Showing posts with label Week 4. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Week 4. Show all posts

Friday, February 12, 2016

Week 4 Storytelling: Mickey got Minnie back

Here continues the third bedtime story of Mary, Ally and Sarah. This time Ally demands for a happy ending story because she did not like the previous story of Minnie being kidnapped by Pete at the end.


Mary agreed and continued the story from where she ended the story last time.


Mickey being madly in love with Minnie never stopped searching for his beautiful wife. He promised himself and his daughter, Micmin, and said "I would find Minnie and would never let her go with such an evil person, Pete, who pretended to be a good friend during our entire friendship."


Mickey had been searching for Minnie for almost a week, but found no luck. On a random day, Mickey thought about calling Pete’s brother named Lola. Mickey called and asked him about Pete, but not mentioning anything about Minnie’s kidnapping. The purpose behind this was to check if Lola knew anything or not. By that five minutes of conversation, Mickey figured that Lola knew and had information about Minnie because as Mickey mentioned Pete’s name there was a clear change in Lola. Mickey noticed the change in Lola’s voice. Plus, Lola seemed in a hurry as if he did not want to carry on the conversation. After talking, Mickey had huge doubts about Lola. He thought that sitting and thinking over the doubts would not do any good, so he decided to go and check on Lola. 


Finally, Mickey arrived at Lola’s house. That scene was intense. Lola opened the door as Mickey rang the doorbell and he was fully surprised to see Mickey. Mickey calmly said hello and they nicely shook hands. Lola held the door trying to block Mickey from entering in the house, but Mickey entered as they were talking and sat on the couch. There Mickey heard some kind of noises as if someone else was in the house talking and whispering which he thought was Minnie. However, Lola was trying to distract Mickey, so he would not overhear Minnie’s voice. 

There, Mickey asked Lola, “Whose voice was that?”
 As Lola’s face was getting red from nervousness, he said, “Oh, it is just a television.”
But Mickey was confident enough to know that it was no one else but Minnie.


Minnie was in the room right next to the living room, where Mickey was sitting. Minnie knew that Mickey was there because she could hear Mickey talking with Lola.

Lola, on the other hand, was trying to convince Mickey to go out for lunch, so he would leave as soon as possible. But Mickey wanted to take his wife with him.

Then clever Mickey started praising Lola’s house. He said, “It is a nice house. How many bedrooms?" While saying that Mickey got up and managed to take a tour of entire house as Lola was in the kitchen preparing tea for both of them.


Finally, Mickey saw Minnie sitting on the chair tied up with a rope and mouth taped. Mickey ran towards Minnie and said, “Ohhh Minnie, my love.” Mickey quickly untied her and hugged her tightly. Pete escaped when Minnie and Mickey were busy hugging. Then they lived happily ever after with their cute daughter,  Micmin. 



Ally said, “Good story, Mary. I really enjoyed it.” 



Minnie and Mickey together:Source by Wikipedia
Author's Note: I am retelling this story based on the Ramayana. It was the original love story of Rama and Sita. The main concept is same, but the story itself is very different. First, I changed the characters to Mickey and Minnie. In addition to that, Ravana is also one of the characters in the story, played as Pete, an evil character. However, Rama had three brothers, who helped and fought for him in getting Sita back from Ravana. Second, the plot was different as well. In the original story, Rama refused to accept Sita because he thought that she is not pure after spending time with Ravana. In addition to that, Hanuman went searching for Sita because he was a good friend and wanted to see Rama and Sita together. Now Ravana was depicted as a powerful guy, who was not afraid of facing Rama. Ravana faced Rama with his whole army, but strong Rama killed him at the end. Unlikely, Pete was a weak guy and never faced Mickey afterwards. Most importantly, I made the ending happy. It was something I disliked the most about my previous story. This time I managed to bring Mickey and Minnie together once again. In the Ramayana, Rama and Sita did not stay together forever because Rama was not sensible enough to believe his wife's purity.


Bibliography: "Public Domain Edition of the Ramayana" by Public Domain Edition. Website: Image library for MLLL-4993, Epics of Ancient India



Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Week 4 Reading Diary, continued: Sita Sings the Blues

Author: Nina Paley
Title: Sita Sings the Blues
Year: 2008
Link: http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/2015/05/week-1-of-1-paleys-sita-sings-blues-b.html

Here continues the second part of Rama and Sita’s online animated film version of the Ramayana, which focused on struggles that Sita encounters in her life. The film by Nina Paley, Sita Sings the Blues. I found it interesting that we have two love stories going on in the film. Along with Rama and Sita, there was another couple Dave and Nina. As Rama and Sita’s relationship was standing at the edge and same was happening in Dave and Nina's life too. Both stories were parallel to each other. Another things I find interesting was that Sita was singing the blue song again while looking at Rama’s picture and missing him after she left him. Similarly, on the other side, Nina was sad and begging Dave to take her back on the phone. This is interesting how these two stories are showing same relationship where a girl is the one who cares about the love and in staying together. Compare to original Ramayana, there was not much difference when it comes to the story itself, but rather the animated film was not much detailed  and descriptive and did not talk about each and every character which were mentioned in the original Ramayana. Overall, I enjoyed watching the film, it gave me clear view of each character that was shown in the film.

Earth taking Sita film scene

Monday, February 8, 2016

Week 4 Reading Diary: Sita Sings the Blues

Author: Nina Paley
Title: Sita Sings the Blues
Year: 2008
Link: http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/2015/05/week-1-of-1-paleys-sita-sings-blues-b.html

For this reading dairy post along with variety of options, I chose to watch the film by Nina Paley, Sita Sings the Blues, it was an interesting animated epic story of Sita. It focused a lot on Sita’s character like her struggles through the life similar to the original Ramayana. But in the original Ramayana other characters were covered as well, however the animated film concentrated on Sita’s role. It was interesting how there was another love story going on about Nina and her boyfriend Dave and their cat. Then Dave had to leave for India for some work related to his job. Similar to Rama and Sita, the couple was also presented happy in the beginning spreading and having love for each other until their relation encounters distance. The basic outline of the animated film was very similar to the original Ramayana except for the fact that there was less detail and description about each moment and situation that took place in the story. The scene of Hanuman going and searching for Sita was very descriptive and showed a lot detail of Hanuman going place to place while looking for Sita in the original Ramayana. So, there were many parts I thought did not have much detail compare to the original Ramayana. One thing I noticed was that Lakshmana was not mentioned in the animated film at all compared to the original Ramayana, he was only mentioned ones when Rama ordered him to send Sita into the forest and abandon her(which was a scene from part B).

At first, Sita was afraid.