Wikipedia Trail: From Indian Prime Minster to Lanuages with official status in India.

First: Prime Minister of India

While I was reading about the Prime Minster of India, I learned a lot about India politics in general. I found it interesting that based on different parties there was different ages one could be prime minster. I also saw that the salary of the prime minster increased by $900 in 3 years which is interesting to see.

Next: Lok Sabha

This is the lower house of India's government, and can be translated to House of the People. It has a maximum of 552 seats and currently 545 are filled. They last for 5 years or until a new president is instated.

Next: Rajya Sabha

This is the upper house of India's government. It can be translated to the Council of States. There's a maximum of 245 seats and currently 223 are filled. Both of the houses are equal in what they do, except in small matters.

Final: Languages with official status in India

I felt like this was a good article to end my Wikipedia Trail in. It talks about all the different languages that India has, since there is no national language. It just shows how culturally diverse India really is and I think is a good representation of India overall. I've really enjoyed learning so much about India and am very glad I choose to make one large Wikipedia Trail for my extra credit.

Emblem of India from Source

Week 12 Story Lab

TVTrope

This week for the Story Lab, I decided to look into the TVTrope and see what the website was about.

I was really impressed with TV Trope and how much information there is on one site! I knew TV and movies and books all share a lot of the same general ideas and general plot movements, but it was crazy to look at one movie and get everything that is involved with that movie in such detail.

The main page I looked at was The Incredibles, and I looked at all the different "tropes" that movie has. There was so much detail even just for that one movie! You never really think about all the small little tropes (some examples are  "And your dog too" and the "annoying little sibling" ones). I think it's a great resource for writers to be able to see different tropes and figure out how to play around with them.

The Incredibles from Source

Wikipedia Trails: From India to Prime Minster of India

First: India

While going through the India Wikipedia page, I started to think about what I wanted to focus on for the next portion of my Wikipedia Trails. I figured that I wanted to learn more about culture so I scrolled down to that section and picked my next link based on what I found there.

Next: Caste System in India

The Caste System is a big part of what most people know about Indian culture. I wanted to explore this page a bit more because I wanted to find out what the caste system was really about and what it actually meant in Indian culture.

Next: Politics of India

One of the things I learned from the caste system (besides that it still exists) is that it really influences the politics of India. After reading that, I wanted to see what the politics of India really were about.

Last: Prime Minster of India

I didn't realize that India had a prime minster (though it made sense since India was under British colonialism for a while) so decided to end my Wikipedia Trail here so I could learn some more about the prime minsters of India.

Indian Flag from Source

Week 11 Story: The Naughty Toddler

The Naughty Toddler

There was once a very cute toddler. His parents absolutely adored him and called him 'Buddy' because he was such a sweet child and had such a sweet kid.

One night, after Buddy went to bed, his parents watched a movie about robbers. They thought Buddy was asleep, but he wasn't. So Buddy overheard what the robbers were saying.

"We need to make sure we take as much as we can. We can't share a thing, it's all ours. We have to look out for ourselves," the robbers in the movie said.

Buddy overheard this and thought to himself, "This is how I'm supposed to behave, I need to make sure I take all the toys and look out for myself."

And the next day at daycare, that's exactly what Buddy did. He took all the other kids' toys and refused to share with anyone. He treated the other kids so poorly, they all started to cry. The teachers were all surprised. How had Buddy changed so much overnight?

When Buddy's parents got the report about how naughty he had been that day at school, they were shocked. They began to brain storm as to what had changed overnight. Finally, Buddy's mother wondered if he had heard the movie last night. To test her theory, they played a much nicer movie about a man who gave everything for his friends.

"We need to help everyone," the kind man said. "We need to make sure we share what we have and we want to leave people happier than we left them."

When Buddy heard this, he decided to try this method the next day at school.

Sure enough, the next day at school Buddy was so much better and shared all of his toys with all the kids. He had everyone laughing and smiling and having a good time. And Buddy enjoyed that so much better than making everyone sad. So that's how Buddy became so kind.

Bibliography: The Elephant Girly-face by Ellen C. Babbitt

Authors Note:

When reading the original story, I thought of how impressionable the elephant was and how much that reminded me of young children. That's why I decided to write the story about Buddy the toddler, overhearing a bad movie his parents had playing.

