Here is the link to my storybook Ganesha: The Remover of Obstacles
My name is Trishna Patel and I'm a second year architecture major. My main hobby (if you can consider it one) is watching tv mostly tv shows, documentaries, and anime. I also like to watch movies. Mostly action and sci-fi movies but also ones based off of real life stories. I absolutely love all the Marvel movies and the Harry Potter movies. I also like to read books mostly young adult and romance books. If I'm not doing either of the two I'm usually in my studio classroom in Gould Hall doing whatever project I was assigned. Picture of Gould Hall that houses OU's College of Architecture Washington Times This summer I went on vacation in Africa. My dad was born in Zambia and spent most of his childhood there so he wanted to show us the place he grew up in. We spent two days in Lusaka where he was born, and then we went to Livingston where we saw Victoria Falls. We also spent some time in Tanzania where we took a day hike up Mt. Kilimanjaro and a week long sa
Hi Trishna,
ReplyDeleteYou have a great introduction! I have always wondered why Ganesh is always prayed at the beginning of the ceremonies! I like how you added all the symbolism Ganesha carries with him and what they mean. The picture of Ganesha also goes very well with your description on what he carries and how he looks. I like how you talked about his pet rat, as not many people are aware of the meaning of the rat and how it helps Ganesha with all the troubles. I am excited to read about how Ganesha got the pet rat and when. I would just proofread it one more time as I saw few mistakes. "As thus at the began of many ceremonies he is honored." For this sentence, "the began" is suppose to be the beginning, which works better with the sentence structure. Proofreading it will help you find those mistakes easily, which then also can be fixed easily. Overall, you have a great story planning. I wonder what all stories you will tell, as there are so many for lord Ganesha! Good luck!
Hi Trishna!
ReplyDeleteI really like the picture you chose to use for your main page. It really highlights Ganesha and makes him the focus of the website. The text does cover him up just a bit, but it isn't too bad, and I'm not sure if there is anything you can do about it anyway.
I also enjoyed your introduction, especially the picture you chose and the text explaining the significance and reasons for everything in the picture. There are a few typos, mainly in your third sentence. I would also suggest moving your description of why Ganesha uses the color red to the right side to provide balance (there are seven items on the left side and five on the right side), but it's also fine how it is. Other than that, I think everything looks good and I'm really excited to see the progression of your project throughout the semester. Good luck and great job!
Hey, Trishna! I think your introduction does a very good job of adding knowledge background for people who have no idea who Ganesha is, and I think it also gives you a lot of avenues to develop stories later. I really like the picture you chose, too; it's a very clear picture that showcases all the elements that you discuss in your introduction. One improvement that I would suggest, though, is for you to go more in depth with each of your explanations. For example, you say that the elephant head symbolizes wisdom - what aspects of wisdom? How, specifically, does it symbolize wisdom? I think if you went more in depth with those, it'll give a more comprehensive background for the reader. Overall, though, I think you did a good job with your introduction, and I'm looking forward to seeing what direction you'll take it in!
ReplyDeleteHi Trishna! I loved reading your introduction! I've seen Ganesha before, but I didn't know anything about him other than the fact that he had an elephant head. Honestly, I figured it was just like the Egyptian gods that had animal heads just because. But I'm so excited to read about all the things you mentioned. It was also nice to have a picture of Ganesha surrounded by notes explaining what each piece of iconography meant. It was a little confusing to have all the little details that will be explained later in such a rapid fashion. I wonder if maybe that could be structured a little differently. I assume there won't be a story for each little sentence, because that would be a lot of stories, lol, so maybe if they were organized a little more by story? This introduction also makes me wonder what the format of the stories will be? This is such a lovely, loose start that you could really go any which way stylistically. It'll be interesting to see how that develops.
ReplyDeleteHi Trishna,
ReplyDeleteI think the idea for your project is really solid! I know I always wanted to know more about Ganesha and the meaning being the items he always seems to be pictured with. I also liked the way you laid out the picture relative to the descriptions of the icons you gave, it made it easy to understand what you were talking about.
I think this project has a ton of potential, but I am wondering a little about how you plan to organize the rest of your project based on your introduction. Are you going to just explain Ganesha'a backstory and significance? Or do you plan on creating original stories where you weave bits and pieces of Ganesha and his icons into them? I'm curious, because I really like the subject matter!
Like other comments have pointed out, you do have a few typos, so it might be helpful to read what you write out loud before you publish to mitigate those mistakes (I admit I forget to do that all the time).
I look forward to seeing what you can make out of this already solid introduction.
Brady
Hey Trishna!
