Browsing through the different Gods' and their history I gravitated towards Sita, Ganga, and Hanuman. I grew up watching Hindi TV serials so I knew references of these Gods but never took the time to know about the history.
I really don't have any experience in Epic anything except for Epic Meal Time on YouTube. Which has nothing really epic in it besides the overwhelming calorie count of the entire meal at the end.
This is the first class I have ever taken that involves anything related to religion. I have meditated and my religion is Islam so there's no surprise there.
My family is from Bangladesh and since we're neighbors with India, I have a very Indian culture background. I understand Hindi and speak Bengali fluently but cannot read nor write in either language. I grew up listening to the music and watch all of the Bollywood's movies. Favorite Bollywood actor and actress are Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone.
I chose to include Shiva and Parvati, solely on their names. These names are very popular in the baby book, I assume since they have Godly meanings.
Shiva dancing to Parvati playing music. Source
Oh, how great that you are from Bangladesh, Benika! During the time of the epics, it was all one big territory: Pakistan and India and Bangladesh. There is even a famous version of the Ramayana written in Bengali by a poet named Krittibas Ojha, who lived in the 15th century. You can find out more about that here: it is a very famous version of the Ramayana! Krittivasi Ramayan ... there are also some wonderful collections of Bengali folktales in English, so if you would like to do a Bengali project for this class, that would be wonderful I think! The emphasis is on the epics, but all the storytelling traditions of India are connected, and the storytelling traditions in Bengali are some of the most famous!
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