Spring 2021 Online Course Diary: Week 6: Famous Last Words

I had so much fun writing my story today: I knew I would find good things if I looked in Lutgendorf's book, and I did! His chapter on Like Mother, Like Son: Hanuman, Goddesses, and Women was fantastic. It had all kinds of evidence from India about Hanuman and his son as conceived by a fish, or a fish-lover, plus other variations too; I ended up using the story from the Jai Hanuman TV show to combine with Suvannamaccha in my new story: Hanuman and the Mermaid. That fell into place really nicely, and now I know I actually want to do a whole story about Hanuman's son, with that maybe being the first half of the story, and then the second half could be the set up for the Maiyarap story... which will be the last story of the Storybook.

So now I am excited to write it as a kind of parallel to this story: Hanuman had no idea that Suvannamaccha knew him... and once again in the final story it will be a big surprise, because he will have no idea that he has a son. Maybe I will even rewrite the final part of the Maiyarap story so that he and Macchanu will go forth and fight together as a team. Anyway, there's plenty of time to figure that out later.

I've also been working on the Hanuman images... maybe over Spring Break I will have time to create an image randomizer that I can put in the sidebar of this blog. I've added all the temple rubbings, like the one below of Hanuman seeing Ravana and Mandodari... and I'm working on the sculptures from Wat Phra Chao now. I might finish those tonight.

I feel really lucky that there are so many great image resources I am finding online. It's helping me imagine a really new way of seeing the Ramayana, literally "seeing" with styles of art and images that are so different from the images that I know from India. I'm really glad I picked this as my Storybook project. Maybe next time I will do something about Hanuman in India, working from the Hanuman Chalisa which I originally planned to do. There's always next year! :-)

It's fun imagining Mandodari (Nang Monto) as an actual person after writing my story about her earlier this semester... and there she is, in bed with Ravana!