Topic Brainstorm: Epics and Short Short Stories

So, this feels really different than the last time I did this class back in Spring 2019. That semester, I was sure I wanted to do a Hanuman project, and I had some specific Hanuman topics I explored in this assignment.

This time, though, I have in a mind a style I want to use (carrying on my current obsession with 100-word stories), so I know for sure that I will be creating pages that pull together anywhere from 5-10 tiny 100-word stories... but that style does not really give me any specific topic ideas. So, I'll probably end up with a Portfolio, and what I'll do here is list topics that I would like to cover in the Portfolio, since I can't really see myself choosing just one to make a Storybook this semester (it's kind of like when I did chain tales as my project back in Fall 2019 for Myth-Folklore: it was all about the style!).

So:

Women of the Ramayana. I think it would be really cool to put together a set of short short stories with a focus on the women of the Ramayana; it will be easy to come up with five (right off the top of my head: Sita, Ahalya, Tara, Mandodari, Shurpanakha) ... and of course there can be more since this format would let me squeeze TEN stories onto a page. A good excuse to reread Pattanaik's Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana.

Women of the Mahabharata. Same here: there are even more women characters, so it would be easy to come up with 10, no problem at all. For this, I will benefit from the books of Sharath Komarraju such as 17 Fascinating Women from The Mahabharata.

Women in the Krishna Cycle. This would be really cool also, being able to include stories about Krishna's mother and foster-mother, Yog-Maya, his wives, etc. There are so many characters here I have never written... doing a story about Yog-Maya will be wonderful, and that weird event is perfect for the sharp focus of a 100-word story.

Goddess of India. Well, DOH, of course I would have to do stories about goddesses. I will be much helped by Pattanaik's Seven Secrets of the Goddess of course!

I was all set to do a project this semester on the stories of the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata........ but I like this idea so much better. If I do 10 stories on every page, I could conceivably end up with 40 different little stories; how could would that be?!

And for an image, here's Yog-Maya and Kansa, since that is a story I am very excited about writing:

(more Krishna-related images at the blog:

AASE Yathirai)