Saraswati:
My lord, someone is here to see you.
Brahma:
I wonder who that could be. I was not expecting anyone to show up today. Oh well, tell them to come in.
Vyasa:
Please help me, my Lord. I need to find someone who would be able to write my story. I have looked everywhere for someone to be able to do it. No one on earth is special enough to write it for me.
Brahma:
Hmmm, that is quite a problem. Let’s see who we can find to help you with your predicament. Saraswati, be a dear and get me my laptop. Let’s pull up the catalog of all the gods and their children. Well, Vishnu is having problems with Lakshmi, so he’s definitely not going to be able to do it. Indra has the Indralok and the council on his head. What about Shiva? Nah, he is too busy with Nandi and trying to keep him in check nowadays. Well, what about his son, Ganesha? He is scholarly enough and with him you do not have to worry about having any problems.
Vyasa:
That is a great idea. Why did I not think of that before? I will go ask him personally and I am sure he will agree because it would benefit all of mankind and the gods alike.
*Back at the house of Ganesha something completely different is going on. This is happening in the living room, before Vyasa gets there.*
Ganesh:
Shubh and Labh, stop arguing with each other. Shubh, do not hit your brother. Riddhi, tell your son that violence is not always the answer. He needs to stop getting into fights with his brother. If he does not stop I will send him to stay with his grandfather, Shiva, and grandmother, Parvati, and then he will learn to not disobey me.
Shubh:
Dad, I do not want to go. Grandma always feeds me too much. I tell her I am not hungry and she still feeds me. Mom, tell him, I am not going. Send Labh. He loves it there.
Ganesh:
If you guys keep this up, you are both going to different places forever. Oh look, we have a visitor. Hello, Vyasa. What do I owe this pleasure to?
Vyasa:
I need someone to write down the Mahabharata for me. No one on earth can do it, and so I went to Brahma. He suggested I come to you and that you will become my writer.
Ganesh:
Well, that does sound like quite a problem. Since Brahma said that, I have to do it. I am not going to disobey him, but I do have one condition in order to do it.
Vyasa:
What is your condition? I will do my best to fulfill it.
Ganesh:
My condition is that once I start writing I will not stop until you are finished. No matter how long it takes or if we run out of supplies or anything else that happens. It is your job to make sure nothing interrupts my writing. As long as you can do that, I have no problems becoming your writer for this epic.
Vyasa:
Of course, I will just make sure to keep extra paper and everything else you might require. This way we will have no problems and can be done quickly too.
Author's Note:
The original story briefly talked about how worried Vyasa was about finding someone to write the story of Mahabharata for him. Brahma appears to him letting him know that Ganesha would do it. After that we find out that Ganesha puts up a condition in order for him to write the story. His condition is that once he starts writing he will not stop. So in this story, I have the original content in there with some extra information of my own. It shows the family life of Ganesha and Brahma. I wanted to show how Vyasa found his writer in all of the worlds, and the process he went through. Obviously it did not happen in this exact way, but I imagined it like this. I also wanted to show the family life of Ganesha and how that would have been had it been today. This story is based on a combination of modern life and the events from the past. I did not do extra research to write this story other than the readings from the class. I picked this image because it shows Vyasa sitting down with Ganesha, so that they can start writing the epic. It is said that Brahma was born from the lotus, that comes out of the naval of Vishnu. The lotus is known as the origin of life, as all three of the powerful beings, Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma, are all part of each other. Indralok is where Indra lives. He is the king of Devas.
Hi Shruti! I had already made the blog groups for this week when you posted this story, but you can do the Declaration for Week 6 (next week), and that way you will get credit for your work and I will put this in a group next time. Plus, you will have one less thing to worry about for next week! :-)
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy how you always use dialogue in your stories. I am not too great at this, so I tend to avoid it. I feel like the characters were portrayed perfectly to resemble that of those from the story. This made it very easy to understand your story. I like how you explained the main idea you had for your story in the Author’s Notes, I just think there could have been more added to it.
ReplyDeleteYou do an excellent job with dialogue and it adds so much depth and character to your piece. The characters in your story are very well done and though the story itself feels a little right now, I think you could easily flesh it out to make it better with some added details. Great job thus far and good luck with any and all revisions!
ReplyDeleteShruti, I like the premise for this story and I love how you have several different references to other Hindu gods’ and goddesses’ storylines. I liked how you really expounded upon a lesser talked about point in the story to highlight some of these other stories. Also, I really like the back and forth dialogue while Brahma and Vyasa are talking.
ReplyDeleteI really like how intimate this portrayal of the gods is. We get an idea of what their home lives are like and how, in personality and problems, they're not too different from us. I think that, since this is already in a script-like format, it could benefit from stage directions and scenery descriptions. There are already lots of dramatic adaptations of Indian epics, so it would be interesting to see this more contemporary adaptation performed. It would also give a better sense of where exactly the story is set. The dialogue already does a good job of letting us know exactly what the characters are doing (such as the kids' fighting). You could keep this action-related dialogue, but, through stage directions, provide a little more detail in other parts of the story. There's a typo in Brahma's second line: "Nah, he iss". This just needs to be changed to "is".
ReplyDeleteI loved the dialogue that you used in your story. I always like reading the stories with dialogue because I find it much more interesting and also more entertaining. Whenever I am writing my stories, I noticed that it requires much more effort and thought to add dialogue into the stories. The descriptions of the gods and how their homes are were very interesting to read and visualize. I have not read a story that described a home of a god and I liked how the home was comparable to the homes we live in now. It was a more modern description of a home compared to something being unrealistic.
ReplyDeleteAs far as edits and changes for the story, I think you should just add more description and details when possible. In short stories like this, I feel like there is never too much description and it can always use more. Also, I would just recommend to proofread one more time before submitting. Some of the grammatical and spelling errors can easily be fixed by doing that.
*Brahma pulls out his laptop*
ReplyDeleteI love the perspective twist you put on this. Just after Ganesh is selected by the gods to write this story of unprecedented significance, we see him in the chaos his house, just trying to keep his kids under control! Funny thing: When he says, "Hey, Vyasa", I imagined him answering a FaceTime call or something. (Probably because we don't see Vyasa enter!)
I really REALLY enjoyed this screenplay format for this story. I find that this is one of my favorite formats for reading, because the small child inside of me that wanted to be an actor comes alive with emotion! I think this story was wonderful and I really enjoyed that this differed in format from the other two! Great job!
ReplyDelete