Text Selection:
Though I was tempted by R. K. Narayan’s Ramayana, I think
the PDE Ramayana online is most suitable for me at this time since it is available
online for free. The side by side comparison chart makes R. K. Narayan’s
Ramayana seems more streamlined with its modern style, but I’m hoping the convenience
of the PDE online version will make up for it’s possibly more stuffy and confusing
old-fashioned wording. Also having the audio, illustrations, and notes and
links to supplement the material will likely be a useful aid. If in the future
I decide to, I wonder if I can choose to switch sources if I happen to want to
buy the R. K. Narayan Kindle version instead from Amazon online bookstore? I am
an avid Kindle user as I have the app downloaded on my tablet, it’s simply the
appeal of saving money during this early time in the semester when money is so
sparse that I feel compelled to choose the free copy if it’s an option. One
last curiosity concerns the differences between the versions of the Indian Epic—how
do the various styles and authors impact the substance of the story? This question
makes me wonder even more whether my choice now between the two is binding or if
they’re similar enough to be interchangeable without issue.
Comic Book Selections:
I refreshed the pages a few times until I found a selection
that seemed most interesting to me. I settled on “Nala Damayanti: The SteadfastLovers” and “Urvashi: The Apsara Who Fell in Love with a King.” From what I
read of their summaries, it said that they both are fairytales and from the
sounds of them had very heartwarming themes to do with love and drama. I am a
sucker for romantic stories, so these options stood out to me as something I
would enjoy reading about. I also found a website with some sample pages from “Urvashi…”
and a more thorough description of the events inside. I have never read a comic
book (the most I have seen of comics is as a child tearing out the comic strips
section of the Sunday newspaper so I could find my favorites—Peanuts and Zits,
which I had both of in hardback books.) I have always equated comics as short and funny, so how something like a love story can put into comic-strip
form I’m not sure but am interested in seeing if it’s something that I would be
willing to look into for entertainment outside of this class someday.
Video Selections:
I watched a couple videos for several seconds as an
introduction until I found two that kept my attention. Those two were “Sanskritin 60 Seconds | Epified” and “Jaya- An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharataby Devdutt Pattanaik,” though “Indian and Greek Mythological Parallels |Epified” came in as a close runner-up. The video about Sanscrit appealed to me
as my major is very heavy on learning languages. Though I am by no means fluent
in the two that I currently study, I still have a fascination for foreign studies
which includes their language histories. The cultural significance of Sanskrit
in both the 18th and current centuries shows just how curiosity for
the language has remained steady. The video was short but informative, and its
draw-along presentation was charming—by .13 seconds where an example of this
most elegant language was written out, I was invested in this video. I wish the
English language didn’t have to look so graceless and unremarkable when
written. My second choice, the video of an illustrative retelling of the
Mahabharata by Devdutt Pattanaik was one of the last videos I sampled. I know
we are going to get into the Mahabharata before long, so I was interested in
this visual introduction. First, I love this sort of understated art- even
simple snapshots like his drawings here can tell quite a story. I would love to
come back to this video after the assigned reading in a few weeks to see if I
can connect the drawings to what I remember from the Epic. I love this kind of
artistic project. Just for good measure, I might say that the video about the
Indian and Greek mythological parallels was enlightening since as part of my
major these myths from antiquity (though I’m more familiar with Roman myths)
are referenced frequently in my classes. I wanted to steer clear from using
these as inspiration for my own stories based on the epics down the road since
I wanted to instead challenge myself to take more unfamiliar paths in my
writing, but in the end hints of these myths might make their way in either
way. And of course, the illustrations to represent the characters was a
favorite feature of this video as well.
Image Selection:
The image below I found through browsing the Indian Epics
Images link on the assignment overview page. As I have already expressed, I
love illustrations and for me, less is often more. While color has its place in
art, sometimes a lack of color does better to emphasize the contents of the
image. In this case, “Vishnu Slays Madhu-Kaitabha,” the image struck me as visually
captivating with the halo around the subject’s head, the movement of the water,
and the curious objects in the hands of the four-armed figure. I learned more
about what this picture depicts on the linked Wikipedia page and learned that the
decapitated bodies below represent the twelve seismic plates of the earth according
to the legend. There is probably more to this story than shown, which makes the
picture all the more interesting!
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