Week 5 Storytelling: Madhavi's Memoir

Hi. I’m Madhavi, and this is my story…

Growing up I was one of eight, and the only girl for that matter. As my brothers and I got older, we decided it would be best if we all stayed in the same large house on our farm. Every day my brothers would tend to the fields, while I would get water from the nearby stream and then cook them dinner. I loved cooking dinner for my brothers! It was my little way of saying thank you for all their hard work and taking care of me. Unfortunately, my sisters-in-law did not quite seem to understand that. You see all seven of my brothers decided to marry, probably so that they could expand our family, but I am convinced that they married the seven most horrible women alive! I’m not really sure what these women’s problems were, I mean it’s not like I wasn’t cooking dinner for them too, but for some reason they were just extremely jealous of the fact that I cooked dinner every nights and they didn’t. So you know what those psychos did? They made a deal with a magical nature spirit called a Bonga, essentially selling me to him if he got rid of me! Well, at the time I was unaware of this plot, so I went out to the stream to get water for the boys like I normally do when suddenly the pitcher would not go in the water and the water began to swirl around me getting higher and higher! I screamed out to my brothers for help but none of them heard me, none of them came. I could feel myself drowning. The pitcher began to fill with water causing me to sink to the bottom,  drown and die. Suddenly I was alive again, only I was not all me. I had been transformed into a Bonga. And when I opened my eyes, there, before me, was the Bonga my sisters-in-law had promised me to, and he carried me away. Let me tell you something about this Bonga, he’s kind of a weird guy!

Well, I managed to escape that relationship by turning myself into bamboo. I thought all was good, I had peace and quiet, I was by that beautiful stream I died in; life was good. That is, until this Yogi decided to come on over, chop me down, and turn me into a fiddle. I mean who does he think he is! And then he wants me to make music to entertain people so that he could get paid! What was I getting out of it, you ask? Nothing, absolutely nothing. So I decided that I would make my music the best, and saddest, of all so that maybe I could escape this Yogi. As luck would have it, this Yogi guy decided to play me for the village chief who took me away from the Yogi, thank goodness! Well, this chief gave me to his son, and I was so delighted that I was in better hands that I produced wonderfully happy music every time I was played. During the day everyone would depart my new home, leaving me alone and bored. So I, as the Bonga girl, would come out of the fiddle every day, cook dinner for the family, eat my fair share, take a plate for the chief’s son to his room, and then re-enter my fiddle. Then one day I’m heading back to my fiddle prison, just minding my own business, when suddenly someone was grabbing me! I began screaming, that is until I realized that it was the chief’s son. Still holding onto me, he looked me in the eyes and told me that I was "the one." I guess I did something that impressed him...  and he didn’t even realize that I was human AND Bonga until his family come home and got all worked up about it. Like it’s some big deal or something.

So time went on, as it always does, and my old family, pre-drowning, decided to come visit the chief. I was so excited when I saw my seven brothers, but those stupid boys did not even recognize me, can you believe it!? I shook it off and decided to bring them some water and cook them dinner like I used to, hoping that maybe it would jog their memory or something: it didn’t. So I sat down next to them and began pouring my heart out to them, telling my brothers about the horrible treatment I was subjected to by their wives. I told them about every horrible thing that had happened to me since their wives made that evil plot with the Bonga. My brothers just looked at me, blank stares on their faces. That’s when I extracted my revenge! I looked at those seven boys dead in the eyes and said, “You must have know it all, and yet you did not interfere to save me.” Well, you should have seen the look on their faces! Shock, sadness, shame, and guilt all together! It was priceless.

I am telling you this not because it is a happy story, but because it is the true story. And I want my story to be known.

Source

Author's Note. This retelling is based off the story The Magic Fiddle. In the original story the sister (the Bonga girl) is betrayed by her sisters-in-law, made into a Bonga, then becomes bamboo and is turned into a fiddle. She seeks her revenge on her brothers by telling them that they must have known about their wive's plot against her. The woman originally did not have a name in the story, so I named her Madhavi. I wrote the retelling as if it were her memoir, her last words before the great beyond. By doing this I could further add emotions to the story. I felt as though writing it from Madhavi’s perspective gave a funny twist on an otherwise depressing story. Using verbal echoes from the original story is something I enjoy doing because it allows you to essentially keep a piece of the story within yours, making things more familiar to someone who has read it and easier for someone to follow if they have not. My verbal echo was the quote I used at the end of the last paragraph. It is an important part of the original story since it is the climax to when she exacts her revenge. But her revenge is not about betrayal or necessarily physical revenge, it is more revenge upon the soul. The massive amount of shame and guilt thrust upon her brothers in one single sentence was enough to torture them for a lifetime.

Bibliography. Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1912).

Week 5 Portfolio Styles

One style I found to be interesting is a sort of “storytelling” (or bedtime story might be for better words) style, sort of like the kind used in the stories of Brer Rabbit where there is a dialog between two people at times (this I learned from the audio of the stories, with Uncle Remus talking to the little boy) and then the more adult of the two continues on to tell their story. It also makes me think of the song “Frosty the Snowman” by Jimmy Durante, because he is telling a story but at some places in the song you hear the little boy react to the story and ask Jimmy questions. The closest I have come to using this style was when I wrote the story within a story, but I would not consider it the same. This style could honestly work for any story so long as you include, or create, a storyteller and an audience member. This is strong for showing the reader that it is a verbal story and that there is a back and forth to the story. Weakness could be that the reader does not understand the back and forth to it. The biggest challenge would be making sure that the reader understands that the story is someone telling someone else a story, sort of a story-in-a-story.

