Week 6 Reading Diary A

• Post the dice game: Duryodhana, Shakuni and Karna are angry about the Pandavas' departure.  
• Duryodhana is furious and wants a rematch. (This is where gambling gets the best of Duryodhana) 
• Against his mother's wishes, he sends out another invitation for the dice game and Yudhishthira accepts (How does this change the aspect for the rest of the book).  
• This time he would be sent thirteen years of exile: twelve years in poverty, followed by one year in disguise. (This kind of confused me a little bit, because if HYudhishthira loses than the Pandavas have to abide by those rules) 
•  Yudhishthira loses, and the Pandavas go into exile. (How will the Pandavas handle being exiled, will they conform to nature, or adjust to their surroundings). 

• Krishna tells Yudhishthira that Duryodhana and his allies will be punished. (this part of the book confused me a little bit) 
•  Draupadi criticizes Yudhishthira for being so willing to forgive their enemies, (could this be a turning point for Yudhishthira) 
•  Vyasa promises that Yudhishthira that all his enemies will be slain in battle. 
• Yudhishthira decides to learn mantra which makes it possible to get weapons from the gods. (How does Mantra help Yudhishthira. Is he starting to feel regretful?) 

Yudhisthira

Thoughts and Comments

The group of comments that I like the most would have to be the comments about my introduction. Once people comment about my introduction and also add their personal experience to the comment, I get a better sense of who they are as a person. Also one of the other things that I like about their comments would be whether or not they can relate to something that I wrote in my introduction.  

 

One thing that I think constitutes as a helpful comment would have to be ones that give me constructive criticism. One thing that I struggle with the most, is the fluidity of my writing. In my head it makes sense what I want to say, but it may not make sense on the screen. So if there were any helpful tips about what I can do about that other than go to the writing center, that would help me out a lot.  

 

Some of the comments that I have gotten on my storytelling post are that the background of my story did not make sense until they read my author's note. After they would read my author's note, they would go back and read my post again and then it would make sense to them. A lot of people liked how descriptive I was in my stories and how funny the twists would be. I did get a few comments about wording and punctuation.  

 

After I set my blog up I made sure to set up my notifications so that when someone commented on my blog, I would get an email. I really like that I get an email, because then that keeps me accountable to go back and look back at all of the comments.  

Thoughts on my thoughts?

Week 5: Storytelling "The epics of the Game of Dice"

Preview to the Dice Game

Shakuni jumps up and down in excitement as a a light bulb idea pops up into his head. "I have the most clever idea. This idea has surpassed all of my other ideas." Duryodhana becomes fearful because he has been an accomplice in every single one of Shakuni's evil ideas. But Duryodhana knew that this idea could  potentially be the one to change someone's life. Duryodhana looks at Shakuni and hesitantly asks him what his master plan was. Shakuni puts his hand on Duryodhana's shoulder and tells him to take a deep breath and to prepare himself. "My master plan is to play a game of dice," says Shakuni. Duryodhana looks at him puzzled and a tad bit relieved that he just thought of a game of dice. Duryodhana was horrible at playing dice, so he figured that he could sit out on this round of ideas. But then once Duryodhana started to register in his mind what Shakuni just told him, he began to laugh in his face. "What on earth made you think of a game of dice, are you out of your mind," Duryodhana says. "Actually, I am in my right state of mind. I know exactly what I am doing. Everyone around town , knows that I am the master of the dice. I can't lose! I know I will be able to beat the Pandava's and in exchange for beating them, I want total control over the kingdom and also control over them." Duryodhana started to realize that the game of dice was a front for Shakuni to take over the kingdom. He knew that there was a rivalry between Shakuni and the Pandavas, but he never knew that he would make them gamble the kingdom in exchange for having complete power. "What exactly do you wish to accomplish by playing this game of dice. You know that the game is strictly based off of luck. If you are lucky enough to win, if you are dumb enough to continue to lose," implied Duryodhana. Before Duryodhana could continue, he was interrupted by Shakuni's devilish laugh. "The fact that you are questioning me, is absurd to me. I cannot believe that you would not just agree to my idea and ask questions later. This makes me question where your loyalty is with me. Can I trust you to not, speak about the intentions of my plan, or will I have to watch my back. Regardless, of if you like my plan or not. It will happen really soon!", Shakuni says and makes a dramatic exit after his speech.  

