Where do I start? I am already very impressed by the stories and reading material available to us through the Public Domain and libraries here at OU. I guess I would start this post by explaining my current knowledge about India or more specifically Indian Epics. That is to say I have very little experience or knowledge of India or its cultural history. When I started college I became friends with a girl from India. She is one of the only people I have met from the country and again I had little knowledge before hand. During my freshman year I celebrated with her Diwali, or The Festival of Lights, and Holi, or the Festival of Colors! With my friend from India I have briefly discussed religion, but no much. I have also been exposed to the hindu religion and Indian culture through my current favorite television show Sense8 and one of my favorite movies Slumdog Millionaire. I have also been exposed to the world famous Mumbai (Bombay) film industry, also known inappropriately as “bollywood", through a course I took at the University of Oklahoma called the Anthropology of Media.
It goes without saying that one of the most influential people in the world is from India and is one of my personal heros... Mahatma Gandhi. Ever since I was a child I have looked up to Gandhi as a source of inspiration for everyday life. I have always been interested in his life history.
A short clip from Sense8 showing a scene with a "Bollywood" type dance number
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| Holi - the Festival of Colors (Wiki Commons) |
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| Diwali - The Festival of Lights (Wiki Commons) |
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| Mahatma Gandhi (Wiki Commons) |
There are so many great Indian festivals and holidays, Christian! I'll try to point them out in the announcements, the main ones anyway... sometimes the stories that go with the holidays are connected to the epics! And I am guessing you are not the only one who feels a connection with Gandhi... and Gandhi, in turn, felt a very deep connection to both the Ramayana and also to the Mahabharata, especially the Bhagavad-Gita. The version of the Gita that he first read was in ENGLISH, a verse translation, and it's one of the books you can read for this class. So, if you want to share that experience with Gandhi in that way, take a look at Arnold's Bhagavad-Gita in the second half of the semester.
ReplyDeleteThe Song Celestial; Or, Bhagavad-Gita