Sunday, October 11, 2015

Yasoda: Foster mother to Krishna



Yasoda: Foster Mother to Krishna

You all have heard of Krishna and his evil uncle, King Kansa, but not many of you have heard of Yasoda the foster-mother of Krishna. Yasoda is kind of an overlooked character in the story of Krishna. Do not underestimate Yasoda though. She raised Krishna and therefore probably has some juicy details that Krishna has been holding back on us. Well, guess what, loyal fans, you are in luck. We got a hold of Yasoda and you will not believe what we discovered.

The story of Krishna’s childhood has always been kind of unambiguous. Krishna never really got into great detail about it; he has been kind of known to beat around the bush a lot. Makes you wonder what he is hiding, doesn’t it? 

Well, let’s start from the beginning. Okay, so we know that Krishna escaped from the hands of his malicious uncle Kansa but we do not really know what happens after this. Good thing you have us, am I right? 

Here is what our source informed us. Even though Krishna was able to escape from Kansa’s prison, Kansa never gave up. He continued his search for Krishna. He went as far as killing innocent babies throughout his kingdom. It was one thing to kill Krishna’s siblings but now ALL of the babies of the land. It gets worse. Kansa killed these innocent babies though a vampire-nurse named Putana. Putana would appear in the form of a beautiful woman. With her beauty she would lure parents to give her their child to “cradle.” She would pretend to “cradle” the child by breastfeeding him. Here is the catch: her breast was filled with poison. Fortunately, when Putana was “cradling” Krishna, Krishna did not fall for the trick. He actually defeated Putana by revealing her true colors, which was pretty ugly. According to Yasoda, she was a grotesque-looking beast. There goes her modeling days.

I guess I can see why Krishna would want to keep this on the down low. He did not want everyone to know every embarrassing detail about his family drama. I mean there is nothing to be embarrassed about, Krishna. Everybody has that black seed in their family. I do not know about you but I think Kansa is kind of mentally ill but do not take my word for it -- I am no doctor.  
(Baby Krishna)

On a lighter note, Yasoda told us some cute stories about Krishna when he was a kid. When he was finally able to crawl on all-fours apparently he was quite the difficult child to keep up with. He would crawl into the mud and smear the mud all over his body. He would even eat the mud. Can you imagine that? The great God Krishna rolling around in the mud and eating it like some commoner! Another funny story about the God Krishna is that apparently when he was a kid he was quite the thief. Now that is hard to imagine. A God stealing. When he was a kid he would make his way into dairies and help himself. He would take cream, butter, and pretty much anything else of his pleasing. Looks like little Krishna was quite the rascal. 

Hopefully you enjoyed reading this because there will be lots more. Until next time, Insider readers!

Author's Note:
My story was based on The Divine Childhood . I wrote my whole story in a gossip tone. The majority of my story focused on Kansa and how he tried to kill Krishna by using the vampire- nurse.  I did not really change anything about this portion of the story except that I excluded the small detail of how Krishna killed the vampire nurse. He did not suck the poison but did suck the vampire- nurse’s soul, causing her to lose her beauty. I only mentioned a few of the stories concerning what kind of baby Krishna was. I did not include all of the stories about what kind of person Krishna was because I felt like it was not necessary. I wanted to focus on all of the scandals of Krishna so I felt like a lot of Krishna’s childhood stories were irrelevant to my theme. I just wanted to focus on what was considered “drama” or entertaining to readers. Some stories. I excluded from my story were the story of how he kicked a wagon which caused a demon to be killed, the story of how he a long rope attached to cart, or how Yasoda would punish Krishna when he was being bad.

"The Divine Childhood" by by Sister Nivedita, from  Cradle Tales of Hindiusm (1972). Web Source: Public Domain Edition

6 comments:

  1. Hey Sarah Nguyen! It is so interesting how you are choosing to explore Krishna’s life a little more. It will be cool to see your twists on the information you obtained from “The Divine Childhood.” Your portfolio title fits the idea of your portfolio well. It is a good attention-grabbing title.

    I enjoyed reading the story you wrote on his childhood. His uncle must have been an extremely mean person to kill all of those babies to find Krishna. I have a lot of suggestions to make your story better. First of all I would recommend proofreading your stories several times before you publish them. There were errors that made the story hard to read. Here are some of the errors I have found:

    Okay so we know that Krishan escaped from the hands of his malicious uncle Kansa but we do not really know what happens after this
    ⇨ “Krishan” is spelled Krishna

    It was one thing to kill Krishna’s siblings but now ALL of the babies of the land.
    ⇨ Here I would end the sentence with “were murdered too.”

