Storybook Topics Brainstorm

The first idea for my storybook is to have one that focuses on stories about the rakshakas or demons. So far, this is probably my favorite idea, although it does need more development. Most of what I know about the rakshakas is from Narayan's Ramayana and a little, I looked up on Wikipedia. Each of the four stories would focus on one rakshaka, probably the lesser-known ones than Ravana. In addition, I would try to find stories (or make them) where the rakshakas are more sympathetic. For example, one story may be about Maricha being threatened and therefore persuaded to trick Rama when he just wanted peace after his family was killed. For this storybook, I would have to decide what rakshakas I wanted to focus on and who I wanted to tell the story and who they were being told to. I think this would be an interesting topic, because most of the side stories in Ramayana that really interest me or that I wished I had known about involved a rakshaka.

The Death of Maricha. Wikimedia

My second idea involves heroines from the Indian epics. I saw quite a few past storybooks with this format, but I liked the ones I read. If I did this, it would probably be a mother telling her daughter about the goddesses to teach her something about lessons about women's lives. For this I would focus on one heroine in each story but I might repeat heroines. I would definitely use Sita for at least one story. For example, I may use the story of when Sita freaked out when Rama went to find the dear and couldn't be calmed by Lakshmana's reassurances. With that story, the moral being to keep calm when you don't actually know what has happened. I thought there were very interesting women in the stories and that is the main reason I decided to include this idea on the list. I would have much more research to do to find different heroine's and stories but I would use the Ramayana as a starting point.

My third idea would focus on secondary heroes or heroines in the stories. Lakshmana was one of my favorite characters in Ramayana and I think it would be interesting to focus on him and other secondary heroes (or sidekick type characters?) and tell stories either about them or from their perspective. Hanuman may be another character that I could talk about in this storybook. If I did this storybook idea, I would have more research to do on stories and secondary heroes outside of the Ramayana, as I haven't done much research beyond that yet. For this storybook, I'm not sure how I would have it told. Maybe like bedtime stories or maybe stories being told to a young adult or brother who is complaining about not being as important or cool as someone else to show that the legendary heroes also need support and help from others. This one isn't very far worked out, but I like the idea of focusing on characters who are at and involved in most all of the major events but not the focus of the original stories.

The fourth idea is probably my least favorite, but I do kind of like the concept. The idea of karma has always been very interesting to me, but I've never learned much about it or how it really works. This one would have the most research involved, because now I know almost nothing of the stories I would tell. However, I think it could be interesting to have the storybook feature someone from the Hindu religion using stories from old stories to try to explain karma to someone today. This storybook would be told about ancient myths but the language used would be modern since it is someone trying to explain the stories and concept of karma to someone who isn't well-versed in the ideas behind karma.

My last idea was to focus on the back-stories of small characters from the epics. For example, I thought that there were many interesting characters who were only in Ramayana for a few lines to a page, but seemed like they would have had great stories on how they got to the place they were. A couple of this was Ahalya, who was turned to stone for being tricked into sleeping with someone besides her husband, and Swayamprabha, who Angada and Hanuman find trapped in a cave while they search for Sita. I thought there were many interesting characters in the epic that were quickly brushed over but would have been cool to learn more about. For this I would have to do research outside of the stories on these characters as well as read the next epics to find similar characters to find out more about.