Context: Hearing from his father, as a kid, he learned about the Hindu Monkey Deity, Hanuman. Known as a sidekick to Lord Rama in his plight to save his wife, Sita from the demon king, Ravana. Hanuman’s childhood was not of the ordinary, he recalls. Being raised amongst a monkey troop, and being curious, he one day flew up to the sun and ate it thinking it was a ripe mango. One of the gods, Indra, was displeased by this, so he struck Hanuman, injuring him and making him fall down back into the Earth. As such, he sustained injuries making him have a unique chin. His dad told him this story with the idea that anything is possible, even if it seems impossible. Eating the sun may not be the easiest thing to do, but Hanuman put his mind to it and was able to do it, almost succeeding. Carrying this same mentality to your goals will allow you to achieve anything your mind and heart desires.

Your Interpretation: From this story, a tale like this involves lunar and external factors where they shape up the story. Rather than a traditional hero and villain dynamic, we see how a character causes physical changes to the main character of the story. Compared to European tales, the environment and setting doesn’t seem to be extraterrestrial or out of the ordinary rather teaching a non-literal truth. Furthermore, it teaches us that children and us, as an individual, have a natural curiosity and innocence that causes us to explore whatever it is unbeknownst of the danger that lies ahead. Going back to the cosmic nature of this tale, by eating the sun he disrupts the natural order of the lunar system that we discussed in class.

Context: Learning from his parents, passed down generation to generation, he learned about the Hindu Deity, Ganesha, the son of Hindu Gods Shiva, and Parvati. Being a child, he loved eating, especially modaks, an indian dessert delicacy. It came to a point where his stomach starting hurting because of how much he ate. While his mom, Parvati, tried to help him, the moon starting laughing at his pain, and as such his mom was displeased by this. She cursed the moon for this behavior, and as such Hindu cosmology and current beliefs has made it that on a certain day of the year, he cannot look at the moon as there is bad luck associated with it. This taught him that, no matter what someone is going through, no matter how difficult it is for them, never to judge them.

My Interpretation: The cosmo interaction is common throughout Hindu Tales, as gods represent some sort of order or natural world phenomenon. The ritualistic nature of not looking at the moon, is associated with the calendar year as he is told not to look at the moon annually. Furthermore, I feel that in terms of the relationship between Ganesha and the moon god, the relationship isn’t hero villain rather as someone who is looking down on you, as a school bully on the playground might do to a kid who just got injured on a slide. Ganesha is seen as the remover of obstacles, so having himself face an obstacle like this sort of puts his ego in a check as he has overindulged in something he loves.

Context: Listening to stories about the Dashavatara, 10 forms of the Hindu God, Vishnu, one tale stuck out. The tale of Narasimha, a half-man half-lion creature, that was an avatar who came to defeat a demon king, called hiranyakashipu.The demon king was powerful through deep meditation and devotion, he got a boon, a wish granted, by the Hindu God Brahma. This boon gave him the ability to not die neither inside nor outside his palace, neither day nor night, neither by man or beast, making his immortal in his eyes. However, a rule of the boon was that, you couldn’t wish to be immortal so this was what hiranyakashipu wished for instead. This allowed him to reign terror within the people in his kingdom. His son, Prahlad, was a devote worshipper of Vishnu which hiryanakashipu disliked. As such, he tried to kill his son, but was stopped by divine intervention as Vishnu taking on the form of narasimha. Vishnu, couldn’t allow this to continue, so he transformed into a half-man half-beast creature who killed him on his porch wihich was neither inside or outside at twilight, nullifying the demon king’s boon. A takeaway from this story, from his parents and religious teachings from his grandparents, no matter how bad times are, always side with good.

Interpretation: Growing up in a religious background with stories like this, rather than the traditional stereotypical stories we hear from our grandparents in the States, this tale has a mix of religion and common elements that I see in common tales. There is a hero, a villain, a “damsel-in-distress”, and a sort of overarching theme to it. Furthermore, I find it interesting that man and beast comes to intertwine with one another to defeat an evil power, as I feel there is sometimes a hierarchal downplay between both. Think of a dog and its owner, or humans and zoos, this tale shows that man and beast, at the same level, at the same position work together to bring each other up not take one another down. Compared to European tales, I feel that more common elements like ones we see with Baba Yaga vs other witches in Europe, this tale cannot be replicated or have another character replace it in its idea, significance and meaning.