"What a wonderful day!"
Ahalya exlaimed as she walked outside for a bit of fresh air.
"Nothing
could possibly go wrong!" she thought as she walked through the town.
Ahalya
had a seemingly normal day. She did her chores, she worked in her garden, did
some shopping. It was a beautiful, calm day. Her life was fantastic. In fact
she thought she could live this way forever.
One day as she was wandering
through the market she met this beautiful man Gautama. Well technically her dad
met this wonderful man, but that did not matter to Ahalya. She thought he was
great!
Time passed and soon enough
Gautama and Ahalya were married in the most beautiful wedding across the land.
Every member of the town admired her beautiful dress, and the wonderful
flowers. Each woman wished that someday she too could experience such beauty.
Time persisted, and Ahalya and
Gautama had a wonderful time together. His life was great, her life great,
everything was great... except for her stalker Indra. Indra, you see had always
been OBSESSED with Ahalya. He would never leave her alone! Even after she was
married!
“Why can’t he understand that I
love my husband!” thought Ahalya after the 15th call Indra made to
her that day.
“I want to live in peace with my wonderful husband!”
Indra simply was not ever going
to take no for an answer desperately he searched his mind to find a way for
Ahalya to love him, the way he loved her.
“I've got it!” he said aloud,
startling his cat. “I will disguise myself to be Gautama! It is a flawless
plan!”
So off he went to Ahalya’s
house, wearing a thick coat and a large hat. Luckily for him it was the middle
of winter.
“I’m hooome!” Indra said as he
walked into the kitchen.
“OH! I have missed you today!”
said Ahalya as she planted a kiss on his cheek.
“This is working perfectly!!!” thought
Indra as he continued his scheme of deceit.
“Why don’t you take off that
coat?” said Ahalya “It’s warm in here!”
“OHHH no. I’m rather chilly.” said
Indra in hopes not to blow his cover.
“Whatever.” She replied
The evening went on as they had
dinner and prepared for bed. Indra could not believe this was working so well.
They were just getting into bed
when….
“I’m hooome! Sorry I am la-…” began
Gautama when he discovered this man in his bed.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Cried Gautama,
“Where you about to SLEEP with him?!”
Ahalya had never been more
confused. In walked her husband while she was with….
“INDRA!” she exclaimed.
“Get out!” cried Gautama, “You
CHEATED on me.”
Off she went banished from her
wonderful life to live in a cave. She was so lonely, and so depressed that she
let herself go. In fact everyone who ever saw her said she began to look like
the rocks she lived among….
 |
| Image of Ahalya (Wikipedia) |
Author's Note: This
story was inspired by Ahalya's Story, but from quite a different view point.
Ahalya's story was a side story in Ramayan by Narayan of a woman who was turned
into a stone after cheating on her husband Gutama with Indra. She was deceived
by Indra, yet still punished to become a stone until Rama came across her. I
chose to write about this story because it seemed like it was a bit of an
unfair situation. While Ahalya eventually did realize that the man that claimed
to be her husband was indeed Indra, she was still was tricked, and this story
is a modernized dialogue of the story from her viewpoint. The original story
was told from an omniscient viewpoint of sorts. There was not a vast amount of
detail, and the style in which it was written had a “matter-of-fact” feel. To
me, the story lacked emotion and personality so by adding dialogue between each
of the characters, I hoped to make the story more relateable and personable. I changed a few facts, such as Ahalya actually turning into stone to ease the
consequence. After all, cursed to be a stone for in indeterminate amount of
time is a little harsh. I also added a bit of humor to the story in order to
make it more interesting and fun.
Bibliography:
Narayan, R. K. (1972) The Ramayana.
I love this story! I love that you thought to put it into her point of view since we did not get to see that before! That definitely is an unfair situation, because she did not know that Indra was disguised as her husband. I think that you did a really awesome job with the writing. It was definitely interesting!
ReplyDeleteGloria, I thoroughly enjoyed this tale. Just why is Indra so consummately in love with Ahalya? In my opinion, adding more content concerning the thought processes of characters Indra and Gautama would make it even more captivating. For example, did Gautama know about Indra’s stalker? If so, how did he feel knowing that she was a target of his desires on a near daily basis?
ReplyDeleteHi Gloria! This comment is for the Project Commenting assignment so it's going to be a little longer. I thought you did a great job with this story. I like that you you had the story follow Ahalya and her situation of being tricked then cast out and cursed. When reading the original I thought that she was treated very unfairly based on the situation, and I think you captured that very well.
ReplyDeleteContent wise, as well as grammatically, I think your story was good. However there were just a couple of little punctuation errors I noticed while reading. For example, a couple of times, at the end of a quote, you would use a period and then add a dialogue tag to say who was talking, but instead, the quote should have ended with a comma to lead into the dialogue tag. (Like with the line: “OHHH no. I’m rather chilly. (,)” said Indra in hopes not to blow his cover.) There is one or two other places where this happens.
As I said above, this is definitely not a big mistake and it doesn’t detract from the story, but it is something that will be easier to edit now than when we are doing out big projects later the semester. Once again, great job with the retelling of the story! I look forward to reading more of your work throughout the semester.
I completely agree with you that Ahalya's story and the outcome of her situation was completely unfair. I liked that you made this story more contemporary by making Indra into a stalker. Of course, he was also a stalker within the Ramayana. However, stalking is unfortunately a common thing within our society, and like Ahalya, women are often blamed for having stalkers.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this little tale! I liked the spin you put on it, which made it really interesting! Your sentence structure was great, although I did find a few punctuation errors, all of which Kelsey mentioned in a previous comment! These small errors didn’t detract from your story in any way so good job! I liked how you added dialogue into this story, which I feel boosts the personality of the characters in your story! When reading the original story, I feel like she treated very unfairly based on her part in the situation. I feel like you captured that aspect of the story pretty well when writing your story. I liked your word choice when you described the setting of the story, which is important in any type of writing. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed your story and I think you did a great job in minimizing any writing errors.
ReplyDelete