Your Story or Mine?
May 18, 2022
Namaste and Welcome to Week 2!
Everyone loves reading and listening to stories right from Fairy tales to myths, fiction and more. Many stories have a moral or a hidden meaning in it and sometimes, even a question left to be answered for the readers, which could be correlated with life. Personally, I love to answer such questions and I always try to relate the characters or the scenarios from the stories with my day-to-day life.
This week we are having three different stories, one each from Vikram and Vetal, Akbar and Birbal, and from the Amar Chitra Katha. All these stories have high values and morals in them.
Let’s see how some of our dance classmates have interpreted these stories - what they would do in a given scenario from the story, and what morals they have learnt from it.
Dharshana Dhanasekar
Undergraduate Student
Dance helps me express all kinds of emotions. When I dance, both my mind and body feels refreshed. On the whole, it imparts a positive feeling in me.
May 20, 2022
From the stories of Vikram and Betal:
In the story of the four brothers who made a lion, each brother gained a unique skill. The first brother could create flesh, the second one could create the hair and skin, the third one could create the limbs and the fourth brother could give life. If you had the choice to choose one of these powers, which one would you choose and how would you utilize them?
Resurrection of a person or animal is a power that has always been on my POWERS WISH LIST, which is a list that I maintain for all the powers I have wished to possess from preschool on. One incident which wanted me to possess this power was when...
I was going to school when an accident happened involving a car and a dog. The dog was hit and it died on spot, but the car that hit it sped away. All the vehicles were made to stop and the dog was taken away. I just wished at that moment that I could resurrect it, but of course I didn't possess such powers.
If I do possess such powers in the near future, I would resurrect almost all the animals (I know I am talking only about animals, but I would do anything to save and protect them).
Darshana B Nair
Class IX
I love dance because it makes me very happy and it is my form of relaxation.
I would like to be the one who gives life. I would like to give life to people as their families and themselves would be extremely happy. I could bring back loved ones. For me, that is reason enough.
Maadhurya N K
Class VII
I like to dance as it is a lot of fun and all the expressions are a challenge and I love doing those.
May 22, 2022
From the stories of Akbar and Birbal:
Where does God live? How can you find God? What does God do? Akbar asks these questions to Birbal to test him. Birbal’s son volunteers to answer these questions which he does cleverly, satisfying Akbar. If these questions were posed to you....
I think God lives in everything and every part of the universe. I believe I can find God by devotion and dedication in all the things I am engaged in. I think God creates, protects and destroys anything and everything in the world.
Janhavi Swaminathan
Class VII
I love to dance because the dance movements are very fun to do.
From our Puranas, I have learnt that God is everywhere. He is within everyone, and He is in everything.
We can find God in everyone and in everything. For instance, in “Prahalada Charitram”, when Hiranyakashipu asks his son Prahalada, “Where is your God?”, Prahalada answers “God is in everyone, God is in everything and God is everywhere”. Then, Hiranyakashipu asks if God is in the pillar, and to his astonishment, Lord Vishnu comes out from the pillar in the form of Narasimha.
God is the creator (Brahma), protector (Vishnu) and the destroyer (Shiva) of this Universe. Together, they are known as the “Trimurti”.
To sum up, God lives everywhere. We can find God everywhere. He is in everything. God does everything. He protects us all.
Anushri Srikumar
Class VIII
Dance is a beautiful art form in which I express my thoughts with my body language, expressions and such, and in the same way I also have fun.
May 24, 2022
From the stories of Amar Chitra Katha:
In the story of “The Ungrateful Goldsmith”, we learn the moral, “evil is rewarded with evil”. Such moral stories aim to convey important lessons that can guide us in real life, in different stages of life. If you had to think of stories with similar morals....
Having a similar moral as “Evil is rewarded with evil” is the story, “The Woodcutter and the Axe”. There was a woodcutter who was cutting a tree with his old and rusty axe near a lake. He accidentally drops his axe in the lake and goes to look for it. And from the water, a Goddess comes out holding a golden axe and asks “Is this your axe?”. The woodcutter could have easily taken the gold axe, but instead he is honest and he says “No”. Then, the Goddess takes out a silver axe and asks him the same question to which the woodcutter again says “No”. The Goddess then takes out the woodcutter’s rusty axe and asks the same question again. The woodcutter then says “Yes” since it WAS his axe. When the Goddess sees the woodcutter’s honesty, she gives him the gold and silver axe as well! Another woodcutter watching the whole incident happen, decides to try this out himself. He takes out his own old and rusty axe, and starts cutting the same tree near the same lake. He then drops his axe on purpose and waits for the Goddess to come out. The Goddess comes out again with a golden axe and asks the same question she had asked the first woodcutter. “Is this your axe?”. The woodcutter, being greedy, says “Yes” because he wanted the gold axe. The Goddess knowing that he was lying gives him his rusty axe back.
A story related to “The Ungrateful Goldsmith” is “The Golden Goose”.
We learn that the moral is “Too much greed always leads to great loss.” and that we should always be grateful in life for whatever we have while counting our blessings. Too much of anything is good for nothing.
Mahanyaa K
Class V
I like to dance because I can express myself.
I would like to share the story “The farmer and his neighbour” which reminds me of the same moral “Evil is rewarded with evil.”.
Once there was a farmer whose neighbour was jealous of the farmer’s wealth. One day the farmer went to the neighbour to ask whether he could plant his seeds in the land behind the neighbour's house or on the land near the mountain. The neighbour knew that the land behind the house was rocky with poor soil while the one near the mountain was fertile. So he replied that the farmer may use the land behind his house. The farmer believed the neighbour blindly and started ploughing the field behind his house. While he was ploughing the field he found a pot full of gold coins and became wealthier than before. As for his neighbour who wanted to make the farmer poor he ended up making the farmer wealthy.
M Roshini
Class VII
I like to dance very much because of the stories from the Puranas, which is a part of dance.
Aditi Srinivasan
Class V
I love dancing because it is very beautiful, and it lifts my mood and gives me energy.