Week 6 Reading Notes: PDE Ramayana Part B

PDE Mahabharata

Sources provided by: Arnold, Besant, Devee, Dutt, Ganguli, Kincaid, Macfie, Mackenzie, Nivedita, Seeger, and Tagore.

#21
This story is a full story in and of itself. I thought it was strange that the prince who made up the plot to burn the Pandavas and Queen Kunti alive hadn't acted sooner. I would think the oil would lose its effect if he waited such a long time, and the presence of the oil would be detected immediately (like if someone sat on the couch or whatever the furniture was at the time). This is a classic villain move where the evil character takes way too long and could have accomplished his goals had he acted sooner. I also thought it was brilliant that they had a miner dig their way out of the house. Essentially, the main characters in this story have also faked their own deaths by accident, so I am really interested to see how that plays out in the rest of part B.

The Pandavas escape. I like how the children all look like tiny adult men. Source: PDE Mahabharata

#27

I liked this story because it let a woman have multiple husbands instead of the normal trope where the king or prince has multiple wives. It seems like that happens a lot in Indian Epics, where men get to be consort to multiple women but not the other way around.

#33

This is the end of the exile of Arjuna. I think it was an interesting parallel to the Ramayana that Arjuna was exiled due to his own will. However, in his 12 years of exile, he got married at least 3 times and seemed to live in luxury unlike Rama. At the end of the exile I was wondering what would happen with the wife he was taking back home, but it seems like amends were made and they will live pleasantly together.

Uncategorized
It seems like every son born of any of the protagonists goes on to become a great warrior despite their father often leaving. This story is interesting overall because it seems like people get married with no emotional attachment - the only goal is to produce great warrior sons and have as many wives as possible. And nobody is jealous, except the antagonist who is not romantically jealous. I found that strange, but the culture is different.

Comments

Comment Wall

Hi Everyone! Here is the link to my storybook: Super Ramayana Bros. (If the link doesn't work, here is the full version: https://sites.google.com/view/super-ramayana-brothers/home ) Thanks for commenting about my project on this Comment Wall! Mario on a real life wall - graffiti is a comment. Source: Wikimedia

Introduction to a Robotics Nerd: Justin

Hi everyone! My name is Justin Kleiber, and I am a senior in Computer Engineering. My passion is robotics, which is the main reason I ended up choosing my major. At OU, I am the president of Sooner Competitive Robotics, which is one of the engineering college's competition teams (hit me up if you want to join!). I also do research on campus, where I mainly work on making a quadcopter fly around without a pilot controlling it. I help a group of high school students in OKC build and program a robot for the FIRST robotics competition, a worldwide high school robotics program. I love robotics, and as such, robots tend to surround my life. A picture I took of the research drone flying in its cage Additionally, I am really competitive and love sports. I've gone to every home OU football game in the four years I have been here, as well as to the Rose Bowl, the Peach Bowl, and two Red River Shootout games. Growing up, I was a huge Virginia Tech fan because my parents went there...

Week 5 Story: Sita is Over You

Sita is Over You After leaving Ravana's hometown in Sri Lanka, Sita was so glad to see one of her favorite people, Rama. She ran toward him and jumped into him with a flying hug, but to her surprise, Rama did not return her embrace. "Rama, is everything okay?" Sita asked. With a dull look in his eyes, Rama replied "No, you have been sleeping with another man - how dare you! I come in here and put myself out here, but you are not loyal to me. How can I move forward in this relationship??" Sita was taken aback - this is not normally how Rama had responded to pressure situations in the past - and with Ravana in the picture, Sita had thought Rama had been a good sport. But now he had cracked. His confidence was shattered, and now he thought she was sleeping with another man! Even though Sita knew she and Ravana had not slept together, she let Rama go on with his tirade. After he ran out of anger, Sita calmly said "So that's how you really feel? That I hav...

Epics of India

Search This Blog