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.

Portfolio Introduction

I am retelling the story of Rama and Sita's wedding as Mickey and Minnie's love story.
Here is the link to the bedtime story.

Marriage of Rama and Sita

Here is another story of Rama and Sita as Mickey and Minnie's sad story.
Here is a link to the sad bedtime story.

(Rama and Sita by source: Wikipedia)

Time for another story of Rama and Sita as Mickey and Minnie with a happy ending.
Here is a link to the Happy Ending Story.

Pandavas: Wikimedia

Another story of Mickey and Minnie as Micpandavas and Minikasuravas.
Here is a link to the Micpandavas and Minikasuravas story.

Storytelling for Week 3: Sad love story

Here continues the story of three sisters Mary, Ally and Sarah.

So, Mary continued, “Not all love stories have a happy ending. There is always an antagonist in the story, which we did not encounter in our last bedtime story. Let’s meet him this time, sisters.”

After a year, Mickey and Minnie were blessed with one cute little daughter named Micmin. Her name was formed by the combination of the first three letters of their names. One day while having dinner, Mickey told Minnie about his one and only best friend, Pete. Mickey described Pete as a short, handsome guy. Pete was really close to Mickey and was planning on visiting them. When he arrived, Mickey introduced Pete to Minnie and since Minnie was very beautiful, Pete kept staring at her and said to himself, “Wow, Mickey has got a beautiful wife. She has gorgeous eyes and perfect figure.” After spending a great week with Mickey and Minnie, Pete was so impressed with Minnie that he wanted to make her his own wife.

Ally interrupted, “What an evil friend!”

Yes, Pete was not a good friend, but an evil personality who wanted to get his best friend’s wife without considering that Minnie was his friend’s life. Pete wanted to confess his love to Minnie, but he could not find a right time to express it. Luckily for Pete, Mickey was out for work and Minnie was home alone. She was in the kitchen making scrambled eggs for breakfast for Pete and herself. While sitting at the breakfast table, Pete started the conversation about his personal life.

He said, “I want to marry someone just like you, Minnie.” 

Minnie just took that as a compliment and said, “Yes, you will definitely find someone even better than me.” 

Suddenly, Pete shouted “NO, I ONLY WANT YOU YOU YOU AND JUST YOU” while slamming his hands on the table. At that moment, Minnie did not know where to go or even what to do because she could no longer stay there with that crazy man. 

Then, Pete followed Minnie into the room and while holding her, he said, “Let’s marry and I can promise you I will keep you even more  happy than Mickey.” 

Minnie said, “What are you talking about? I love Mickey and cannot think of anyone else except for him.” After listening to all this Pete picked her up on his shoulder and took her away. After a couple of hours Mickey came home and looked for Minnie, but he could not find her. Then he anxiously yelled “Pete, Pete” and then he heard Micmin's cry and he ran into the bedroom. After a few minutes, Mickey tried to calm himself down and called Minnie and Pete, but they did not answer. At the end, Mickey was never able to find Minnie even though he looked for her for a very long time. 

Mary said, “Here the story ends, where Mickey stayed alone with his daughter and was never able to find Minnie."

Ally was very disappointed with Mary’s bedtime story and she said, “Mary, next time come up with a better story. This is going to be a horrible night for me.”

Then, Mary said, “Ally, it was just a story. Don’t be sad.”

Minnie and Pete by Source: Flickr

Author's Note:   For this storytelling, I used bedtime story style again because I wanted to continue on with the same concept story of three sisters: Mary, Ally and Sarah. Like in a previous bedtime story, Mickey played as Rama and Minnie as Sita. As compared to the original Ramayana, there was an antagonist named Ravana, who was played by Pete, in the retold story. I decided to make Pete Mickey's friend at first and then later reveal Pete's real and evil personality. The reason for that was to give a story little twist where an actual identity of a character is hidden, which was different from the Ramayana. My retold story continues on after a year. Mickey and Minnie had one cute little daughter. In the Ramayana, Sita and Rama had two sons. They grew up with Sita in the forest, where Sita was sent by Rama because he was not willing to accept Sita pure. Unlike the Ramayana, to show Mickey and Minnie's love and strong bond, I decided to give Mickey and Minnie a baby before being kidnapped. However, Pete kidnaps Minnie and Mickey was never able to find her even though he looked for her for a very long time. Finally, I made the ending different from the original story. In the original story, Earth takes Sita while in my storytelling Pete takes her. The entire setting was different compared to the Ramayana and my story. The entire story took place in a modern house, rather than in a forest place.

