Thursday, January 15, 2015

Epics of India: Overview and Explanation

          So you may be wondering why I am taking this class. As stated in previous posts, I'm an Engineer, and I don't know about you, but the vast majority of us are a little overbearing. (Don't tell them I said that ;P). It is a very no-nonsense sort of degree path, filled with weird chemical compounds, and even weirder equations, and that is precisely why I'm here. 
          I was sitting in a row of chairs waiting to be “group” advised (which yes… is as strange a concept as it sounds), pondering what I was going to take in the upcoming semester. Calculus, physics, chemistry, chemistry disguised as a different name… That was all I seemed to ever be taking, and all too serious. I wanted, I needed something different. Just as these thoughts were running through my head, I heard a girl a few seats down talk about this refreshing online class that had something to do with India. She kept saying the word “epic”. Was this class that cool? Was I missing out? These words floated through my head for a couple weeks as I decided what class I should take for a non-western civilization credit. Cruising through the options, these words finally came together in coherence: Epics of India. It was like a light went off. This girl wasn’t talking about being super stoked about this “epic” class, (although she may have been) she was recommending the title of a very interesting class: Epics of India.
          This far in my life, I know two things about India: it is super populated, and curry is delicious. Otherwise, I have no background knowledge at all. Being Asian, I’ve been lumped into the “East”, and often times I’m asked if “It’s all basically the same” and “The cultures are very similar”. I usually spend a few seconds convincing myself not to shout “Such Ignorance!” and walk away, before explaining that each country is so completely different from its neighbors, and each culture formed independently. There is no place remotely similar to India. While in Asia, the culture and history is so vastly, vastly different from other countries just a couple hundred miles across the ocean.
          While I may have stumbled across this class be complete nosiness, and confused eavesdropping, I am very excited to see what I learn about the stories and culture that formed the country.


Look at this beautiful elephant dressed for a fair !
(Wikipedia)

1 comment:

  1. Gloria, I absolutely LOVE this story of how you ended up in this class! It reminds me of an ancient divination technique that the ancient Romans would use: the idea was that you would go into a completely quiet room in your house and pray to your favorite god and ask the question to which you want an answer... then, you would cover your ears with your hands, and go outside, and walk around for a while until the spirit moved you somehow to uncover your ears — and the very first words you heard, no matter who said them, would contain the answer to your question!!! So, some might call it nosiness... but others would call it divine prophecy, ha ha. Anyway, I really hope you will enjoy the class, and thank you for this delightful anecdote!!!

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