Anthony Hui Indian Epics 996

There once was a bully that loved taking lunch money from random kids. One day, as he was walking to school, he noticed a weak-looking kid from across the street. The bully yells at the kid, "Hey, come over here. I have something to show you." The kid knew that he was a bully but decided to go anyways just because. Suddenly the bully grabs the kid and says, "Give me all of your lunch money." The kid, unfazed, said "I would except I left it all at my house!" The bully was skeptical at first. "Who goes to school without his lunch money," he says. "Trust me," said the kid. "Let me go back home right now and I will grab you your lunch money." The bully let the kid go back home but instead of getting him his lunch money, he got a ride to school from his parents. The bully waited all day for the kid and ended up missing school. Bullying Source The next day, the bully had a plan to get the kid's lunch money. He would fi

It is currently March 13th, 10 PM. Ten hours from now, I'll be taking the MCAT, I remember thinking. I've always had trouble sleeping whenever I have something very important to do on the next day. Desperate times calls for desperate measures, I thought. I knew I needed to get at least 8 hours of sleep so I went to my roommate and got some of his extra strength sleeping pills. I took one of those pills, set 15 alarms from 6:00 to 6:15, and then instantly fell asleep. I briefly remember waking up around 4:30 AM and checking the time and then falling right back asleep. My alarm rings at 6:00 and I woke up. I was pleasantly surprised at how much energy I had even though it was 6 in the morning. I have plenty of time, let's just relax for a little bit, I thought. So I spent the next twenty minutes scrolling through Twitter. I then realized that I still haven't showered, made my lunch, or know where the testing venue is and it is 6:20. Shit. I quickly showere

Bibliography:  Tales of Ancient India  by Edmund Charles Cox Surya: This story was kind of confusing. I guess he's like the god of everlasting light and the reason is because of his wife paying attention to him? Waruna: This one is kinda cool. There's a king that desperately wanted a son because a son performing funeral rites would speed his ascension to heaven. So he prayed to a god named Waruna and said he would sacrifice his son so that he can have a son. Waruna granted him the son but as the king spent the years together with his son, he realized he didn't want to sacrifice him. His son then came up with this plan where he would go around and trade money for a son so that the king can sacrifice that guy in his stead. They finally found a Brahman with 3 sons who gave him the middle child. They brought that kid to be sacrificed but then he started singing and it touched all the gods' hearts so Waruna let them all go free. Ushas: There's this really beauti

Bibliography: Tales of Ancient India by Edmund Charles Cox Kans is a very interesting character. His father, the ruler of Mathura, was very well liked and revered by the people and Mathura was very prosperous. Kans was prophesized to be the destroyer of Mathura and lead it as a kingdom of evil. From a young age, he's already shown signs of being evil such as choking people. There was another prophecy that Dewaki's 8th son was gonna be his killer. Kans was afraid of this and locked them up in a dungeon and he was given any son they had so that he could kill them. Kans was so afraid of this to the point where he is obsessing over when the next son will be born so he could kill him. His killer would end up being Krishna, whose origin story I already read. Kans invited Krishna and his brother, Balaram, to Mathura for a tournament. This version goes a lot more in-depth into Kans than the previous thing I read about Krishna, which I liked a lot more because I like Kans's stor

Bibliography:  Twenty Jataka Tales  by Noor Inayat The Two Pigs There were two pigs that were picked up by some old lady. The lady loved these pigs like her kids. One day, the village was having a feast and they ran out of meat so they went to the old lady to buy one of the pigs. She refused so they gave her some alcohol to get her drunk. She then agreed to sell the youngest pig. The younger pig saw this and was super sad. The older pig then says some words that changed everyone's feelings. The entire city was moved to tears and they did not kill the pigs. The Patient Buffalo There was a buffalo and a monkey. The monkey wanted to make the buffalo angry but nothing he did upset the buffalo. A fairy then shows up and asks the buffalo why he doesn't just destroy the monkey and the buffalo responded with I shouldn't hurt someone just to make myself feel happier. The fairy was pleased with the answer and gave the buffalo a charm so that no one can ever bother it again. T

Bibliography: Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor Inayat Jataka Tales Source The Monkey Bridge: There once was a tree filled with mangoes that a bunch of monkeys there loved eating. Their chief warned the monkey to make sure none of the fruit falls into the river or else the people downstream will taste it and want to steal all the fruit from this tree. One day, a fruit accidentally fell into the river and the king happened to be bathing there. He ate the fruit and was instantly smitten so he called for a troop of people to sail upstream to seize the fruits. When he went to the tree, he saw a ton of monkeys too and ordered for their execution so he can have monkey meat and fruit. The monkey chief then tried to save his followers by tying a reed to his foot and jumping to the other tree to create a bridge but the reed was too short so the chief had to act as part of the bridge too. All the monkeys crossed and this one evil monkey jumped on the chief's back before he crossed thus

