Epics of India

For my story lab this week, I decided to look at Jon Winokur's "Advice to Writers" website . The most fascinating advice I took from this website is Ken Kalfus' suggestion to simply, "turn off the f***ing router." I love his thoughts on the distractions of the internet and the level of originality it can take away from our own writing, and would agree that if you truly want to write something that is personal to you and that you're passionate about, the best place to start is within you and to avoid as many distractions as possible. I personally don't care much for the use of electronics, so I think that if I ever do commit myself to writing, ignoring the internet won't be a problem. Still great advice regardless, and I like the level of dedication he goes to, as he says to actually just turn off your router instead of just "don't use the internet". I also liked Nina Sadowsky's thoughts on writer's block. She doesn't...

For my reading of part B of the public domain version of the Mahabharata, I chose to focus on the setting. The extreme variety of natural settings, palaces, cities, and rivers was fascinating, and each seemed to have an impact on the story. The forests almost always implied a certain level of mystery or mischief. Often the environment was described as being scenic, but it usually either burned down or was filled with rakshashas. The palaces were always described as being filled with riches and fair women, although the nature of them changed. They either belonged to noble or mischievous people, and often were involved in scenes of jealousy or revenge. The cities were generally used to describe stopping points for the characters, and was almost always where children were born. The rivers had a magical element to them, involving nymphs, rakshashas, and gods. Everything that happened at the rivers had a mystical element to it, and generally involved at least some interaction with the go...

For this week's reading, I read parts A and B of the Mahabharata, taken from the public domain edition.  For this reading, I chose not to focus on character development (because there were so many), and instead focused on morals. I found all of the moral lessons that were present in the Mahabharata quite interesting. These included raising a child to not be proud, loyal devotion to a husband, not making unwise vows out of love, and that karma always wins. It was also shocking how often and how willingly people did favors just to get the chance to fight and kill someone. People would sacrifice their lives, their childrens' lives, and the lives of complete strangers just for revenge. It really seemed like the entirety of part A was about Karma and revenge, and about different sons being too proud and fighting each other, often not even realizing who they were fighting against. Image of Bhima and his mace