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

Week 3 Reading Diary, continued: Hanuman and Sita

Title: Ramayana-Hanuman-and-Sita

Link: http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/search/label/PDE%20Ramayana

For these sections of the reading, the most interesting part I thought was when Rama questions Sita's purity and sends her to exile. However, Sita on the other hand never thought of anyone else except for Rama. Plus, she was willing to justify herself by burning into the fire, but Agni protects her from the fire. Sita giving birth to twin boys of Rama and they had similarity with Rama. I liked the character of Lakshama because he was always been a great support to Sita and he knew that Sita was pure, while her husband was being harsh and serious about that. However, I liked the ending of how Sita was taken by the Earth because Rama no longer deserves her nor her love, after insulting and for not trusting her purity. At the same time, building a golden image of Sita does show his love Sita, but however they did not get to live and die together after being so much in love. I found this image interesting when Earth was taking away Sita and along with that I was imagining Rama's condition when he would no longer be able to live with Sita. I am sure that Sita did not wanted to go with them, but she did not have any option after being betrayed by her husband, whom she loved the most. However, it was a sad ending, Rama and Sita did not get to live together. 

Image: Sita goes into the earth

Week 3 Reading Diary: Hanuman and Sita

Title: Ramayana-Hanuman-and-Sita

Link: http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/search/label/PDE%20Ramayana

Then Hanuman considered that this must be Sita, for she was fair and spotless, like a moon overcast by clouds, and she wore such jewels as Rama had described to him. Hanuman shed tears of joy and thought of Rama and Lakshmana. Hanuman offered to carry her away, but in her modesty she refused to touch the body of any male being save Rama. She took from her hair a bright jewel which she gave to Hanuman as a token, and she said that Ravana had allowed her but two months to live if she refused to yield to him.For the loved and cherished Sita is to Rama ever dear,
And he sends his loving message, and his force is drawing near! Sita held that tender token from her loved and cherished lord, And once more herself she fancied to his loving arms restored.
But Hanuman was not satisfied with finding Sita; he dashed about the Ashoka grove and broke the trees and spoiled the pavilions, like the Wind himself. The rakshasis sent messages to Ravana for help, and he, hearing that a mighty monkey was destroying his servants, sent the powerful Jambumali, son of Prahasta, bow in hand, to slay Hanuman forthwith, and, indeed, he wounded him with a sharp arrow as he sat upon a temple roof, but Hanuman hurled a bolt at him and crushed him utterly.But the wily monkey gave no sign that the bonds were loosed, and the fierce rakshasas, crying to each other "Who is he? What does he want?" and "Kill him! Burn him! Eat him!" dragged him before Ravana.

In the image Sita was  scared of Hanuman when she first saw him. 

At first, Sita was scared of Hanuman

Week 2: Topics

For topic one I am planning on doing love Stories and Epic Couples, which I will be interesting. For the research I checked out the this link http://estorybook.blogspot.com/2010/12/indian-epic-storybooks-love-stories.html and I looked at Public Domain Edition of the Ramayana, which is an online version of the book. For right now I have read first two parts of the book. I am planning on using some Wikipedia sources such as for Rama and Sita’s character. Here is the link for Rama’s Wikipedia link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rama and here is for Sita’s Wikipedia page link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sita. I am including the image of Rama and Sita and here is the link source of the image http://beautifulhdwallpaper.com/lord-rama/lord-rama-and-sita/.

For topic two I am planning on using Birth Stories, Death Stories. For the research I looked at this link http://estorybook.blogspot.com/2010/12/indian-epic-storybooks-birth-stories.html. It gives the information and ideas about the characters which would be really helpful information to use for the storybook project. I can pick the characters out of this link. I have just read first two parts of the Public Domain Edition of the Ramayana I don’t have much information about all of the characters, but I can for sure recognize some of the characters. Addition to that I also looked at this Wikipedia sourchttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanuman#Birth_and_childhood, which gives information about Hanuman story.

