tom and Jenny should have gotten.

Holiday Home Map 

Tom Gauld Map

When the car stopped at the huge plot of land Jenny jumped out, put on her pack, and ran to the woods excited for the week ahead. Tom ran after her and as soon as he had caught up they found their first wild life sighting. It was a deer eating grass next to a patch of mushrooms. The deer moved from the grass to the mushrooms and as soon as t had taken a bite it fell down dead. The couple looked at it in shock and quickly ran away. Jenny concluded that the mushrooms must have been poisonous so they would have to be careful.  Tom gathered himself and pushed forward though the woods. Jenny screamed as they came across a glowing green squirrel. They watched as the five legged squirrel ran up a tree and then flew away. Jenny took off running away from the two strangest things she had ever seen when she ran into a wall. The wall of a haunted house. By this time Jenny had enough and didn’t want to go to the cabin anymore she marched in the other direction and Tom hesitantly followed and they never came back to holiday home in the woods ever again.

Cabin in the Woods

David Flickr

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Author's Note:

This story is based off of a picture of a map. Since it was a picture and not a story most of the content from this story was made by myself. The poison mushrooms (dead deer), nuclear site (green squirrel with five legs), and haunted house were all from the map and fairly close to each other.

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Bibliography:

This story is based off A Map of the Holiday Home provided by Tom Gauld

A postcard from his book Robots, Monsters etc., 2006