Storytelling Post: Jealousy. week 9

Cards from wikimedia commons

 

There was a large housewarming party for five brothers that had just built a home to live together in. At the party were friends, neighbors, and family that brought countless gifts and warm wishes. Everyone had a great time at this event, all except one man. The eldest cousin of the brothers, son of their uncle Dhrit, was Dury. Dury sat outside on a bench and had sulking thoughts to himself.

“My cousins are useless, why do they get all these awesome gifts? I did not get gifts as awesome as these at my party…ahhh and this house, it is so glorious I can’t help but to love it and adore the open spaces and grand construction of it all! They have delicious food served to them every day and my cooks at our house are not as great as theirs. I am pretty sure my television is smaller as well, either that or the picture on it has less pixels…something about their tv makes me loathe my own. WHY do they get all they would ever want and I get things that are less than what is theirs? We come from the same family and our fathers are brothers. Why do I get stuck with a blind king for a father and theirs is dead? I love my dad but he does not understand the agony I am put through by these brothers’ existence! Maybe it is perhaps he cannot literally see the difference of our two worlds, since they feel the same to him he does not side with me on this. I must do something to bring shame or embarrassment to them so people will look at me and think more highly of me and I will be favored with the greater gifts and adoration! But what can I do?? I could challenge them to a game I know I can win. I will make them gamble everything away to me. Of the brothers Yud, Arju, Bhim, Nak & Saha the weakest would have to be Yud since he was horrible at games growing up, he would always lose. Aha! I must go make this game of poker happen right now in front of everyone here.”

Then Dury told his friend that was there of his plan and asked him to use his best tricks to win everything from Yud in the poker game, since he himself was not the best. Of course he agreed since he was just as jealous of the brothers as Dury was. The grand poker game was arranged and all surrounded to watch. Yud was engulfed in arrogance and thought he could win so he kept gambling away his belongings. Pretty soon, everything he owned or loved was gambled away to Dury’s sit in player and the last thing was his wife’s most precious wedding ring. Since the rules stated that anything under the house of Dury or Yud could be gambled, it was fair game. Sad story. The end.

Author’s note: I chose to retell a spin-off of the story with Duryodhana and challenging Yudhistira in a game of gambling. This is taking place in modern times and at a house warming party instead of after the celebration of the Pandava brothers for their city. I shortened Duryodhana’s name as well as the rest of the character’s mentioned here from the book. I wanted to emphasize his crazy feelings of jealousy toward the brothers and not focus so much on the actual game that made Yudhistira lose all his stuff. It’s a bit different than the book but the core concept of family ties and jealousy is here which is what I wanted to keep the same. I could’ve went into more detail but am feeling sick and lacking creativity unfortunately :\

Bibliography: Narayan, R. K. (1978). The Mahabharata

Reading Diary B: Week 9

-          Why stress over power if no plans to do anything with it? At least Pandu’s sons are going on conquests and expanding their knowledge of the land

-          This book has a different tone than the Ramayana, lying is more common with ordinary characters not just demons, moral standards are different

-          The brothers are kind of bad if willing to set up a fire to kill innocent people in order to fake own death, but may have saved their own lives as well

-          Their host family is fighting over who will get to sacrifice their life for the town? Why? Honor?

-          Bhima = courageous

-          Bhima reminds me of Rama and Hercules when he taunts the demon and defeats him

-          The swayamwara of Drupadas’ daughter reminds me of the ball in Cinderella but reversed in gender and not a ball but an exercise of skill to win her hand in marriage

-          Draupadi doesn’t seem to like this act being done for her hand in marriage, I guess she would rather get to choose her suitor herself which is reasonable, and more independent in thinking, less submissive

-          Karna was sweet to not go through with launching the bow after hearing of the princesses discomfort with him

-          She watched with apprehension when watching Karna and watched anxiously when watching Arjuna

-          She has to be shared even though the mother of the brothers had no idea what she was ordering them to share? Why is Arjuna insisting his bride be shared with his brothers? Does he really feel this way or is it because of the past life described to be causing of her getting five husbands?

