Week 6: Reading Diary A

Sampati, the vulture

• Huge vulture, sibling of the great Jatayu that once defended Rama and Sita. Clearly, these birds are of great nobility. I see them as being reincarnates of some amazing king from a past life, although going from King to super vulture wouldn't really be much of an ascension
• Sampati is an unsung hero in all of this, as his coming clearly marks a momentum shift in the search for Ravana. If he does not show up with information on Ravana's presence across the water, there's a fairly good chance that the search party ends there. The morale was definitely low.
• I'd like to tell a story of Sampati and Jatayu where Sampati doesn't lose his ability by flying too closely to the sun. I would keep the part where he essentially burns himself to protect Jatayu, but an epic battle would be way better of a story for the loss of Sampati's flying ability. It might also be interesting to talk about Sampati's recovery to fly, or how some engineer in a town nearby helped create a prosthetic to use as a wing. Maybe once his wing was repaired, Rama could fly on the great vulture during the epic battle against Ravana, instead of the chariot.
• I can't put my finger on it, but this part of the book is clearly my favorite. I think everything up until this point can have its interesting moments, but once they actually get the search party down to the tip of India and start to proceed to Lanka, the book really thrives for me. Reading is no longer a task after this point.

Hanuman

• Clearly, Hanuman has known this ability to cross the ocean so easily by growing to be a giant, but he was either hesitant to do so, or was not paying attention during the discussion of crossing the 100 leagues. I think it would be interesting to write a story about how Hanuman came to be able to grow into a giant. Could this be his family trait? Is there a limit to how large he can actually get? Is there a limit to how long he can stay in this form?
• The story of Hanuman growing to be large enough to jump across the ocean is awesome, but imagine it from the perspective of a bystander -- that would be incredibly frightening. All the poor animals of the hillside and river are being throttled about while Hanuman is gaining all of his size.
• The stories of the mountain king-god that rested underneath the passage to Lanka was incredibly interesting. Apparently, the large mountains of the world used to be able to have wings and fly whenever the wanted, and it was only when Indra punished them for their carelessness while landing that they finally lost their wings. They make out Indra to be some sort of bad guy, but I think it's obviously clear that the mountains flying and landing wherever could cause massive devastation. Indra clearly knew what he was preventing.