Gurus, Yogis, and Rishis: Styles Brainstorm

Topic: My portfolio will be about Gurus, Yogis, and Roshis. Possible ways to set this kind of portfolio up could be to tell a new story about the same Guru each time, and if I did it that way, the Guru I would most likely pick to tell the stories about would be Parashurama since there is so much information on him and he plays a big role in the Indian epics. I think a more fun way to set this portfolio up though, would be to tell a story about a new guru each time, so that the reader can learn more about the different Indian epics characters instead of just learning a lot about just one.

Bibliography: 
Parashurama, from The Divine Archer, by F.J. Could (1911).
Shabari, from the Ramayana, University of California Press (2000).

Possible Styles

First Person. One possible way to tell these stories would be to do it from the point of view of the gurus themselves, as their dialogue is used to tell the story each time. This would be kind of interesting as you get a story told from a different perspective each time and everything feels new to the reader. The problem with this style is that it might get too cluttered going through all of the different stories being told in first person but from a different character each time, that might be way too confusing to follow. Another problem is that I tend to struggle telling stories in first person, it's hard for me to get the flow of dialogue just right for some reason.

Stories told around a Campfire. I think it would be really fun if the anthology of stories were told from the perspective of an elder, or mother/father, etc telling stories of the different mighty gurus to young children late at night around the campfire before going to bed. This way, it would be like every story comes from a new night that the parents are telling these stories to the children, and each story contains a moral so the children have something to learn and take from the story each time. This also sounds appealing because I think I could do a good job of putting together a portfolio of stories in this fashion.

Quest/Journey. Another cool way to tell the stories of the different gurus could be to tell stories of the different gurus and yogis and rishis from the perspective of Parashurama as if he is personally recalling all of these stories from past events that he personally witnessed. He would be reliving and telling all of these stories of the different heroes to someone that is accompanying him on a journey or quest as a means of passing the time. Maybe the events of the journey or quest will actually tie in to the portfolio too, or maybe it will just be entirely focused on the past stories themselves. Either way would be a really neat idea.

Yoga Class. The most creative idea I have for telling these stories is through the voice of a yoga instructor, teaching her students the history behind this art form and its spiritual importance. Maybe there is a student that starts complaining about the exercises being too difficult or maybe she starts every yoga session off with a story about different yogis and their paths to enlightenment.

Parashurama

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