(To be continued)   

Author's Note: I wanted to start this weeks reading off with talking about the Dice Game. I think that the dice game plays an intricate part in the story, and it was also one of the most interesting parts of the book that I read. I think that I have heard a little bit about the dice game in a previous class,  but we didn’t really spend a lot of time talking about what it was and the reason behind the game. I think that for the weeks to come I can build more on the climax of the game which would hopefully keep my readers intrigued.  

Bibliography: 

Title: The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic Author: R. K. Narayan Year: 1978 

Week 5: Reading Diary B (The Big Dice Game)

Pandavas lose the game of dice, Draupadi is presented in the court.

• One question that I had as I was reading, was why is there so much hatred towards the Pandavas. With people not liking the Pandavas, especially Dhirtarashtra's son, I can kind of correlate it to being seen as the outcast. When people outcast others, they are usually intimidated by them. Which in turn makes them want to break them down mentally and get inside their heads. A real life example, would be someone being bullied and in the future will retaliate.  

• Another thing that I picked up on, was there seems to be a little love triangle going on. Narada, goes to the Pandavas and warns them of the conflict that might spring up because of the sharing of Draupadi, their wife. Arjuna interrupts Yudhishthira and Draupadi's while being married, therefore he is exiled. During that time, Arjuna marries Ulupi and Subhadra. I wonder how the women felt in this situation. Having to share a man with someone else, might have sparked some competition between women and might have even sparked revenge.   

• Once again, there are people who are trying to get revenge on the Pandavas, because they possess such great power. One way that they thought about tricking the Pandavas, was through a game of dice. Now dice could be tricky, because to me it is a form of gambling and gambling creates risk. Even if you are down to nothing, you still want to take a chance on luck because you could potentially get everything back. Yudhishthira loses everything in the dice game, but to continues to push his luck. I thought that it was crazy that he was willing to gamble his brothers, himself, and also his wife away (check pg. 55-60).  

Week 5: Reading Diary A

This week we are focusing on The Mahabharata and I have found that its content is a little bit different than The Ramayana. The one thing that stuck out to me when I first looked through the first few pages, was how they gave a generation tree, explaining Santanu and Santanu's second wife. I like the generation tree because it helps me piece together the different characters.  

Shantanu stops Ganga from drowning their eighth child, who later was known as Bhishma

Chapter 1: The Eighth Baby:  

• Santanu is the ruler of the ancient kingdom Hastinapura. In present day the is the state of Uttar Pradesh, about 100 km N.E. of Delhi.  
• He stumbled across a maiden by the river where he was hunting and fell in love. She had some conditions before marrying Santanu. He should not question anything that she would do.  
• One of her deepest darkest secrets was that she would drown her children.  
• His wife was known as Ganga, the goddess of the river, whom took human form to give birth to 8 children.  
• Their sons name is Devavratha, the great warrior.   
• Santanu later finds his second wife, a beautiful maiden in the woods. The daughter of a fisherman named Satyavathi. 
• Satyavathi give Santanu more children, two sons, Chitrangada and Vichitravirya.  
• Chitrangada becomes King, but soon dies. The king holds a swayamvara for his 3 daughters. 
• Vichitravirya marries 2 of the 3 daughters. 

Chapter 2: Enter-The Players 

• Kunti and Pandava go to live in Hastinpura, Dhritarashtra is ruling as king. 
• Pandu's sons, Pandavas and Kauravas are raised together. 
• Drona whom is the boys guru, trains the Pandavas and the Kauravas together with his son Ashwatthaman. ( pg 12-16) 

Chapter 3: House of Joy-and Ashes 

• Dhritarashtra announces Yudhistira as his heir to the throne.  
• Duryodhana and his brothers are not as popular as Yudhistira and announce to their father to exile the Pandavas.  
• Purochana an agent of Duryodhana, build a House of Joy for the Pandavas. The house is made of oil and straw which makes it easy to catch fire. 
• Everyone thinks that they died. 

Title: The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic
Author: R. K. Narayan
Year: 1978