Friday, August 31, 2018

Reading Notes: Narayan's Ramayana Section C

Ravana approaches Sita as an old hermit and she is receptive at first. She later tells him to go away, and he lifts the ground Sita is standing on and flies away with her. Ravana kills Jatayu who tried to save Sita. Rama finds him dying, but he cannot tell which way Ravana went. Rama then decides to head south to the monkey kingdom. Hanuman sees them and tries to go undercover as a scholar, but Rama is not fooled. The story of Vali is then told. Vali churned nectar from the ocean and the gods gave him fighting powers as a result. A demon challenged Vali, and Vali chased him off. Vali did not come out of the cave, so Sugriva decided to block the cave off to trap the demon. When Vali emerged, he was extremely angry and beat Sugriva and took his wife. Rama had sympathy for Sugriva, and Hanuman thinks he could destroy Vali. Later, Sita’s jewelry is found by one of the monkeys and Sugriva decides to help Rama find her. Sugriva fights Vali and Rama helps by killing him with an arrow. Vali later dies and Sugriva becomes king. Rama is in the forest for the rainy season. Later, Rama has to remind Sugriva of his promise to help them in the forest. Sugriva later gathers a big army to help Rama. Towards the end of this section, Sampathi. Sampathi tells them that Ravana was seen taking Sita to Lanka. Hunuman grows enormous to step across the ocean to Lanka.

            One area of this story that I found interesting, and that would create a good story opportunity, is the story of Vali. I could change the storyline and characters of Vali being mistakenly trapped in the cave by Sugriva. I like to take themes and morals and craft a separate story. To me, the moral seems to be do not be angry when people try to help and they actually end up doing the opposite.



No comments:

Post a Comment