“Gather around children and listen to the story of my upbringing. You may only think of me as your uncle Bhishma, but what you may not know is that I am the son of the Goddess Ganga. My mother took on human form, and my father fell madly in love with her. I was the eighth child. My mother drowned the other seven. My father finally stopped my mother from drowning. My mother finally revealed to my father who she was. She then took me away to be trained from Vasishtha.”
“Growing up I never knew who my father was. I always wondered if he ever thought about me. Having Vasishtha as a mentor was an interesting experience. He taught me many different things. He taught me how to speak to another royalty, how to pray to the gods, how to go into a deep meditation, how to perform a purification ritual. But the thing I excelled in the most was fighting and weaponry. From an early age I seemed to excel at the bow. Vasishtha was a very impressed at my skill. Vasishtha had me shot with a blindfold over my eyes. He would take the target as far as the eye could see and make me shoot it. Finally Vasishtha had nothing left to teach me so we traveled to the different lands of the gods.”
“First we went to see Indra. The kingdom of Indra was like nothing I had ever seen in my entire life. Imagine the finest kingdom you have ever seen. This would look like dirty compared to Indra’s kingdom. Everything was made from the finest jewels. The streets seemed to glow like the sun. I came to Indra to learn mantras that would help me when I made my return back to my father. Indra taught me how to burn an object by just looking at it. He warned me that this mantra was a great responsibility. If I used this against an inferior opponent, the mantra would backfire, and burn me alive. After staying with Indra for a little while longer, we continued our travels.”
“We traveled to countless kingdoms so that I could learn different mantras from the gods. After many years of traveling I was finally able to complete my studies. I had finally become the man that could help lead this world into a better future. I was finally able to go to my father, and I have been here ever since.”
Author’s Note- I chose to write about the time that Bhishma spent away from his father growing up. I decided that I wanted this to be a story that Bhishma is telling all of his nephews when they were younger. Also I decided that I wanted Bhishma to travel to the different kingdom of the gods so that he could learn different mantras that he could eventually teach to his nephews.
Bibliography-Narayan, R. K. (1978). The Mahabharata.
Bhishma with his family. Source
I loved this! You did an excellent job with the storytelling style and I very much liked how you chose to write it from Bhishma's perspective. I think it would have been really cool to see a little bit more emotion from Bhishma. I can actually picture him telling the story of his travels to the children in his family. You did a great job of expanding on his adventures!
ReplyDeleteHey Shane!
ReplyDeleteI got so excited when I saw the story that you wrote! I was going to write my story over this, but I did not have time to write my story this week! I think you did a great job of telling this story! I love when people choose to tell a story by making it a story to children. I think it would be interesting if you added more about how he felt being away from his father and growing up without a father. You touched on it some, but I think more detail on that would be awesome! Great job!
Hey Shane, Your story was really exciting to read! Some of my favorite stories are stories that people tell when they are telling stories to children, or when they tell bedtime stories to children. I think what would really make this story better than it already is would be really explaining how it affected him growing up without a father. It had to of been a very hard childhood so I think going more in depth would really add more to the story. Other than that, great job I really enjoyed this story!
ReplyDeleteShane,
ReplyDeleteI thought this approach to writing the story was a very good choice. Not only did I like that Bhisma was telling the story the entire time but I also enjoyed that the story was told towards an audience besides just the reader. As a reader it was as if we were in the room but not the targeted audience, I liked that element a lot. As others have said the only thing I felt that it was missing was some emotion relating to growing up without his father. That is not an easy thing for anyone to do but it seems as if it did not bother him at all that he did not have a father throughout his life. Also, minor grammatical error in the second paragraph: Vasishtha was a very impressed at my skill.
I enjoyed hearing this story from Bhishma’s point of view. I think how you separated the paragraphs and had the quotes really helped to portray that Bhishma was telling a story.
ReplyDeleteA few corrections I found:
I think you may have forgotten to add ‘me’ at the end of a sentence in your first paragraph (‘My father finally stopped my mother from drowning me’).
Also, in your second paragraph I think ‘shot’ should be shoot.
Maybe try rearranging the sentence ‘ This would look like dirty compared to Indra’s kingdom.’ It threw me off a bit when I read it .
Hey, I thought you did a really good job of retelling this story and I liked that you told it from Bhishma's perspective. I really liked the level of depth and thought behind this and I liked the audience he was speaking to. It seemed like he should have focused more on his childhood since he was speaking to children and that would help him relate to them.
ReplyDeleteI came across your story as an extra credit assignment, and I am so glad to have chosen your blog! I also wrote about Bishma's upbringing, and I was very excited to read the differences in our stories. You had a completely different take than I did, which was cool to read. The only thing I can really suggest is to elaborate more on the last few sentences of the first paragraph, only because it sounds a little short and choppy. Someone who has not read, or head of, the Mahabharata may become somewhat confused on what is going on. Otherwise you did a great job this week!
ReplyDeleteYou did an awesome job with this story. Telling it from Bhishma's point of view was a great idea. Hearing all of Bhishma's thoughts about his journeys were very interesting, and gave great insight into the story. It would have been good to go a bit more in depth into Bhishma's youth. Your attention to detail was also excellent, especially in Indra's kingdom. Great job!
ReplyDeleteI loved this! You did an excellent job with the storytelling style and I very much liked how you chose to write it from Bhishma's perspective.
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