Drama in Hastinapur
“I must tell you scribe that I am most looking forward to
imparting a bit of my life onto that paper of yours”, said Bhishm.
“What would you like me to write o great undying Bhishm?”
asked the scribe.
“I think it best to start with how I came to be here as well
as what has happened so far. I believe it very important to keep records of
things such as this, don’t you?” asked Bhishm.
“O-Of course your majesty”, exclaimed the scribe loudly not
wanting to seem at all unsure.
“That is good to hear, for I fear there will be a lot to
write and I believe it best to get started”, said Bhishm.
“It all started at my birth. I was born to the King Shantanu
as you well know and my mother was a river goddess. Thankfully for me I was not
killed like my other siblings, as my mother had wished it. You see she had made
a promise to free the eight celestial spirits. I guess in her mind this was
achieved by murdering all eight of her children. I for one don’t quite understand
it but that is the case. Anyway, I eventually grew up and was by the banking of
a river shooting arrows into the river to tame it, as I did quite often. It
just so happened that this time that a man came strolling by and was astounded.
To my surprise this man just happened to be my father! We only found this out
after much talking he and I. he took me back to the palace where we were a
happy family. One day my father met a lovely fisherman’s daughter and wanted to
marry her. Her father said no so I set out to see that she did marry my father.
It was at this time that I vowed that I shall never take a wife, this seemed to
please her and make her come along with me to the palace. Upon arrival my
father was saddened by what I had done, but was appreciative and blessed me
saying my death came at my choosing. This leads to me not being able to bear
children but also not being able to be killed. This came in handy when I fought
off god like being for twenty one days. We both grew tired of fighting since
neither of us could kill the other. O, did I mention this being was sent on the
behalf of one of the princesses I brought to the palace to marry my brother? I
probably forgot to mention that. Now I just look after their children in the
palace. It seems that there is always some sort of drama happening around. I’ll
have to have you by weekly so that we might go over the newest dramas to hit
our fair city. Thank you so much for your time. “
“It was my pleasure sire”, said the scribe as he quickly
left the room.
Authors Note: I decided to do another story about a man
spinning his tale. This time it was about Bhishm. This is simply a retelling
and I did not change anything from the actual story. I also thought it would be
cool to make it to where he was the voice of reason in the palace with all the
crazy stuff going on. He would kind of talk about what was happening with the
scribe so that it could be recorded for history.
Bibliography: The Mahabharata: Karmic Revolution by EpifiedTv (India)
I remember this part of the Epified series about the Mahabharata! I love the point of view you took here, it's quite casual and conversation-like which makes it easy to read. Just one thing, I think you forgot to capitalize the first word of the sentence that starts with "he took me back to the palace..." so just be careful and look out for these little formatting mistakes before you publish your post! Otherwise, lovely little story you have here! It's a great summary of Bhism and his history with his family.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun way to retell this. I do like that it is in conversation form between the bhishm and the scribe. I know it is because he is supposed to be coming up with his own story, but the paragraph with his story seemed a bit over the place and took me a few to follow it all. I would think if he had a scribe he would have a better understanding of the points he wanted to discuss. But I love that it did summarize the story wonderfully!
ReplyDeleteHey Dallas! I really liked the way you retold this story. It made for a really cool perspective and I like the idea of a man telling his own story. Many people exaggerate and lie in the stories they tell about themselves so it might be fun to play around with that a bit. Also because of the format of the blog it was a little hard to read spacing wise so be careful of that. Overall, a really great job!
ReplyDeleteHey Dallas! This was a fun retelling, and a cool perspective shift to hear things from Bhishma, who doesn't make a big deal out of things and doesn't seem to understand everyone's fuss about things. If I made one suggestion it would be to break up Bhishma's story into a couple of paragraphs, it feels like a really big chunk whereas him telling it to the scribe would probably be pretty slow with some pauses and breaks I'd think. I liked how you included so many elements of Bhishma's story into this, and stayed true to it!
ReplyDelete