Once upon a time, there was a man named Shantanu. He fell in love
with a woman who was very mysterious. Her name was Ganga. She only agreed to
marry him if he didn’t question her. He was so lovestruck that he agreed. His
wife had deep psychological issues and drowned all of their offspring except
the last one. She had reasoning for why she did this, although she never told
him why—and she didn’t have to since he agreed in the beginning to ask any
questions.
The youngest son that was still living went by the name Bhishma.
Bhishma’s parents never told him what happened to his siblings, although he had
heard his mother speak of her previous pregnancies. He was a happy boy growing
up even though he didn’t have any other siblings to play with. For the most part,
he spent time with his mom—he was the definition of a momma’s boy.
The first day of school had arrived and Bhishma had to be
separated from his mom 8 hours a day for 5 days a week. He dreaded it at first,
but as time went on he began to gain some autonomy. One day, on his way to
school, he ran into some classmates. They asked why his mother had drown all of
his older siblings. “What?” He exclaimed, “My mother is a wonderful woman. She
has always been there for me. There is no way she could ever do that!” Enraged
by what they had said, Bhishma stormed home to tell his mother of the terrible
rumours he heard.
When Bhishma asked Ganga about the drownings, she was speechless.
She had completely forgotten about those tragic events that were suppressed so
deep in her memory. “Oh, son….” She
explained, “I have wanted to tell you for many years, but there is no way you
would ever understand. I didn’t want to hurt you.” Expecting her to tell him
that it was all a lie, Bhishma ran out of the room in tears. He felt so
betrayed by his mother that he decided to run away; after all, she was the most
important person in his life and she couldn’t even tell him the truth!
Bhishma ran away into the forest where he was attacked by a
rakasha. He screamed for his mother’s help but he was too far gone at that
point. The next day, Ganga had to bury her son that would still be alive had
she told him the truth from the beginning.
Photo of Bishma brought to his father grown; found online.
Author’s Note: I decided to have Bhishma grow up in a normal
community with his mother and father instead of having Ganga return him to his father when he was grown.
During this time he finds out about the drowning of his older siblings through
other children at school. I made it seem more like a realistic story because
tragic events like that would be talked about in a society like ours today. The
moral of the story is that your past actions will always catch up with you if
you choose not to face those demons or “skeletons” in the closet.
Narayan, R. K. (1978). The Mahabharata.
Hi Courtney, it seems like everyone is writing about this story. I like how instead of only stopping at Ganga and Shantanu you wrote further and about Bhishma. Overall, I think that you did a great job, and I could not find any grammatical errors. I also love that your font is so huge and the spacing you use is nice.
ReplyDeleteHey Courtney! Feels like I haven’t seen you in a while. I liked how you wrote about Ganga and how she drowned her babies because I thought that was one of the most interesting sections of the Week 9 reading assignments. I also thought it was a good idea extending the story onto Bhishma to see how he dealt with his mother’s uncanny actions. Great story!
ReplyDeleteHi Courtney! I liked the way you did this story because I read another story told a different way by someone else this week who focused on more of the Bhishma side of things and how he handled being raised after his mother drowned his siblings; while yours at first focused on Ganga and why she did what she did and then later also focused on Bhishma. I thought this was a really good touch.
ReplyDeleteHey Courtney! This was a very interesting take on the story. I really like how you turned it around and made it into a story with something you can learn. I especially liked how you made the son find out about his siblings who were drowned and made all that into a life lesson of how things in your past can catch up to you. Good job!
ReplyDeleteHi Courtney! I really enjoyed your adaptation of the story! I like how you kept Ganga in the story even after the drownings since she didn’t raise Bhishma in the original story. I noticed a couple of minor errors in the first paragraph. Instead of “She had reasoning,” it might sound better as “She had reasons for her actions” or something along those lines. The final sentence in the first paragraph also should be “since he agreed…to NOT ask any questions.” Just forgot to add the “not” in there, but no big deal. Overall, this was an enjoyable read!
ReplyDeleteHey Courtney!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your telling of this story! It was really cool how you kept Ganga in the story even after the drownings. I thought it was awesome that you had the son find out about the siblings. Since that didn't happen in the original story I thought it was a great touch! It was interesting to see how Bhishma dealt with his mother's actions
Courtney,
ReplyDeleteI think you did a decent job of modernizing this story. I particularly like that you introduce Ganga as having psychological issues. It seemed like Narayan portrayed her as fairly normal, but drowning her children is obviously not normal.
Did you mean to say ‘…since he agreed in the beginning not to ask any questions.’ (in the last sentence of your first paragraph)?