Toddler From Flickr Images

Week 11 More Jataka Reading Part B

Source: More Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt

How the Monkey Saved His Troops

- Monkeys gather mangoes from underneath a tree
- A King discovers the mango
- The King collects all the monkeys mangos
- The monkeys grab mangos from the branches which upsets the King, so he requests the monkeys be shot down
- The chief monkeys lets the other monkeys climb over his back to escape
- The King sees what the chief monkey did and promises he will take care of him

The Hawks and Their Friends

- Hawks live on an island. Lions live on the north side,, a Kingfisher on the east and a turtle on the south.
- The mother suggests they make friends with all the other
- Hunters are in the forest and they see the hawks
- The hawks go to the Kingfisher for help and he comes
- The Kingfisher gets tired so the mother tells the father to get help from the turtle
- He comes to help
- The hunters start to hunt the turtle instead
- The turtle has to run to avoid being eaten so the hawks go to the lion
- The hunters go running and the friends all live

The Brave Little Bowman

- The bowman has a crooked back
- He goes looking for a big man so he can go into battle
- They join the kings army
- The King sends them to hunt down a tiger
- The bowman gets him
- They kill a buffalo too
- The King goes to battle
- The big man got too scared and ran away
- The Little Bowman continued to fight and made him the chief of the army

The Foolhardy Wolf

- A lion kills a buffalo
- A hungry wolf offers to be the lions servant and the lion accepts
- The wolf tells the lion if there's animals he can hunt or not
- The wolf is feed well and grows in size
- He tells the lion to trade places with him and tell him when he sees an elephant
- The lion agrees
- The wolf fails and is killed by the elephant instead

The Stolen Plow

- Two traders are from a small town and a large town
- The small town trader leaves a plow with the large town one and he sells it and lies about selling it
- The village trader leaves the towns trader with a friend
- the village trader lies about his whereabouts and they both go to court
- the court orders the town trader to give back the plow to the village trader and then he can get his son back

The Lion in Bad Company

- A young lion lets a wolf live with him against the warnings he knows too well
- The lion's dad doesn't like the arrangement
- the wolf wants to eat a pony and convinces the lion to do it
- He becomes addicted to eating the King's ponies
- the lion goes to the stables to eat the ponies and ends up getting shot. The wolf abandons him

The Wise Goat and the Wolf

-There's one goat the wolves can't catch
- A wolf and his mate devise a trick to get her
- The goat is hesitant but eventually comes to help
- The mate messes up and the goat sees this
- They try another trick but the goat decides to trick them instead
- She asks to bring hounds with her and she never hears from the wolves again

Prince Wicked and the Grateful

- Prince Wicked is awful and everyone is worried what will happen when he's King
- The servants pretend they didn't abandon him
- The King searches for him
- Prince Wicked finds a log along with a snake and a rat
- A poor old man goes to save him
- The poor old man helps the animals first
- The prince hates him for that
- The animals offer him goods when they leave
- The prince offers him riches when he's King, and soon after his father dies
- The old man goes to see if the 4 will keep their promises, the animals do but he doesn't take it. The prince tries to kill him
- The people hear the story and get scared, so they kill the king and let the poor man be king
- He treats the animals well after that and they live happily ever after

Beauty and the Brownie

-  There's two sibling deer named Beauty and Brownie
- Their parents advise they go away while corn is being ripened because it's dangerous
- Beauty takes his herd away from the village and travels by night as advised and his herd makes it
- Brownie ends up taking his herd the wrong way twice and many die

The Elephant and the Dog

- There's an elephant and a dog who are good friends. They eventually are allowed to live together. Then the dog gets sold and the elephant becomes very very sad. To make the elephant feel better, the King brings the dog back and they all live happily ever after

Lion and the Wolf from Source

http://www.gatewaytotheclassics.com/browse/display.php?author=babbitt&book=morejataka&story=lion

