Shantanu meets Ganga
(source: wikipedia)
Shantanu, ruler of Hastinapura, was taking his weekly stroll down by the river when his eyes nearly jumped out of his skull. On the edge of the river was a woman who was so beautiful that words simply did not do her appearance proper justice. Shantanu could feel his body increase in temperature as he was simply infatuated by the woman. His mind raced with activity as he wondered if he was even worthy of approaching a woman of such beauty. After a few moments of panic, Shantanu decided that he would forever regret missing out on a chance to engage with a woman with such a flawless appearance. He took a step forward which caused the woman to jump in a startled sense as it seems she too was not familiar with seeing anyone by the river.
"I did not mean to scare you! I am Shantanu, king of Hastinapura and I thought it would be proper to introduce myself. It's not every day I see another being down by the river," Shantanu said.
"It's an honor to meet you, your Highness," the woman replied.
"The beauty that defines you is something I could not conceive in my wildest dreams. I must know your name!" Shantanu said bluntly.
"My name is Ganga."
"I know this may seem sudden, but I wish to marry you."
"Well, I am honored, my king. I will agree to marry you under one condition."
"Anything, my love."
"You may never question my actions. If you agree to this, I will marry you."
Shantanu instantly agreed as his attraction to Ganga was blinded any sort of logic. The couple married the next day and the citizens rejoiced as the king was overwhelmed with joy. All seemed well with the new marriage until Ganga started to behave abnormally.
Ganga began to burn all of the crops being grown in the city as well as killing all of the animals. These two resources made up a majority of the city's food. Ganga also added poison into the town's water supply which caused several deaths until the citizens learned not to drink the water. This destruction caused an obvious panic in the city. Shantanu refused to question his wife as he remembered the agreement they made which resulted in their marriage.
Ganga then turned her attention to the homes of the citizens. She participated in small acts of sabotage which included poking holes in the roof. When rain came over the city, the homes would flood which destroyed the homes of many innocent people. The king once again refused to question his wife as he honored their agreement.
The citizens were absolutely outraged by Ganga's destruction. They constantly demanded to speak to the king, because they wanted to know why their queen was destroying their city. Shantanu refused to speak to anyone as he felt like his agreement with his wife may seem foolish to his people.
Ganga then focused on the finances of the city. She took every last piece of the gold until the city was left in economic shambles. Shantanu was in a state of confusion. He watched as wife destroyed his beautiful city piece by piece. It was at this point where Shantanu finally had enough and had to ask his wife the reason behind her actions.
"My love, why are you performing these acts of destruction?"
"You naive man, I told you the only way I would marry you was if you never questioned me. You have gone against your word and for that I must leave you."
Shantanu stood there as felt like his heart was being ripped out of his chest. He simply did not understand. How could one question result in his wife's departure? He watched his ex-wife leave the room as he soon realized he would never see her again.
Ganga walked out of the room with a smile on her face. She was the wife of the king from a neighboring kingdom. Shantanu was notoriously known as being gullible. She was easily able to infiltrate his city, destroy everything in her path, steal all his riches, and make it out completely unharmed. Her husband would be so pleased.
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Author's note: For this story, I thought it would be interesting to have a completely different motive for Ganga's wish to not have her origins known. In the original story, she still asks to not have her actions or origin questioned. This is only so she can successfully drown her royal children. I realize there is some confusion with her name still being Ganga even though she was not the human incarnation of the river. It seemed wise to still call her by this name for simplicity. I thought it would be fun to make Ganga somewhat of an infiltrator to destroy a neighboring city under her husband's wishes. She was very evil in nature as she did not care for the lives lost. She just wanted to please her husband. I also made Shantanu foolish so it made the evil acts of Ganga even easier to complete. I enjoy the unique nature of this story simply because it's so rare to see the queen of a city openly ruining the area she rules. If I were to ever expand on this story, it might be interesting to see a revolution of sorts developing. It is unlikely for the citizens to sit around and do nothing as their city is destroyed.
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Bibliography: Narayan's Mahabharata
Link to this reading guide
That was a really nice interesting turn of events. The king was blinded by his lust and did not question her intentions in the first place, like he should have done. He chose to marry the person after seeing her for one time without even knowing her, which resulted in his downfall. He chose lust over logic and ruined his kingdom because of it.
ReplyDeleteI read your "Liquid Trust" story and had to read more! And you definitely held up to expectation. I loved your interpretation of the original story. I like how you made Ganga the antagonist instead of just the good river goddess. At first I thought Ganga was just doing all that stuff, in addition to killing her offspring, but little did I know! I just have one question: when she was by the river, did she act surprised on purpose to get his trust?
