Idea Headtornado (Topic Brainstorm)

Topic 1: Brothers

Personal Photo

From the first day, I noticed how prominent brothers were in Indian Epics. The concept of brothers in battle, either with each other or against each other, has always been fascinating and exciting to me. Then Dr. Gibbs gave me the idea to incorporate my nephews in one of her comments on my blog. I have 5 nephews, four of which are all brothers with the last name Fite. They love to hear stories about "The Adventures of the Brothers Fite," so I think it would be so fun and special to fuse their play with these ancient epics and make them the heroes (or villains) of real stories. My main source for these stories will be the Ramayana.

Topic 2: The Jataka
I really enjoyed reading through the Jataka Anthology this week, mainly because of the personification of animals element. Growing up, I loved stories about talking animals, such as the Chronicles of Narnia or Aesop's Fables, but I never read any stories that originated from India (at least not that I'm aware of). I also really liked that all of the stories had a simple lesson associated with them. In my Story this week, I created an idea called the Council of Creatures, and I think it would be really fun to explore this concept more as a way to unify my stories.

Topic 3: Love Stories
Romances are some of the best stories ever told. I think it would be very fun to compile a storybook of India's love stories. One that particularly caught my eye was the story of Uloopi. I'm not familiar with any of India's love stories, so I think I would enjoy exploring Indian culture through this sense. I'm not sure yet what twist I would put on these stories in order to make them my own, maybe I could change the setting to modern times or even the future.

Topic 4: Animals, Natural and Supernatural
Similar to my interest in the Jataka, I writing about animals in general would be a really fun way to include stories throughout epics, not just in the Jataka. I am especially interested in the story of Kamadhenu, because of my previous knowledge of bovine worship in India. I have been aware for a long time that cows are very sacred in Hinduism, so it would be very informative to read and write about the origin of this reverence. Because Kamadhenu is a wish-granting goddess, I think it might be really fun to write up a story or two about very silly wishes that she grants or what the wishes would look like in somewhere like say, modern New York City or Dallas.

Kamadhenu