Week 10 Story Planning: The Monkey and The Crocodile

The Monkey and The Crocodile

My favorite part of the story, when the monkey out wits the crocodile in an unexpected way
Source: The Baldwin Project

• Summary: 
• ****This is the same summary from my reading post, I already take detailed notes, but I did re-read the source story.
• In this story, the setting is a river that is home to a lot of crocodiles and on the banks of the river there are massive trees that are homes to monkeys. One day a mother crocodile and her son were watching the monkeys and she said to her son that she wanted to eat a monkey heart. The son was confused about how he was going to catch the monkey because monkeys did not go into the water and he did not travel on land. He told his mother this and she said that he needed to use his wit and brain. After thinking on ways to catch a monkey, the little crocodile noticed that a particular monkey wanted to go across the river to the island that had ripe fruit. The little crocodile approached the monkey and told him that he would take him across the river to the fruit on his back. The monkey, lusting after the ripe fruit agreed. About half way across, the little crocodile asked the monkey how he liked the ride. The monkey told him it was good. Suddenly, the crocodile dove underwater and the monkey asked what he was doing. The crocodile told him his plan and the monkey told him that he left his heart in the tree. The crocodile demanded that he go back and it. When they arrived back at the monkey's tree, the monkey climbed high and the crocodile could not get him. The monkey then moved to a different tree further down the river.
• The little crocodile, still in search of his mother a monkey heart, eventually found the monkey's new home. For days, he watched the monkey and noticed that everyday he went across rocks in the river to the island with the abundant fruit trees. One day the crocodile decided he wait until night and he would lay on the rock to catch the monkey. Now the monkey was smart and he immediately noticed that the crocodile was on the rock so he decided to trick him. He began talking and acted confused that the rock would not talk back to him. The crocodile then thought that the rock must talk back to him and he responded. The monkey then called the crocodile out. The monkey then acted defeated and told the crocodile to open his mouth and he would jump in, knowing that when crocodiles had their mouths open they closed their eyes. The monkey then jumped over the crocodile and ran up his tree. The crocodile appreciated the monkey's wit and decided to leave him alone.
• Research: 
• Hinduwebsite.com
• When doing stories about animals, I like to first look up their significance within the culture. The first article I read made this statement: " India is probably the only country in the world where life in all forms is honored and revered, and where you will find temples and rituals for animals." I started by searching for the significance of monkeys in Hinduism. This same article said that monkeys are prominent in the public eye due to their association with Rama. It also specifically stated in the Jataka tales, there are many stories of monkeys. Another interesting this the article said was, "that the stories in the Jataka tales point to the monkeys fickleness, mischievous nature, lack of discretion, and foolish behavior." I found this statement interesting. In this story, the monkey was very smart, but he was very selfish. He knew what he wanted and it almost seemed like he would do anything to get it. The article also said that monkeys typically personify, "positive qualities as obedience, loyalty, duty, divinity, righteousness, courage, and selflessness." I did not agree this statement in the terms of this particular story. I thought the monkey was selfish in the fact that he wanted the  fruit. My idea for this story is to make the monkey more like the monkey depicted typically. Maybe I could make him like Hanuman and possess his qualities. Maybe the monkey to eventually sacrifice himself to the crocodile. He could have a divine call to please everyone. I feel like this would be an interesting twist on this story. Of course, I would also put the story in the monkeys perspective. Or I could even make it like a retelling of his story. I could make all the monkeys find what this particular monkey did honorable and they told his story from generation to generation. There are a lot of options with this story.
• ** This site had a lot of information about all the sacred animals of Hinduism. 
• Kashgar
• The next source I found was on Hanuman from the Ramayana. I remembered Hanuman, and I really liked his character, however, I did not relate any of his qualities to the monkey from the story.
• I
• I spent my time on researching the monkey since I want the story to be about him. I thought if I got more insight, I could make the story more traditional and relate it more to the culture.
• Bibliography: "The Monkey and The Crocodile" from the Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbit

Week 7 Planning: Draupadi's Story

• Bhima and Kichaka:
  **When doing my notes, I take a very detailed summary, so I copied the summary from my reading notes. I did re-read the source story.
• This story is primarily about Prince Kichaka. The story begins by saying that Prince Kichaka was the bravest, most fierce warrior in all the lands of Viratnagar. It even said that men, even kings were afraid to cross him. In this story, Prince Kichaka goes to visit his sister, Queen Sudeshna, and while he is there, he lays eyes on a serving maid, who he really likes. He then instructs his sister to send her to his palace. The queen loved her brother so much that she did not want to displease him, so she sent Sairandhri to his palace with a tray of food and wine. As soon as she entered the door, the prince grabbed her waist and tried to rape her. Sairandhri was able to free herself from his clasp and flung the tray of food in his face. She then ran straight to King Virata's palace. On her way, the prince caught up with her and struck her on the face, but she was able to escape again and flee unannounced into King Virata's audience room. Here she showed her face to the king and told him what the prince tried to do to her. The king however, being afraid of Prince Kichaka, told her it was her in the wrong (or the cruel one). Sairandhri was horrified about what happened and went to seek Prince Bhima hoping that he would help. She found him asleep in his room and he told her he would kill Prince Kichaka with his bare hands. The next night at a dancing hall, Prince Bhima waited until Prince Kichaka was alone and killed him. He then told Sairandhri (he calls her Draupadi) to go and raise the other maid-servent and tell them her husband (an immortal) caught her with Prince Kichaka and killed him.