Bibliography: Karna and Kunti by Rabindranath Tagore Karna and Kunti: Kunti confronts Karna and tells him of his lineage and how Arjuna and the rest of the Pandavas is actually his brothers. Karna asks why she picked now to tell him everything and she says that she feels guilty. She offers Karna a kingdom and tells him to rejoin his rightful place as an heir but he refuses and says he has to go back to his actual mother. He also says that he expects the Pandavas to win and that he will die. Karna Source Bibliography: Songs of Kabir by Kabir Songs of Kabir: It's kind of hard to summarize these since they're so short and there are so many of them so I will just list my favorite ones: 14: In this poem, Kabir essentially wonders what the difference between the river and the waves when they're all just made of water. He then connects that with the teachings of Brahma. 20: Kabir talks about the heart and it has nowhere to go so it should stay in the body becau

Bibliography: Chitra by Rabindranath Tagore Arjuna Source Scene 1: Chitra, who is a woman, was raised to be a man since his dad was not able to sire a boy. She ran into Arjuna in the forest and instantly fell in love. For the first time, she hated being raised a boy. Arjuna, however, swore a life of celibacy for the next 12 years so he cannot be her husband even though she asked. So she went to the god of love Madana and Vasanta and asked to be extremely beautiful for one day so she can wow Arjuna. They instead made her super beautiful for a year. Scene 2: Chitra, now a beautiful woman, runs into Arjuna in the forest. Arjuna is extremely smitten and wants to get married but Chitra knows this is just an illusion and tells him to go away. Scene 3: Chitra and the gods talk about why she didn't bag Arjuna. Scene 4: Chitra and Arjuna talk about how their love is temporary with some COOOOOL metaphors Scene 5: The gods talk about how Chitra is taking a long time to

Bibliography:  Jataka Tales  by Ellen C. Babbitt The Wise and Foolish Merchant There were two merchants, one wise and the other stupid. The stupid one agreed to go first through the desert because everything would be fresh but the wise merchant knew he would create the path for him to go. While the dumb merchant was going through the desert, he ran into a demon who tricked him into throwing away all of his water by telling him there is a forest with a ton of water over there. The merchant did just that but then realized that there isn't any water there so he was dehydrated and hungry and the demons were easily able to take them away. Later, the wise merchant goes through the forest and the demon tried to trick them again but he knew they were demons and did not throw away his water. He later found the empty goods of the stupid merchants so he took those and sold them for a profit. The Elephant Girly-Face This king had an elephant named Girly-Face because he was so gentle and

Bibliography: Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt The Monkey and the Crocodile: A crocodile's mom wanted to eat a monkey's heart so her son tried to trick the monkey by giving him a ride to another island that has a bunch of fruit. The crocodile was stupid though and he tried to drown the monkey but the monkey told the crocodile he left his heart at the tree. The crocodile went back to the tree and the monkey went straight up the tree so the crocodile can't catch him. The second day, the monkey crossed to the other island by hopping on a rock. The crocodile then waited until nighttime and hid on top of the rock to try and catch the monkey when he is leaving. The monkey noticed that the rock was a lot bigger than usual and called out to the rock. The crocodile is stupid and responded. The monkey then tricked the crocodile into opening his mouth and hopped back to the other island by hopping on his open mouth. The crocodile then stopped bothering the monkey. The Monkey

Bibliography:  Cradle Tales of Hinduism  by Sister Nivedita Krishna turns 12 and Kansa is getting desperate so he holds a wrestling tournament with some of the best wrestlers in hopes of defeating Krishna there. He invites Krishna, who agrees. Kansa then gets cold feet and tries to get an elephant to kill Krishna but he kills the elephant instead. He then fights all of the wrestlers one by one and kills them all and then goes and kills Kansa. Everyone is kinda sad that Kansa is dead. Krishna then frees his parents Krishna's story then merges with the Mahabharata as he meets the Pandavas and Arjuna. It ends with the war at the end of Mahabharata where everyone dies. The final part talks about the final days where Yudishthira was the ruler. There was some massive calamity that was coming and everyone was distressed. People started killing each other for some reason? Krishna was in meditation but someone went and killed him too but he went to heaven so it's all good. Kris