    Another funny story about the God Krishna is that apparently when. he was a kid he was quite the thief.
    ⇨ There should not be a period in the middle of the sentence.

    He actually revealed defeated Putana by revealing her true colors, which was pretty ugly.
    ⇨ This sentence should be rewritten. I do not know what you are trying to say about Putana. What did he do to reveal her true colors?

    I wrote my whole story in a gossip tone
    The majority of my story focused on Kansa and how he tried to kill Krishna by using the vampire- nurse.
    Some stories I excluded from my story was the story of how he kicked a wagon, which caused a demon to be killed, the story of how he a long rope attached to cart, or how Yasoda would punish Krishna when he was being.not include all of the stories about what kind of Krishna was because I felt like it was not necessary.
    ⇨ These sentences came from the Author’s note. It looks like you had a copy or paste error because they were repeated.

    Good luck on your story! There are some good ideas here but you just have to fix a couple grammar errors to make it better.

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  2. Hey Sarah! Overall, this was an enjoyable read. Like Aakash said I would make sure to proofread carefully--even just reading it out loud (for real out loud!) to yourself after writing it can help. One thing early on, is that I think when you wrote unambiguous, you meant ambiguous. I think you have a really good theme going already, with the insider perspective, and with just a little polishing it could be great. I'm interested to see what other stories you put in your portfolio! I would check on your other story link here though, because when I clicked on it to take me to the story it tok me to an error page. Your story has a very conversational tone about it, which I think is an interesting choice! The picture of baby Krishna is downright adorable too. I'll be back to read more of your portfolio, good work so far!

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  3. This was a great story but, like Claire, I tried to read your other story as well, but it took me to a page that said I did not have access. This story was very interesting, though. I like the tone you used in your story. It gave off an air of a gossip column or a tabloid magazine, which I thought was a creative choice. Also, I'm not sure, but I think when you said "unambiguous" you meant "ambiguous" because it is talking about how he has hidden some things about his childhood. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it could be a little more clear either way. I haven't read this particular story, but from your author's note I kind of understand the changes you've made. This story was very good, but I think that it would have been more interesting if you used fewer plot points and added more details to each plot. Overall, though, I think you did an excellent job! It was a very interesting story and gave quite a bit of insight into Krishna's life.

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  4. Sarah! I chose your portfolio for my free choice since I looked at your introduction and storytelling posts this week as well. The "Insider gossip" tone that you wrote the story with was very fun and made it interesting to read. I know that that kind of writing can always pique my interest. I think I love the projects part of this class because everyone goes in different directions with their stories. This allows readers to get more information and perspectives on the stories we read for the first half of the semester. I bet if I was in this time, I would probably pick up the Insider to get all the latest gossip on the gods.

    Your writing is great and offers a unique take on the original stories. Keep up the great work and I look forward to reading more of your stories as we finish out the semester!

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  5. I think you did a great job sticking with your theme for this piece. It is very obvious that you are writing like a blogger who keeps up with the latest celebrity drama… but instead of famous people, you’re tracking down famous gods. A very clever idea! Since your theme is more light-hearted, you did a good job altering the stories to match the overall tone that you’re going for. For instance, you kept out the part about the baby killing the vampire nurse. I am really glad I got to read your portfolio, because I haven’t had the chance to read the book your story is based off of. After reading your piece, I think I might look into using this book as one of my reading assignments! Only one specific vocab error I saw, I think you might be meaning to say “ambiguous” instead of “unambiguous”. Maybe just double check that, but overall great work!

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  6. I really like how you wrote this in a sort of gossip tone. I think that it read as if someone was just sitting there having a conversation with you. It jumped around and I actually liked that because it seemed to flow like a conversation. I think that it was an interesting story that his uncle was trying to kill him and went to such extremes to do that. I also liked how you added a couple of short stories about when Krishna was little at the end of your story. It really does read like gossip and I think that made it interesting. I also love the picture. I think baby Krishna looks so adorable. Overall, I really like your story and I think that it flows really well. I also think that you did a good job with the author's note. It really helped to understand why you chose to write the story in the way that you did. Good job!

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