  

  Sairandhri watching the Prince's fight
  Source: Wikimedia Commons

• Bibliography: "Bhima and Kichaka" from The Indian Heroes by C.A. Kincaid
• Wikipedia:
• Draupadi is considered to be one of the Panch-Kanyas (Five Virgins). The version of this story is discussed on this website There are few differences. 1. This version said that Kichaka first asked for Draupadi's hand in marriage and she refused, warning Kichaka that she was already married and warned him that her husbands were very powerful. 2. Kichaka kicked her in front of all the courtiers (nothing was mentioned about this in the original version). 3. It says that when Draupadi went into King Virat's court, Bhima was present, and it took a look from Draupadi to keep Bhima from attacking Kichaka there. In the version we read, it said Bhima was asleep, and Draupadi woke him.
• Wikipedia:
• This source confirms that Draupadi is Sairandhri. I figured this was true, but the story confused me. Draupadi was disguised as Sairandhri for one year in King Virata's palace
• My Plan: My plan for next week is to rewrite this story in Draupadi's perspective. I wanted to gain some background information on her before I write from her perspective. I plan on incorporating some of her background information into the story. For example, I want to make her immortal husbands really be the ones to avenge Kichaka. I think this would add a good twist to the story. In the original story, I was confused why Bhima did not just take the King's side and do nothing to help Draupadi. I want to change this and give an influential person in her life a role of helping her.

Week 5 Planning: Why Ravana Captured Sita

Sita Sings the Blues:

Story  Notes:
***I watched the video, Sita Sings the Blues this week. The video was very vague in regard to the actual story, so I used the summary of the Part A video. My research consisted of looking into Ravana deeper, since my idea for this story is to put it into his perspective. I started by looking up the original story of Sita's capture and focused my attention on Ravana. I wanted to know more about, to try and get a picture of him personally before making changes to his character.

• This is basically a shortened, way less detailed version of the Ramayana mainly focusing on Sita. In the original story, I always liked Sita and wanted to change it up a little bit this week so I decided to go with the video. The part that I want to focus on for a story this week is the part where Ravana captured Sita. Last week, I retold the story of Sita while she was in captivity and I told it in her perspective. This week, I think it would be neat to use the part when she was captured by Ravana and put it in his perspective. The video itself is very vague on why Ravana wants to capture Sita, so I think this would allow me to get very creative when writing the story in his perspective. The video says that Ravana was a good King and it seems like the only bad thing he did was capture Sita. I did not get this vibe from the book. This part confused me because I got the impression that Ravana was a god of demons, but the video made it sound like he was a good guy. I want to change this part of the story, put it in Ravana's perspective and maybe answer some of the blanks that the book left me with about Ravana. I think by putting this story in Ravana's perspective I will be able to be creative and explain why he decided to take Sita. Where Sita and Ravana childhood friends and Ravana was secretly in love with her? Was there some old rivalry between Ravana and Rama that would make him want to steal his wife? I feel like there is a lot of options when it come to retelling this story.
• Princess Sita's Kidnap:
• Since the video was vague on the actual details of Sita's capturing, I decided to start with the whole story. In this version of the story, it describes Ravana as the King of Demons, who had 10 heads and 20 arms. This is where the video confused me. It said that other than capturing Sita, Ravana was a good King who praised Shiva. I figured this was just a creative discrepancy. The story continues and says that Ravana spied Sita in the forest and instantly fell in love with her. Ravana then ordered a servant to disguise themself as a golden deer in ordered to draw Rama and Lakshman away from Sita. During this time, Lakshman drew a circle around Sita to protect her and told her not to leave the circle. To draw Sita out of the circle, Ravana disguised himself as a beggar and went to Sita and begged. Sita with a big heart took pity on the "Ravana" and that is when he swept her away. In the video it said that Sita threw her necklace to the ground so Rama could save her
• I really think this would be a cool story to retell in Ravana's perspective. Since there is a discrepancy in his actual identity and personality, I feel like this would be the best way to define him. Having this background refreshed, I feel like it would make an interesting story.
• Ravana- The Great Scholar
• In this article, it discusses the identity of Ravana. I feel like in all the stories, I never really got a clear picture of who Ravana was, so that is what lead me here. This source says that Ravana was a scholar and believed in the hindu gods Lord Shiva and Lord Brahma. 
• This source says that since birth Ravana was a follower of Lord Vishnu, (Rama was Lord Vishnu's avatara). At sometime during his life, Ravana has upset Lord VIshnu and the only way to earn salvation was to get killed by his avatara, Rama. It also said that he was a good king, so he did something that he knew would get him killed by Rama, which was kidnapping his wife.
• Bibliography: "Sita Sings the Blues," a film by Nina Paley

Picture of Ravana.
Source: Ancient History Encyclopedia