Topic Brainstorm

The Ganges River and the ghats.

(Source: Taken by Jeehon via Flickr)

I think that I am going to choose to do a portfolio rather than a storybook because doing a storybook might feel a little restrictive to me in terms of the stories that I compile and writing the stories this week made me realize that I will inevitably spend more time than I should on my weekly stories and I want that time and effort to have carry more weight in the grand scheme of this course. With that being said, I do want the stories in the portfolio to fall under one broad theme. Here are some ideas that I have:

Stories related to the Ganges River:

I study water scarcity so I am naturally drawn to stories about bodies of water. I think that it would be super cool to focus on a set of stories about the Ganges River because it is the only body of water that my parents ever taught me about growing up and it plays such a large role in Indian culture and in Hinduism. One challenge I may come across is finding stories that are about the Ganges River, rather than just being set there. I don't think this challenge will be too difficult to overcome, as the Ganges is so central to Hinduism and I want the stories to show why it is so important within the religion. I would definitely include this Bengal fairytale called Redeeming Power of the Ganges.

Stories about Durga:

As a child, I was always intrigued by the goddess Durga, although I have little to no understanding of her role in Hinduism. While researching who she was, I learned from this article that she carries a variety of weapons like a conch shell, a lotus, and a trident and these are things that are often depicted in images of her. I think it would be cool to first write a story about her birth or her power in action. I would then do a separate stories that focus on the power and the use of each of her weapons.

Creation Stories:

I want to gain familiarity with the most important Hindu deities and I think learning about their creation stories would give me a great foundation to build the rest of my knowledge of Hinduism on.  I will probably start by reading some Wikipedia articles on Hindu cosmology  to figure out which deities I would like to write my stories about. I would probably then go to the library and look through this comic book on the Stories of Creation from the Brahma Purana. I could also go a different route and write stories about the creation of the universe, rather than individual deities, as each religion has their own story about how the universe was created and I would love to be able to see how they compare and contrast from my pre-existing knowledge of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

Hindu architecture:

I want to write stories that will impact how connected I feel to India, especially for when I travel there again. I can do this by writing stories about physical structures that exist in India today. I would most likely write stories about temples in India, first skimming through this list of temples in India. I want to write stories about temples that I might one day be able to visit. My family is from the state of Gujarat so I'm going to try to find stories about temples there, like the Somnath Mahadev temple which is said to have been built by the moon God, Soma, and Krishna, because it would be more feasible for me to visit, but if I can't find enough stories about Gujarati temples, I will probably find stories about 5-6 temples that are the most popular in terms of tourism.