Pranali Patel's Blog

Story Lab: Stories and Friends   is what I choose to do my Story lab in this week. The first ted talk just touched my heart. I really understand where Chimamanda comes from. Everyone has stereotypes about countries they have never been to and about the people. Everyone has assumption made from just ’single story’ that people hear. I understand both side of the story, I get Chimanada’s side of how people thing of her country and that is the same thing that I also hear about India. I understand that if you have not been somewhere you just have your image of how it might be, everyone does. A ‘single story’ is the best title that this Ted talk can have. Depending how you start a story can really change up everything. I really enjoyed this video. The second video was also very interesting, she stated all the things that we all know but we still do it. Such as talking to the tv even thought the tv doesn’t listen to you. Another thing that I liked that she talked about is u...

Mahabharata:Wife of the Five Pandavas. Source. Indian Myth and Legend by Donald A. Mackenzie (1913) At first Draupadi had five men she would possibly marry, one by one they were all being considered to be the husband in her swayamwara which is pretty much the epics version of the bachelorette. Then we later find out that Draupadi was a reincarnation of a women who prayed five times for lord Shiva to be her husband in the past life but that could not be. God then rewarded Draupadi in her current life to have five husbands because of the five times she prayed. The five Pandavas that were going to be her husband were also Indra who were reincarnated. She then married each of the five Pandavas one by one. The age was considered when deciding which Pandava would be first to marry Draupadi. I found this reincarnation very interesting, she didn’t get her wish in her passed life but she was blessed with this in her current life. All of the Pandavas got gifts as tradition because these ...

Mahabharata: Pandu and His Wives . Source. Indian Myth and Legend by Donald A. Mackenzie (1913) 'Pandu and his wives' had so many things happened that really grabbed my attention. Such as deers being in the form of Brahmin and his wife and the king having two wives. So one day the king was going shooting and his target was the deer. He was some deers and decided to shoot them. He just thought they were regular deer but he was wrong. The deer were really Brahmin and his wife. One surprising thing about this part of the story is that when the “deer” was not blaming the king for shooting the deers or for injuring them but what he did not like at all was the time he shot the deer. He named that act as being cruel because the king shot the deer in the middle of intercourse. He thought that was not good at all. He should have waited to kill them. I was surprised by this because the deer did not mind getting hurt at all, he was just really angry of being hurt in the middle of s...

                                                              New Journey to Texas Ramayana. Source. Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley (2008) It had been a year since Rama and Sita’s big day, their wedding. They live in New York City, one of the busiest cities in the country. They were both very busy in their daily lives, they work nine to five everyday, both at different jobs. They only get to really spend time with each other at night. Usually they just talk about their day and if anything exciting happened. But one night Rama comes home and looked worried and Sita could see it on his face. Rama didn’t say one word for thirty minutes after being home. Sita knew something had to be bothering Rama. Sita asked Rama ‘what happened, is something wrong my love?’ Rama told her that he had a job offer in Texas that could potentially...

Ramayana. Source. Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley (2008) I want to focus on a particular character this assignment and that is Sita. She is the wife of Rama and someone she loves very much. She is a very interesting character. There are many things that happen throughout this story that help show her characteristics. She is a character that stayed pretty constant.  Sita dropping jewelry to show where she is going. Source.   Sita is a true lover and support system for Rama because when he was sent to the forest for fourteen years, Sita decided to go to the forest with Rama. She was ready live any way possible just to live with Rama because she believes that a women’s place is right next to her husband. She is also kind of demanding, she wanted Rama to get the beautiful deer until he said yes. Because of this, Ravana got Sita but she was very smart, as she was going to Lanka, she started dropping her jewelry so then she can be found when people start looking for her. ...

Ramayana . Source. Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley (2008). The online film, Sita Sings The Blues was really fun to watch. It was definitely easier to understand because of the visual representation and also because they talk in a modern tone. The video also shows some what of another opinion and not just facts that we see all the time. It is also really easy and fun to watch this animated film so it doesn’t feel like class work for me. The character I want to follow is Ravana. He is said to be a evil king of Lanka and that is how I know him too because of the things he does such as kidnap Sita. But in this video they also say that the only bad thing he really does is take Sita. There are other good things about him such as him praying to the gods and has his good weapons. So over all he is a “good king”. He was said to be a devoted follower of Lord Shiva. Ravana also seems to just go with what anyone says sometimes for example his sister, Surphanaka said take Sita from Rama and he ...

Portfolio Link. Central park. Source . 

Crash Course Mythology video  These mythology crash course are really interesting. They are helpful in learning about the general things about mythology and also actual myths that exist in the world. There was so much information coming all at once which was hard to comprehend at the same time but there were many interesting things that were said. I like how there was examples given for things that were said which made it easier to understand. I really like the myth example that was given about how humans apparently eat 10 spiders in a year but this is not a proven fact. This is just a myth, just like many other myths that we hear. The guy is pretty easy to understand and he is pretty interactive in his video. He has a good tone of voice that he uses. I like how he included all kinds of different myths around the world and ones we find in different cultures. I like how the video had stuff about Hero’s and they included women and men because the actual heros are both genders. When...

PDE Ramayana: Kumbhakarna . Source. Indian Myth and Legend by Donald A. Mackenzie (1913) The character I found really interesting was Kumbhakarna . He is a demon but he also sleep for months without waking up. What is so surprising is even when elephants walk over him, he does not wake up. When someone wakes him up before his time to wake up he is very cranky. He sounds like a big baby to me, when you wake up a baby they also wake up cranky. After reading about him it he just seems to show off his powers. I read that just to show how powerful he is, he ate monkeys. The story I would want to recreate with Kumbhakarna would be him sleeping for over six months but when he gets woken by someone, whoever it is. He will eat them, to show that he is angry. This would happen multiple times when someone wakes him up and he eats them without caring who is it just to show power. With this I will bring a twist on how his brother wakes him up one day and of course he would be angry like always. H...

PDE Ramayana: Hanuman's Leap . Source.  Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists by Sister Nivedita (1914). The character I found interesting from this part of the story was Hanuman and his story. It was mentioned that when Hanuman was a child, one day he was hungry and couldn't find what to eat. Then he saw the sun in the sky and assumed it was a fruit. Since he was far away, the sun was smaller which looked like a fruit, so he wanted to reach the sun and eat it. Indra, another god, came along and had to hit him which caused the wind god to get mad. This shows how much everyone cared for Hanuman.  I found the fact that Hanuman wanted to eat the Sun really interesting. This shows how innocent he was at that age and how everyone was so caring towards him. The way I would want to recreate the story is by Hanuman actually eating the sun and showing consequences. Such as the earth being dark twenty four hours a day because there is no sun and all the issues that can cause such as...