Topic Brainstorm

Draupadi by Raja Ravi Varma

While looking through the reading guides the first one that caught my attention was Draupadi: Fire-Born Princess. Draupadi had already caught my attention from one of the videos I saw in the reading overview assignment. Then I learned more about her through Wikipedia. In all the pictures I have seen of her she radiates an aura of fierceness and confidence. Her story is very amazing too she was literally born out of the fire and is the queen of the five Pandava brothers. I find her marring to the five brothers very interesting since we mostly only hear of men having multiple wives.  In the youtube video 16 fascinating facts about Draupadi, I bet you didn't know I learned that she actually would have had 14 husbands according to some stories since she asked for a husband with 14 qualities. I also admire her strength and courage as she demanded justice when she was insulted and condemned the kings who failed to protect women. I see her as a feminist of Indian Epics. I would like to retell her story in a more modern version of her story as of how Draupadi would be in today's times also some sources say that she had no childhood, I would like to start her story from a young age and include events that lead to her being who she is. Her life consists of many events, tragedies, courage there is a lot of content that I can use for inspiration to retell her story.

From the women of Ramayana, Shurpanakha's story really sparked my interest especially when she is referred to as an evil genius. We mostly always want to write about good characters but I think writing about evil will be fun. I learned a little about her story through speakingtree. It's said that she wasn't conventionally beautiful and her nose ears were chopped off. I think she also suffered many times in her true story which is why I want to retell her story by inspiring myself from a Mexican telenovela called Rubi. Rubi is about a young woman who is very beautiful but poor and thus uses her beauty to seduce a very rich man to give her anything she wants, thorough the story she continues to seduce and manipulate men into giving everything she wants.

Vasantasena, a dancer was also a story that I liked since the reading overview assignment. As I learned more about her she reminded my of Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, the Disney version because I still have not read the novel. I like her story because it includes romance, action, mystery, good vs evil and the main focus is still her. If I retell her story I will probably take some inspiration in The Hunchback of Norte Dame movie. I will have to buy the book Vasantasena, A Dancer and Her Most Precious Jewel because it seems to tell her story really well and in a way that seems easy and fun to read.

Since learning about this project, I knew I wanted to do my storybook topic on the women of Indan Epics or like a romance novel. Nine Ideal Indian Women: Savitri, Damayanti, Sati, and Uttara, I think is the perfect book that covers my main interest also the fact that the author Sunity Devee is an educator and women's rights activist just adds more points to this story. All the women included here (Savitri, Damayanti, Sati, Uttara,  Sitia, Promila, Shakuntala) are fighters and courageous in their own way and continue to be an inspiration to Indian women tody. I want to retell the story in depicting them as women who came together and seen as the fighters or warriors of Mahabharata. I will focus more on mainly four as I think 9 is too much but that could change, I want to see them work together and explore their dynamics and relationships/ friendship.