Today I found out that I am pregnant! Can you believe that?
There will finally be a prince of Ayodhya and it may be taken away from me. It
has taken us quite a bit longer than usual to become pregnant. Rama and I knew
we wanted to start a family when we got married, but after the abduction we
thought it may be best to wait a few years. It has been about 10,000 years
since the abduction, but the first 5,000 I was still undergoing some pretty
heavy post-traumatic stress disorder. It was really hard for me to sleep at
night even though there were guards on both sides of the bed. During the
daytime, Rama found it difficult to leave my side because he was so scared of
losing me again. The past 5,000 years or so, however, have been a bit
different. I have regained a bit of my independence and am no longer afraid to
be alone. I had forgotten how important it is to have alone time to grow as an
individual! Rama began to grow impatient with me because we were not spending
as much time together. When I finally became pregnant there were rumors being
spread among the people. Despite the fact that I’ve never been alone with a man
other than Rama, people brought up Ravana. This really got under Rama’s skin
and now he is trying to abandon me. I told him I wanted to go to the Ganges
river to pray, however, I know he’s just going to discard me. This is my way of
leaving him.
Photo of Sita with dove found online.
Author's Note: I chose to tell this story from Sita's point of view. I was very disappointed in the way that Rama wanted to abandon her in Buck's version of the Ramayana so I chose to twist it a bit. I decided to make it to where Sita knew what was going on and used going to the Ganges River as her excuse to get away from a husband that didn't trust her.
I think this story needs a title :)
ReplyDeleteI LOVE the image you chose for this storytelling post. It is simply lovely!
I think you should include an anecdote about the abduction, because she mentions it but does not go into any detail.
When you say she was undergoing post-traumatic stress disorder, I would remove "disorder". She is undergoing stress from a traumatic event. One doesn't really undergo a disorder, they have it. They undergo the symptoms and characteristics of the disorder (like stress).
I love that you chose this part of the story for your storytelling because it was COMPLETELY skipped over. 10,000 years is a lot of time, and surely a lot would've happened in that time! You did a great job tying this in with her abandonment and adding her pregnancy as the cause of gossip about her and Ravana and Rama's determination to abandon her. The abandonment actually would make more sense with this as part of the story! In addition, Sita's thoughts and feelings are not as pronounced as other characters' throughout the Ramayana, so I appreciated the attention this story gave her.
Well done! :D
Courtney, I enjoyed reading your version through Sita's perspective. Like Morgan said, the stories spend little time on Sita even though she is at the center of so many events. I love when people go more in depth through Sita's point of view. I also liked how you broke down the time frame of the stories, talking about what life was like for Rama and SIta each 5000 year period after the abduction. I also liked the ending when Sita is aware of Rama's desire to abandon and betray her and takes matters into her own hands.
ReplyDeleteThere's only a couple of little things I would suggest. As Morgan mentioned, it may be good to add a title. I think it would also make the story easier to read if you broke down the one bulky paragraph into a few smaller ones.
I enjoyed reading your retelling. Good job!