ReplyDeleteThe detail and description you use in this story is phenomenal. After the first paragraph, I was completely hooked. This is a great adaptation of the original story! I loved the original scene, but I thought the direction that you took it was really interesting. It was very creative to come up with a different motive for Ganga’s crazy behavior. This was a great idea and very well written. I enjoyed reading it!
ReplyDeleteI really didn't see where you were going with the story but then I had that, ah ha, moment and it all came together. Thank you for pointing out in your author's note that Ganga in your story is not the river goddess because I did have that thought in the back of my head the entire time, so when I read the note it made much more sense.
ReplyDeleteYou could even add more details about the citizens and their reactions when Ganga destroyed their possessions and how the King handled them. Even though your story is not as morbid as the original one (when Ganga drowned her own children) Ganga still poisons the city and kills people. I find it ironic the King does not question Ganga when people begin to die but when he loses money.
-->"These two resources made of a majority of the city's food."
This sentence is a little confusing, I'm not sure if you just need to reword it or it something accidentally autocorrected when you were writing it (I hate when that happens and I don't catch it).
I really enjoyed reading your story. I really enjoyed all of the detail that you used in the story. At the beginning of the story when you were setting the scene with Shantanu and Ganga, I did not have any problems visualizing the setting or what was going on. I liked how you made Ganga the antagonist and bad person in the story, where she is actually the river goddess. I found it funny how the lust of Shantanu got in his way of his own city and he never once even thought about questioning her because of her beauty. If it would have been me, I would have questioned her much sooner than he did. He waited until he city was practically gone to ask why she was doing what she was doing. I would like to see a little more reactions and emotions from the people when their city was getting destroyed and torn to shambles. I think more details there could help out the story.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved your retelling of this story! I was somewhat confused as to what changes you were making when I first started the story, but the twist was so amazing! I think that keeping the same name for simplicity’s sake was a good choice, especially because it clues readers in to what story you are retelling.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I didn’t see any problems with your story. It flowed really well and I didn’t see any obvious grammatical errors. There was only one thing that kind of bugged me, more from a personal writing style standpoint than anything. In your sentence “When rain came over the city, the homes would flood which destroyed the homes of many innocent people,” I would change the first homes to houses. I think it makes it a little easier to read and separates the thoughts a little better. Again, it’s a personal writing style change on my part, so it’s not necessary to change!
Oh, your last portfolio link, the one for Liquid Trust. It links to a story called The Three Friends. I don’t know if you accidentally linked to the wrong story or decided to change the name, but you might check it out!
This is a really interesting take on the classic! I'm not sure how I feel about her attitude, since in the original her motivation is to fulfill the divine plan, but here it's just to cause as much destruction as possible. Nevertheless, she definitely succeeded there! The way you twisted it was neat, and until the end, even I questioned why she continued to destroy everything in her way but at the end it becomes clearer.
ReplyDeleteIf anything, maybe discuss her purpose a little further? Her husband would be proud of her for ruining Shantanu, but where would that put him? Does it leave him in a position to steal the kingdom or simply elevate his own power in relation to Shantanu who let his kingdom rot after becoming infatuated with a woman?
All in all, it's a well-written piece and the plot definitely took an unexpected turn. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of your portfolio!
Ahh, I really loved this story. I appreciate it when people are able to keep the original plot of the story while changing components of it. This often results in the story being a lot more interesting in my opinion. I liked how you made Ganga out to be an evil person. This makes more sense to me since her actions are not good-natured ones. The ending definitely surprised me. I didn’t expect that you would make it to where she would already be married to another king. This helps to give an explanation to her heinous acts. I wonder what King Shantanu did to the other king to make him want to do what he did. Was it due to a personal issue? Now time for some revising. “He watch as wife destroyed his beautiful…”, you should add the word his in front of the word wife. That’s about all I could catch. I really enjoyed your story and I hope to read some more in the future.
ReplyDeleteWhat a cool twist on Ganga's story! I love how she's an infiltrator to a rival kingdom, and she completely manipulates her new husband. I only caught two grammatical errors:
ReplyDeleteIn the paragraph where she focuses her destruction on finances, the sentence reads: "He watched as wife destroyed his beautiful city piece by piece." You need to add: "He watched as HIS wife destroyed..."
2nd to last paragraph reads: "Shantanu stood there as felt like his heart was being ripped out of his chest." It needs to read: "Shantanu stood there AND felt like...." or "Shantanu stood there AS HE felt like his heart was being ripped..."
You could easily expand on this story, as I was naturally wondering about an uprising of the people! Very well done!