Topic Research: Animals

When thinking about the direction I want to take my project for this class, I think I have narrowed it down to animals. Although in the first two stories I have wrote for this class, the main characters were dogs, I'm not really trying to focus on just one animal. I think it would be fun to tell stories about different types of animals and make them all vary in theme. Maybe have a love story with animals, maybe a great fight, or even just the story of how something came to be based off animals. I'll be honest, I'm the type of person who doesn't really plan stories but rather is inspired by something and just runs with it so the reading's I've picked hopefully serve me for purpose but if they don't I wouldn't be surprised.

Hanuman's Leap

I liked this story because one it deals with a monkey, and who doesn't enjoy a good story with monkeys? This story seems to have multiple directions I can see myself basing my own story on. I could see myself recreating a story about the monkey's famous past and how he got his powers. I could also lead into the attack of the rakshashi attacks him. I could use this story as a fable like story if I wanted to as well. I like the idea of using the confidence of Hanuman as he gets ready to make the jump over the water however. 

This is an image of Hanuman which I found on Wikipedia.

Hanuman and the Mountain

Keeping on the theme of Hauman, even though I said I wanted to do different animals, I had the idea of using this story to tell somewhat of a creation story. I was thinking about possibly intertwining why Monkeys enjoy the base of mountains. Obviously I don't think monkey's and mountains have any connection, but I like the idea of this story creating a friendship relationship beween something natural on earth and an animal. I was also thinking this could be a friendship between the monkey's of today and the Himalayas. I could even use this story to show a teamwork type message between bears and monkeys. 

Sampati and Jatayu

What I liked about this story was the immediate idea of using birds to tell the story of Icarus and how he got to close to the sky just as Sampati and Jatayu do in this one. I think it could be a great way to have each of the stories intertwine between characters since they all do interact between the stories. This also allows for birds to be the main characters rather than monkeys. The story I base off of this would more than likely deal with becoming too confident which could be a theme of my story book since Hanuman becomes too confident in the first story as well. 

I found all of these stories from this link.

Topic Brainstorm

Animals, Natural and Supernatural

I like the idea of creating a storybook about different animals which I got from the link above because being a biology major, I have to learn about animals a good amount. I think that animals are always a great way to tell a story if you personify them. By using animals in the real world I feel I could make it more modern and relatable for readers while incorporating ideas of the past. I don't know anything about Indian animals so this would be a great way to learn about how the gods were portrayed as animals as well as famous animals who told stories. I specifically enjoyed the idea of using the elephant god Airavata because I think this might be a good way to explain natural things in the world since he is connected with the formation of clouds. I could possibly use him to do creation stories and what not. I specifically enjoy the idea of using animals to teach lessons. Although he doesn't seem to be portrayed as negative, I kind of like the idea of using Naga to do creation stories as well but maybe in a evil sense sort of like the bible with the serpent. I feel as if animals could lead me to a multitude of possibilities in direction of stories, but overall I feel they would be a great way to connect to a younger crowd which I would like to do. I felt like the Zoo Animal history storybook is the type of direction I could see myself taking. 

This is an image of Airavata which I found on Wikimedia Commons.

Music

Because I'm very interested in music of today and the past, I couldn't help but think this might be an interesting topic for me. I don't know anything about the music of Indian story culture but I think it would be interesting to learn how they incorporated music and dancing into telling stories. Ravananugraha seems like someone I could use since he was so musically in touch for being trapped for a thousand years. I was thinking maybe I could have him be a rapper who told stories through music. I know plenty of artists like Tupac, 50 Cent, and wrote songs in their prison sentences which told stories of their times so I was thinking I could maybe have him be like them. I could also include the dancing aspect and use someone like Nataraja to give history lessons about the dances he teaches. I realize this one could be very broad but if I were to get creative with it I could have these characters telling stories from other stories even. 

Brothers

I have never had a brother but have always wanted one because I can see how close they are. However, I have a bunch of friends who I treat as my brothers because I have so much trust in them. This is why I would think I could use the topic of brothers to tell great stories about loyalty. If I used Surgiva and Vali to tell stories, I could possibly even incorporate animals into the stories since they are the king of monkeys. I could even have stories where the brothers might turn on each other in a way to show how the loyalty isn't there sometimes. Because I don't have any knowledge about this topic as well in terms of Indian stories, I would have to do a lot more research to incorporate stories about brothers, but I would also like to take a modern and relatable approach with this topic as well just as the Hogwarts: Loyalty of Brothers storybook does.

Festivals and Holidays

I would say this topic got my attention because it seems to me that with holidays and festivals there always comes great stories that one could laugh about. I was thinking about possibly making this topic a comedy style storybook. I would have to learn about more fun festivals such as Navarati which is apparently a nine night festival. I like the idea of making it a crazy partying style festival where the characters make mistakes that can be laughable yet something that teach a lesson. If I couldn't do something like this I could just focus on the Gods or things celebrated in these festivals and hopefully come up with an interesting way of retelling their stories and why they are celebrated. I feel this topic would take a lot of research but I think I would have fun with this topic in the sense that I could take it a bunch of directions.