The idea of doing a letter or diary is also appealing. The way that it is told from one of the character’s perspectives (usually the main character) makes for an appealing story. I wrote something similar because I made my character tell a memoir. I believe these would be a good style for stories with characters that went through a lot, have a journey, or stories that have a lot of details. It summaries the story for the reader without actually making it a summary since it is from another perspective, however if the reader did not read the original story they can become confused. I would say the biggest challenge would be to not lose the story from a characters perspective.

Creating a children’s book for the stories would be very enjoyable. It makes the stories fun and easily understandable. I used this style in my second storytelling, and it was something I really enjoyed doing. This could work for a variety of different stories, but mostly those without horribly gruesome endings. It would simplify the original story making it easier to understand for the reader. The reader might not recognize what the original story is, once the characters and settings are drastically changed. The biggest challenge would be finding the perfect story, or group of stories, to make into a children’s book.

Nursery rhymes and poems are a fun and clever way of telling a story. I love the way Shel Silvertein’s books are written because it tells little stories, some deep and some just silly. I have not used this writing style but I think it would be fun. Stories that could be summed up fairly short with only major details used would be best to use. It tells the reader the story while leaving out minor details. It could become complicated without the minor details of the stories because it is challenging to decide what details you deem as important and memorable and what someone else does.

An idea I came up with that has not been used yet was what if it were written as a texting exchange, like in the books “ttyl,” “ttfn,” and “l8r, g8r” where the entire book consists of texting exchange.  This would give a modern edge to stories while also simulating a diary/letter style from the characters perspectives. This could be great for many different stories because it would be like a conversation between two people able what happened. It is a fun and silly way of telling the details of a story, while also removing the complexity that is in some of the stories. People might not fully understand the artisticness of the style. The biggest challenge would be to not get wrapped up in the texting and make sure to stay on point with the story. 

Week 5 Famous Last Words

What I found especially interesting about this weeks reading was the story of The Talkative Tortoise because it was almost exactly the same story that I did my Week 1 Storytelling over. It was the same story about a turtle holding on to the middle of a stick with its mouth while two ducks held either end of the stick, they then flew up in the air where the turtle then opened his mouth to talk causing him to fall to his death. There were so many stories I enjoyed in this past week's writings. It just makes the week so much fun that all the stories were great. This is probably why I am so excited about the upcoming week because I get to read the stories that one of my favorite movies growing up was about – Brer Rabbit. Who can forget the Magic Kingdom water ride “Splash Mountain” where you ride around in a log and then go down a gigantic drop into the brer patch? If that doesn’t sound familiar, how about zip-a-dee-doo-dah. Sound familiar yet? It should be a good week to come indeed. 

Every week I talk about how stressful classes are and how it is difficult to keep up with all of the readings for all of the classes - but not this week. I have been busting my gluteus maximus off this past week and weekend to get a head of the game (especially so for mythology and folklore) so that I do not fall behind in any classes. I do wish more of my classes were arranged and run like this one. With relevant and interesting readings and assignments that are important but not necessarily looking for an exact, one hundred percent perfect answer. It gives creativity a chance, which many classes try to take away. So getting a head of my classes is the goal for these next few weeks, either by doing half of the assignments the week before or all of the assignments. 

Magic Kingdom: Splash Mountain
Wikipedia Commons

Week 5 Reading Diary: Indian Fairy Tales

Indian Fairy Tales

One story I found particularly enjoyable from this unit is called The Magic Fiddle. It tells the story of a woman who is turned into a Bonga girl because her sisters-in-law were all jealous of her and plotted against her. The woman then reappears as bamboo where she was then cut down by a Yogi and turned into a fiddle. The village chief then took the fiddle from the Yogi for his son. Everyday the Bonga girl would emerge from the fiddle until the chief caught her. He realized she was both woman and Bonga. Shortly after her brothers all visited and did not recognize her, so she told them about what their wives had done to her saying that her brothers must have known all along, which was all the revenge she took.

Another story that I liked was Pride Goeth Before a Fall because of how incredibly true it is. So many of us are wrapped up in pride that we often succumb to our own demise. It tells of three robbers who steal from and capture ten traders. They let their pride get a head of themselves by making the traders do a dance. The traders signal to each other during the dance, over power the robbers and leave to go home.

The story of How the Sun, Moon, and Wind Went Out to Dinner had a fabulous moral to it, seeing as the one who thought of others was rewarded. I believe it teaches selflessness while also telling a fun story of how the sun, moon, and wind became the way we know them now: the sun is hot, the wind is vicious, and the moon is calm and cool.

Essay Week 5: Stories from India

Since I read stories from the Middle East last week, this week I chose to read from India. Knowing very little about Indian culture, I thought this to be a good choice in readings to teach me more about the historical and social rather than the religious. I was not disappointed. I really enjoyed the length of these stories because they fed me a great deal of information even though they were fairly short. It’s very interesting that the stories end on somewhat of a vague note. There is a lesson to be told from each of these stories but they were not blatantly spelled out for you. In a way these stories reminded me of Aesop’s Fables, mostly because of that moral compass and the lessons that you take away from each story. Something I noticed about these stories was that no one has a name. They are only referred to by what they are, such as “brother,” “man,” “son,” “lion,” “Yogi,” “Bonga girl” and others. I am curious if this has something to do with Indian culture, with these labels representing some type of status. What also caught my eye was the use of versus in many of the stories. These versus appeared as if they were some type of common saying, like “Good things come to those who wait,” and then a story was built around that saying. I found it to be interesting and I am wondering if my theory of this is correct on stories built around a common saying. It would certainly be an easier way for children to understand them and see and example of how the sayings could potentially be played out in life. Although there might have been some confusion from time-to-time, in the end I found these stories to be quite enjoyable.  

Taj Mahal (Source)