-          The past lives of your children in these times could be useful to know when you got the child or at least early on in their life so you can know what to expect from their  future

-          Women empowerment shown in Draupadi knowing what she wants and having five husbands

-          “The kauravas are evil incarnate” pg.58

-          Bhishma is wise in advising Dhritarashtra to restore to Yudhistira what is his and stop the fighting, I wonder how much is absorbed by him

-          I think these men in this book are just too scared of what COULD happen due to skills and connections of other men

-          Karna says the wisest course is to destroy Pandavas and their father in law and no other course is open to them?? DISAGREE, listen to Bhishma

-          Ownership taken of people and name sake is important in this book

-          Glad they could divide the land and build a beautiful city ‘indraprastha’

-          Arjuna exiled for 12 years, this is very Rama-esque. He married different women while exiled, sad for him since he was exiled for walking in on his own wife he won first

-          Duryodhana is jealous of the Pandavas, and feels they should have something degrading happen to them and they are worthless….what makes them so worthless?

-          King Dhritarashtra has come to his senses, but is still persuaded by his son against the Pandavas in some way

-          Is this just a battle of who has more splendor? More skill? Is more adored? Gets the most gifts? The pandavas don’t seem to mind nor want to wreck havoc on their cousins

-          Yudhistira should have stuck to his first feelings about going to the crystal palace

-----stopped at page 72

 

Reading Diary A: Week 9

·       The intro does a good job of letting the reader know this epic is originally very very very long and he has simplified the version. Also, the story of the real author is cool since he indicates he is just a translator not the author of the original text

·       Drowning babies = satisfaction for mother?? ….Later realize the mother is justified in her actions according to this world’s terms

·       Devavratha raised in the river without his father for some of his life then handed to him to live with after raised by mother and having to part with his mother is weird

·       The king could accept the first wifes conditions of no questions asked but wont for this wife as her fathers request of their son be successor? Eventually he gets his way due to his river sons actions and praises

·       Firm vow of devavratha to celibacy causes vow to the girls father of her children being successor to his fathers throne

·       Bhishma = Devavratha

·       “issue” term is used as children or child in this book

·       Why would Vichitravirya (son to satyavathi) be married so long to his wives (7 years before dying ill) and not try to bare children if this seems to be very important in this story?

·       When was this son of Satyavathi born? Before she met her husband (Santanu)? Vyasa

·       Ambika forced herself to lay with her dead husbands eldest brother for what? She seemed to be in a trap to me which is sad

·       Stealing a cow led to celibacy vow as well as killing a mating deer, I wonder if celibacy is related to the maltreatment of animals in a way?

·        Satyavathi is acting like a female pimp(what is that word again?) to her son’s widows for her eldest son born without a father in order to retain the family name. his seems like a character trait that makes her selfish

·       Vidura born without purpose of his conception between parents, not forced, since the maiden was the one who Vsaya found in the bed of the woman he was supposed to be mating with (again)

·       Hard to tell which characters in this epic are central to the rest of the story and who to focus on because with so many names it is difficult to follow the connections between characters

·       Women are having a lot of boy babies and with gods?

·       The blind king had a lot of sons – setting up family/cousin conflict

·       Passionate death to Pandu and Madri, each separately with different actions but for eachother

·       They seemed to live well together as a family after madri and pandu die but then they get annoyed with eachother and one side tries to kill the other? To think if families were like that nowadays instead of having to accept who your family members were lol

·       The ceremony to show off skills of weaponry and fight remind me of roman times with the coliseum

·        Arjuna vs karna -----brothers, but they don’t know this, hardly anyone does but their mother does

·       Duryodhana made karna a king of anga so that there could be an equal fight?

·       “…time changes everything” –what king drupada says to Drona when drone comes to him to ask for milk for his son since his mother had died and they used to be friends… pg.38-39