ReplyDeleteGanesha definitely seems to be a popular character in this class. Your storybook is definitely the place to come to hear all about the background of Ganesha! I like how in your introduction you give such necessary background information, as well as the descriptions around the picture to further characterize Ganesha and the meanings of everything. My main suggestion is to include more details on the fight that lead to the be-heading in your first story. Maybe include dialogue from during the fight and key actions that took place. It just seemed like such a huge turning point of the story that should be described more in depth. Anyways, I love where you're going with your storybook and I look forward to reading more stories as you add them. Ganesha is such an interesting character, so you'll definitely have a lot of fun describing these stories and creating some of your own ideas as well!
Great job!
Hi, Trishna!
ReplyDeleteYou have a very nice introduction! You provide a good summary to give a good enough idea of who Ganesha is and for what he stands to someone who may know little to none of him. Something I am definitely curious about is Ganesha's sweets obsession. The organization of information around the picture of Ganesha on the side they show up is interesting. I had not heard of this version of how Ganesha came to be. I the version I heard was in the Seven Secrets of Hindu Calendar Art from the extra reading where Parvati made him on her own because she wanted children but Shiva did not. (I think that is how that version went?) I will agree with someone before me that it may be a good idea to add more detail where Ganesha and Shiva fought.
I am looking forward to seeing what else there is about Ganesha! Well done!
Trishna, I chose to read your project on Ganesha because I myself was considering doing a project on him. I just read your Introduction and first Storybook story. In the introduction, I love that you provided a picture of Ganesha and explained certain of his attributes, such as his broken tusk and his elephant head. I never would have considered wondering about these specific details in his appearance, but it appears that there are many important details to consider. The first story starts off in a good place and explains how Ganesha came about. From your author's note, I see that you changed his origin story a little bit in order to add your own voice. The only things that I would like to suggest for both the introduction and first story is to check your punctuation. Occasionally, there are run-on sentences that can be fixed by adding a few commas. Also, some consecutive sentences start with the same words, so I would change this up. For instance, the repetition of "He is" in the introduction can be spiced up a little. Good job on this!
ReplyDeleteTrishna,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, your design of your blog looks great. The green color scheme is very clean and everything is easy to read and organized. I love that! Your introduction was a goof explanation of the God Ganesha. Since I have no background in Indian gods, it was an easy way for me to learn about this one! I have always seen pictures of Ganesha but never learned anything about him. Also, the content of your introduction worked really well with the images; I loved the explanations about the image. It was a great diagram of what everything means in the picture! Your first story was a great beginning: how Ganesha was created. This was an interesting story, and the way you told it was very clear. The dialogue gave great insight to what the gods were thinking. Keep up the great writing, I hope to read your new stories as you continue to add them to your website!
Trishna,
ReplyDeleteI really love the design to your page and your story was a lot of fun to read. Thank you also for the easy to navigate storybook as I could easily find everything right away unlike some of the other pages that have been confusing and difficult to find stories. I didn't know about the indian god Ganesha but your writing made it feel I had read many stories about him already. You explained everything very well in your intro and that made your stories easy to transition to. I love it when the stories have a good image along with a story because it adds a more personal feel to your writing. Whenever you see the picture that goes along with the story it is easier to remember and you did a great job about that. I like that your story had some dialogue in it as it inspired me to put some in my next writing as well. Great story and hope to read more soon.
Hi Trishna,
ReplyDeleteYour design goes perfect with the theme of the stories. I like how it is simple, yet the header image is colorful, which is a really nice touch. I liked how in your introduction in the picture, you included the descriptions of your pictures. Also, I liked how you gave background information on Ganesha. I am from the Myth-Folklore section, so I had no idea who Ganesha was or anything, so you did a great job of introducing your readers to the character. Your first story is really good! I like how it seems to be going in chronological order of Ganesha's time. Will all of your stories do this? If so, I think it would be really cool, and that way, the reader would know that all the events are happening over the course of time in order. This would be a good way to overlap stories if you wanted! Overall you story is really great and the design of the blog does a great job of adding to the tone of the story! Great job.
Hi Trishna! I love the actual design of your website that you are using for your project for your class. I am from the Myth-Folklore section so I like how you were very detailed with everything that you did so that people can get a good idea of what is going on, even if you are not super knowledgeable about the topic. The only thing that I can really recommend changing up a little bit is going back and looking at the punctuation and grammar of your posts. There were a few times that there were minor errors that could be a little bit distracting overall but fixing those would add a lot to the piece. Where do you think you are going to go with this collection as you continue? Will the following pieces look the same as this one in format and tone or will you try and do something different with them? I know that I am in the other class but I might just have to come back to your site and check it out at some point later on in the semester.
ReplyDeleteHi Trishna!