Bibliography: Cradle Tales of Hinduism by Sister Nivedita Brutal opening chapter. It starts with a prophecy about a tyrant named Kansa. The eighth child between his sister and husband would end up killing him so Kansa locked them in a prison and would personally go kill any of the kids they had. Their 8th child ended up being a Vishnu avatar??? So they used some magic to sneak out and trade the boy with some random guy named Nanda's daughter (told to them by a prophecy). Kansa then kills the daughter instead. Krishna then gets established as some miracle baby that can do crazy things. And when he grew up to be like 8-9, everyone pretty much worshiped him. People soon realize that he is better than this peasant life and would eventually grow up to do bigger things. Brahma then tested Krishna to see if he was actually Vishnu by stealing cows. Krishna found the cows and Brahma was satisfied. Then we read about how cool Krishna. The first story was him beating this big snake tha

Bibliography: The Indian Heroes: Mahabharata - The Princes of Elephant City by C.A. Kincaid Editor: So... does everything look good? Bhima: It looks great! Arjuna: There's nothing I would change! Yudhishthira: Perfectly written! Nakula: I love it! Sahadeva: I second everything that was said! Karna: Wait hold up... where's my story? Editor: What do you mean Karna? Karna: Like how I was abandoned? How I was denied everything because of the caste I was raised in? My hatred against Arjuna? Our rivalry?? Everything that led up to my defeat? You know, basically my entire life story and my reason for existence? Editor: Oh yeah that. We decided to cut it out because we didn't think it would be popular. Karna: Wouldn't be popular??? It's like one of the most well known parts of the Mahabharata! Editor: I don't have any ill will by this but I think I know what people want more than you. Karna: What? Editor: Ok sounds like everything is good the

One thing I liked more in this version is they went more in-depth on how each of the Pandavas went into hiding. Even though it was a brief couple of sentences, Kincaid's version talks about each of their journeys to go into hiding, which I don't believe happened in the public domain version. This version made a few minor changes such as Bhima rolling up Kichaka into a ball after killing him. While it isn't anything major, I think this small change characterizes Bhima a lot better. Unfortunately, this version completely disregards Karna and Arjuna's rivalry. During the war, Karna was treated as just another side-character. He literally just shows up, his chariot gets stuck, and he gets killed by Arjuna. It makes me a little upset since Karna is my favorite character. I do understand it though since this version is essentially only talking about the Pandavas. Overall, I enjoyed it. It was a different perspective and it was short too so it helped refresh some of the

Overall Thoughts: I prefer this version a lot more because it was more straightforward. The C.A Kincaid version was essentially an abridged version of the one we read so it was a great refresher on the important bits of the story. For the most part, the story in the first half was pretty similar to the public domain version. One thing that I was not a fan of in the Kincaid version was how much they downplayed Karna. I thought that Karna's story was a big part of Mahabharata but the Kincaid version puts that whole plot-point to the side. For example, he doesn't mention Drona refusing to be Karna's teacher just because of his status. This was a small point in the public domain version that showed why Karna hated Arjuna and the caste system. Karna seemed like a side character here which is a shame cause he is probably my favorite character in all of the stories I have read so far. I also don't remember Bhima announcing to all the royals that he will drink Dushasan'

Looking back: I am pretty happy with my progress so far. I have only missed one assignment because I was extremely busy that week, but I did some of the extra credit to catch up on the points I have missed. Overall, I am very satisfied with my progress. Looking forward: I would like to get a little bit more ahead during Spring Break since I know I will have 2 really busy weeks in the latter half of the spring semester. Have to remind myself this from time to time Source

Feedback in: Overall, the comments from the class have been super helpful! For me personally, I think that the comments about formatting are the most helpful. My sense of design is awful so I greatly appreciate it whenever someone tells me a way I can format the story to make it look nicer or easier to read. Feedback out: Most of my feedback is grammar related. I have found that, so far, most of the people writing stories have already a pretty good idea of what they want to write. Their content is perfectly fine. Most of the time, it's just grammar issues such as run-on sentences or incorrect grammar. Blog Comments: I've been enjoying reading all of the blogs, especially the Introduction! It helps attach a personality / trait to a computer screen which makes it a little more humanizing. Looking Forward: I'll try to offer more constructive feedback regarding story content if I can see it but for now, I think I will stick with how I am doing things. Source

Looking back: I am pretty satisfied with my storybook project so far. We've only written two things but I have a thought-out plan for the rest of the storybook so I am pretty confident in it. The storybook is about basketball too, which is something that I am very passionate about, so I have been having fun writing stories. As for my blog, I am decently satisfied with it. My stories haven't been the highest quality, which I hope to improve on in the coming weeks. I also feel that the layout can be different but I will experiment with that once I have more time. Looking forward: I am taking the MCAT on March 14th so honestly my stories weren't my priority at the time. Once I am done with the MCAT, I will have a lot more time to write my stories so hopefully they will improve from now. I am excited to actually have time to sit and plan out what my stories will look like. Image: NBA logo flickr My favorite image that I've used is probably this hardwood f