Week 11 Readings: More Jakata Readings Part A

Source: More Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt

The Girl Monkey and the String of Pearls

- A King's family all go down to the lake and the queen laves her jewelry unattended
- A girl monkey really wants the pearls
- The servant watching the jewelry falls asleep
- The monkey hides the pearls
- The main guard realizes a girl monkey must've taken the pearls
- The guards try to trick the monkey into leaving the pearls when she has a strand of beads
- The girl monkey shows off her pearls and the guard takes the pearls back

The Three Fishes

- Three fishes named Thoughtful, Very-Thoughtful (VT) and Thoughtless.
- They go close to a town and VT warns the other two fishes of the danger they're in
- Thoughtful and Thoughtless don't see where the fisherman's net
- VT goes to save them and succeeds by outsmarting the fisherman
- They all finally return to their old home

The Tricky Wolf and the Rats

- There's a rat chief
- The wolf wants to eat as many rats as possible
- He decides to stand near the rats home on his hind legs with his mouth wide open
- The chief of the rats pities the wolves and talks to him
- The wolf would eat the last rat whenever they left
- The chief rats go last the last time but he doesn't get caught
- The chief of rats bites the wolves neck and he die

The Woodpecker, Turtle, and Deer

- All three animals are friends
- The deer gets caught by a hunter but the woodpecker and turtle help his escape
- The turtle gnaws at the leather until his teeth are gone and he's bleeding
- He was so weak the Hunter captured him
- The deer decides to help him and leads the hunter into the forest
- They all escape the hunter and live together happily

The Golden Goose

- There was a goose with golden feathers and a poor women with two daughters
- The goose gives her one of his feathers
- The mother decides to get all the gooses feathers in fear that he'll go away one day and they'll be poor again
- If his feathers are plucked they aren't golden anymore, so the feathers are just white
- He goes away after the abuse and never returns

The Stupid Monkeys

- The King declared a holiday for his people
- The gardeners gets the monkey to water for him so he can have a day off
- The monkeys pull up the roots of the trees to see if they had been watered enough
- The monkeys kill all the young trees

The Cunning Wolf

- The town had a holiday and they all went to the forest with tons of food
- A man tries to kill fresh meat so he lies on the ground to trick them
- The King of Wolves creeps towards him
- The man tries to kill the wolf but misses and walks away empty handed

The Penny-Wise Monkey

- A King goes to try and takeover a small country
- A monkey steals the army's horse's peas
- One pea falls to the ground and the monkey drops all the other peas to get that one
- The king learns not to lose what he has to gain so little and turns around

The Red-Bud Tree

- 4 princes are told about the red-bud tree. They all wish they had seen one
- The eldest prince goes early in the spring when there are no blooms
- The second prince sees the red buds
- The third prince sees the green buds
- The youngest prince sees bean-pods
- The princes argue over the tree but the King tells them they just saw it at different seasons

The Woodpecker and the Lion

- A lion gets his bone caught in his throat and it hurts terribly
- A woodpecker offers to help him
- The woodpecker puts a stick between his upper and lower mouth so that he can't be eaten
- The lion feels much better, but doesn't thank the woodpecker
- When the woodpecker asks for favor and the lion says the favor was to not eat him
- The woodpecker stays away

The Otters and the Wolf

- A wolf desperately wants fresh fish
- Two otters are in a river, one goes for a fish but the fish is too strong and he gets pulled away
- They work together to get the fish and then split it between themselves
- The wolf divides the fish they are fighting about and takes the best part for himself
- He gives the fish to his mate

Lion from Source

Wikipedia Trails: From Magh Mela to India

First: Magh Mela

Last week I was really excited to learn about Magh Mela and now I think I'm going to try and learn about different festivals/ holidays/ sacred events in India. That's why I've selected my next link.

Next: Pushkaram

Pushkaram is an Indian festival dedicated to worshipping rivers. It happens on the banks of 12 various rivers and it rotates which river it is celebrated on (which is why each festival is once every 12 years). In theory it happens year round, but the most people come during the first 12 days.

Next: Ganges

Ganges is one of the major rivers that Pushkaram happens at. I picked it because it's also one of the biggest rivers in Indian and has a lot of history and a lot of stories attached to it.

Last: India

I picked India to end because I really wasn't sure what I wanted to research next and thought just going to the general India Wikipedia page would help me out and help me figure where my next Wikipedia Trail shall go.

Ganges River from Source