Comments | rachelmanija: The Tale of the Battle Lizard

rachelmanija

The Tale of the Battle Lizard

Mar 09, 2008 15:11

To my delight, the Wikipedia page on Tanaji now links to this classic account, written in the style that made my history textbooks so much fun. (He refused to be felicitated.) Seriously, if American history texts were written like this, Americans would remember a lot more history.

( It is said that Chandravally, the manslaying elephant charged at Tanaji who jumped on its back and chopped off its trunk with his sword, reducing it to a lump of bleeding clay. )

indian history, battle lizards

Comments 7

raucousraven March 9 2008, 22:32:56 UTC

That's... Wow. That's how you spread history around, yep.

My own highly unscientific experiments suggest that students will take stories over textbooks by a significant margin, even if the story is longer. (Especially if someone will do all the voices for them, with hand gestures and the dancing for that one part in the middle.)

p.s. Hello! Can't recall if I've introduced myself yet. But your journal seems to be very much with the fun and the interesting; I hope you don't mind my random friending :)

rachelmanija March 9 2008, 22:48:55 UTC

Anyone is always welcome to friend at any time.

incandescens March 9 2008, 22:59:43 UTC

Awesome! Thank you for sharing this.

helen_keeble March 9 2008, 23:15:38 UTC

SHEER AWESOME.

I'm particularly fond of "The poignant thought that the fort did not belong to her son made her unhappy." It's the 'poignant' that makes it, methinks.

tekalynn March 10 2008, 03:03:29 UTC

They don't make elephants like that these days. Or queen mothers. Or Best Buddy Generals.

*sigh*

jinian March 10 2008, 03:24:54 UTC

History might have stuck in my mind if it were written like this!