Reading Notes: Mahabharata, Part B

PDE Mahabharata: The Story of Nalayani

Although I found this story to be very bizarre and unsatisfying to read, I also had what I believe to be a good idea for recreating this story. I think that I could tell this story using a dog instead of people but my version will vary quite a bit from the original because I don't want to include the husband or desire for sex like this story did. Instead I was thinking about having two dogs: 1 being very adventurous and the other being a homebody. I was going to have them be best friends but the adventurous one wants to run away together while the other refuses. As the one leaves I was going have the dog pray for a new best friend to which he receives a bunch of cats. I think this could be a fun story to write and this is just the idea that went through my head but what I would like to try to do in terms of masking the reading is also use the exactness of the words in the praying. I think that as a writer this was a clever way to develop the story as well as show the emotion of the wife. By having her repeat the words it shows how bad she lusted for a new husband. 

I imagine this to be the group of cats that come in my story idea. I found this on Wikimedia Commons.

In terms of just writing style that I would like to pick up from this story, I think I could be better of relaying who is interacting in my speech. I like how this story shows the action through conversation yet it is in third person most of the time rather than dialogue. I think this allows less detail, but it is direct and indicates who is doing what. Sometimes in my writing I feel I don't convey who is doing what very well so I need to start more with pronouns like this story does in the second to last paragraph.

Bibliography:

The Story of Nalayani (link above) from  Notes of a Study of the Preliminary Chapters of the Mahabharata by V. Venkatachellam Iyer (1922), but I have adapted the passage to read like a story. In the original book, it is presented as a mixture of story and analysis.