ReplyDeleteI really liked the setup of your page. Your introduction was extremely informative and did a good job of highlighting the types of stories that would be found in your storybook and the general theme that you were establishing. Your pictures were particularly nice, and the picture of Ganesha on the introduction was awesome! Some editing things that you might look at are repetitions within your sentences. There were a few places that I noticed quite a few repeats of the same phrase or word, such as 'and also' in your introduction. I liked the story of Ganesha's creation, and I thought your choice to simplify it and keep to the most commonly agreed upon elements was a good decision. I think that Ganesha is one of the most fascinating gods in any pantheon, but I realized as I was reading your story that I really don't know that much about him and I know almost nothing about the iconography related to him. I'm really looking forward to learning more!
Hey Trishna! The first thing I’d like to say about your storybook is that I love how you used so many pictures! It makes a page more colorful and interesting to read. I also like how in the intro you explained in great detail what your stories would be about and also showed the different iconographies of Ganesha. I’m glad that you started off with the story of how Ganesha was born and why he has an elephant’s head. It seems like the beginning is usually the best place to start. I noticed a few typos or grammar errors, but nothing major that another reading out loud can’t fix. You do a very nice job of explaining your stories and yourself in the author’s notes. For your second story, you did two stories together. I understand why you combined them, but it seemed odd. I wish you had separated them more clearly with headings or had found a way to meld them together into one. Overall, very nice job on this!!
ReplyDeleteTrishna,
ReplyDeleteWow your Introduction is very engaging! You did a fantastic job setting up your story! The photo with all the details explained was such a great idea and really adds to your topic and educates your audience!
Your story was very interesting, and after reading your author's note I became very curious. Who knew there were so many different versions of the same story? Why did you choose the parts of the story that you chose? What makes your story unique and different than the other stories?
One suggestion I have is to lengthen your story a little bit at the end, for it seams to end a little abruptly. What did Ganesha think of his new head? Did he like? Providing his thoughts might be a great new perspective to introduce!
Trishna, I recently read another storybook that involved Ganesha. I love elephants so much that I thought I would read another version and see the different styles and perspectives. Your introduction to Ganesha was really interesting as you incorporated many aspects of Ganesha and even broke down his photo to explain more about it. After reading the other storybook before yours, I now understand how Ganesha got his elephant head, but your version told it from a narrative perspective and it was still nice to see the difference. I didn't know the reason for the head facing north meant Ganesha's wisdom and that was interesting to learn. I wonder how he became a main God, through Shiva or maybe some power/ritual? When reading your second story, it confused me that you incorporated two different stories into the mix. After reading your author's note, it made a bit more sense why you had fit two stories together, because of the meanings behind each. Rather than having two stories that way, maybe if you incorporated them into each other, you could still have the meaning of the mouse and elephant tusk. If you mesh them together, you could probably have Ganesha ride the mouse to Vyasa's home, where Ganesha would transcribe for him and break his tusk in order to finish the transcription? It would have a transition in the middle rather than two separate stories. Just a thought, but either way, both stories were great!
ReplyDeleteYour introduction was extremely informative, I really like it. It is one of the few blog posts I've seen that really takes advantage of the fact that we are required to use pictures in these posts. In addition to that it was ver interesting, and provided the reader with a ton of cool facts right off the bat before they get into any of the other pages.
ReplyDeleteAs for the stories, I think it was a good idea to start with the story of the elephant head because to me, this has always been one of the more intriguing parts of his character. I mean who has an elephant for a head?
Going onto the next couple stories. I like how you are going more in depth into the meaning of his symbology. I suppose that is the point of the blog, but especially with these origin stories, it holds my interest very well.
Bravo, as they say!
Hi Trishna!
ReplyDeleteI had read your storybook back when you only had the introduction, and I was looking forward to seeing what you'd added. I like that you chose to start with an origin story for Ganesha. You can't really get into the details of a god without explaining how that god came to be. This is especially important for a god as unique as Ganesha. My favorite, though was your story about his image. I enjoyed learning how some of his iconography came to be and exactly what it was representative of. The inspiration stories were completely new to me and they added a lot of depth to who Ganesha is and his cultural place. One of the things that impressed me most from my earlier reading was your use of pictures. I'm glad that you've continued to incorporate some really nice images to accent your stories. You're doing a really great job!
Hey Trishna! I am leaving these comments on your story The Creation of a God. First, I am sure the few changes you did make were very tasteful and added some additional perspective the scenes. Also, I think it’s funny that you decided to take the elephant head and run with it (no pun intended!). Sometimes when I try to think about how I want to write I will get too carried away with details and totally look over the glaring features that are begging to be written about. Moreover, this story had excellent flow and I really enjoyed how the story jumps right into the action. However, one thing you might add if you wanted is some commentary of the life that the son lived with an elephant’s head. This is not to say that your story did not provide enough information. I would just personally like to hear about that. But overall, this was an excellent retelling. I really enjoyed it.
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