For topic three I am planning on doing Brothers and Sisters, Mothers and Fathers. For the research I looked at this link http://estorybook.blogspot.com/2010/12/indian-epic-storybooks-brothers.html. I have many options of characters to choose from, but I am thinking of doing research on Rama and his brother along with Ravana and his brother. Or I can also do Rama and his father’s relationship. I also looked at some Wikipedia sources for some of characters and found good information and image relating to those. I will definitely use Public Domain Edition of the Ramayana online version textbook for one of my research source.

For Topic four I am planning on using Ravana’s Story. For the research, I found this link https://sites.google.com/site/ravanasstory/ which gives very interesting and good information about that topic. I will use Public Domain Edition of the Ramayana as an outline guide when writing up the storybook. I also looked at Ravana’s Wikipedia for attain more information and here is the link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravana, which also give information along with images. I also found a really image of Ravana and here is the link for the source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayadashami. Here is the image I found. Just by looking at the image we can tell a a lot about the character. 

(Ravana :Source Wikipedia)

Week 2 Storytelling: Bedtime story

It is a story of three sisters: Mary, Ally and Sarah. Mary was oldest of all. Every day they would have bedtime story time in their huge pink room, where they had queen-sized beds parallel to each other. Ally being the youngest one would every day have a special demand for her choice of story from her oldest sister Mary. As they all were lying comfortably on the beds, Ally said in her very cute little soft voice, “Mary, today I wish to hear a story about Minnie and Mickey.”

When Sarah agreed, Mary started. Mary continued the story while turning off the lights and switching on the nightlight.

Once upon a time there was a prince named Mickey. He was clothed in a yellow coat. His chest was shining with big pearls; curly hair peeped out from under his cap. He carried bows and arrows in his hands. He was the king of Ayodhya city, where he was known to be a very strong ruler and people would praise him for his greatness. Mickey was very soft-hearted and valued his family. Since Mickey had a great amount of love for his parents, one day he decided to have a surprise party for his parents. Soon he announced his parents' fiftieth anniversary would be taking place in a gigantic room, which was part of their palace. He wanted to make that day memorable for his parents, so along with the relatives he invited the entire city of Ayodhya. There he saw a beautiful, stunning girl named Minnie and fell in love with her. As he was standing by his window and while looking at the moon he said, “The queen of night is not so fair as Minnie." That is what we call love at first sight and at that point he decided to marry her while he said to himself, “Minnie is my heart's love. I cannot live without her.”

As it was 11:00 pm, suddenly Mary stopped and said, “We will continue this story tomorrow. We all should sleep now.” On the other side, Ally and Sarah were so into the story and were very impatient to know the end of the story. Ally said in a harsh voice, “NO, finish it. I cannot wait to know the ending.” Then, Mary agreed to continue on.

Then the next day, Mickey in an aggressive voice ordered his younger brother, Kyle, that he wanted to meet that girl, but they did not know anything about her. At that very moment, Kyle ordered servants to search for Minnie and report every single piece of information about her as soon as possible. After an hour, servants informed him that Minnie was a daughter of King Blaze.

Without thinking of anything else Mickey announced that he wanted to marry Minnie. The parents agreed.

Blaze liked that proposal and said, “Peerless is Rama, the noble one, and he shall be given for wife my daughter Minnie, who is dearer to me than life.” Then, Minnie and Mickey got married and they lived happily ever after.

Ally and Sarah said, "Great story and goodnight, Mary."

Image source(Large bedroom, Charming Stone-Built House in Saint Restitut)

Author's Note:  I chose to retell the story as the bedtime story and focused on Rama and Sita’s love story as played by Mickey and Minnie in my retold story. Brother Laskhmana as Kyle was involved as well, but not as much in my story. The story of Mickey and Minnie is based on the original story of Ramayana which was the story about Rama and Sita. In the original story, Rama and Sita's love story was not that short and quick, but rather filled with struggles and problems that they encountered in every step of their life. For Rama and Sita marrying each other was not much of a problem, but rather life afterwards was harsh. Mickey did not have to pass any test in order to marry Minnie, while Rama had to prove himself as a condition to marry Sita. In addition to that, Rama saw Sita for the first time in the garden and wanted to marry. In my story, it was not the same setting. In my story, I covered until Rama and Sita get married and then I declared it as a happy ending. I like happy endings, so I managed to make it happy.

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