Week 6 Story planning: Combining Sherlock and the Mahabharata

An image of Sherlock Holmes. Source

I was reading the story of King Shantanu and Ganga (by Donald A. Mackenzie) and I was really interested in the basis of the story. When all the extraneous elements are stripped away from it it is the story of a person not understanding why someone they trust is doing something seemingly awful. The character of course later learns that his partner had a very good motivation for doing this.

The story from the Mahabharata we read had a wife throwing her babies into the river despite her husband's confusion. As this is an Indian epic we as an audience know from the beginning the reason, but the king husband does not.

I like the base concept so I was trying to think of a new way to present the story, while still havig the same core backbone of a trust issue breaking two people apart. While I was thinking somehow a Sherlock Holmes short story came to mind, The adventure of the six napoleons.

Basically in this story, a thief has hid his jewel in one of six busts of napoleon before he was locked up. He got out and now must find the jewel. He doesn't know which napoleon bust it is in and he must find the bust's new owners. Meanwhile Sherlock has no idea why people's busts are being broken and neither does the audience.

I want to combine the stories by taking the trust element from King Shantanu and the jewel hiding in pottery element from the Sherlock story in order to create a fairly interesting original story. One major element I will change is to have the audience not find out about the twist until the main character does, to add more suspense.

This is the kind of story I could adapt into one of my short films, hence why I wanted to take another week to plan it out.

Reading notes: Mahabharata part B

Well the first story already has a problematic reading that it is perfectly OK to burn up some lower caste people as long as they aren't the princes...

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It's interesting some of the structural similarities between this story and the previous book we read. Just as Rama had to exile himself to the forests so to do the pandavas.

Huh, so apparently Rakshasi can be not all that bad. Today I learned. I'll definitely use this in one of my stories.

So Brihma just appears whenever he is needed? That's actually quite cool.

The concept of a sacrificial ritual having to be performed to bring about the birth of a child is very poetic in nature.

I don't fully understand why the Pandava must hide if they are more powerful than their enemies.

I think its kinda hilarious that they are switching up the gender numbers in the Pandavas somewhat mistaken marriage.

How did any of them think that this marriage was going to work!

I like the second telling of Arjuna and CHita better because it is a bit more humorous.

I kinda thought they were going to find a way out of the whole five husbands one wife thing but I guess that's just here to stay, huh?

This story is so much more political than the previous tale. i wonder if that has something to do with it supposedly being originally told by a monarch.

Hold on a second while I look up what Parcheesi is....

Reading notes: Mahabharata

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The first story already is promising that this new reading is going to be even more out there than the last one and that I'd saying something!

I'm not going to lie, I just got comfortable with the names from the previous reading and now... There are even more.

The part about Satyavati becoming a virgin again is by far one if the strangest things I've read in a while.

Brishma's vow is strange and apparently motivated only out of live for his father, but I don't see how it is terrible.

Brishma is pretty much just a servant to his family at this point.

Amba is going to reincarnate as a dude just to kill Brishma? This story grows in wildness.

Ambika's blind child and how she got it is kinda hilarious.

I feel like panda giving up everything but his wives is the exact opposite thing that he needs to do to overcome his curse.

So snake poison is a cure for poisoning. Huh...

What is the moral of the story of the bril archer? It seems like a not good one.

I find it strange that a teacher can demand anything of his pupils.