Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess named Sita.
She had golden skin that glowed in the sunlight and long, flowing black hair
that was the envy of all the women in the kingdom. Despite her great beauty,
she was not married.
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| Bride Source |
Princes and men of prestige from countries far and wide had
come seeking her hand, but were denied. Long ago, when he saw how beautiful and
desirable his daughter was becoming, King Janaka decided to set one condition
for Sita’s future husband: he must lift
and string the god Shiva’s enormous bow. Each of the princes had come expecting
this to be an easy task, but at seeing the bow turned away to head back to
their home country. Only the proud attempted the feat just to find it as
impossible as all the others saw it.
The king started to worry. Sita was growing in age. Soon she
would be too old to be a desirable bride.
One day a prince of great lineage came into the city. When
the princess saw him she fell in love. She became very distressed, for she knew
she had little chance for getting to spend the rest of her life with him. “Oh,
if only he would have never entered my sight! Then I wouldn’t have fallen in
love with him! I wouldn’t be in such torment now!”
The king saw how upset his daughter was and sought after this
prince that had captivated his beloved daughter. When the prince arrived before
the king, Janaka asked, “Who are you?”
“I am Rama, son of Dasaratha and prince of Kosala,” the
prince respectfully answered.
“Why are you here?” the king inquired.
“I was just passing through,” Rama replied. “I was on a
journey with the sage Viswamithra and my brother. Once we accomplished our
mission, we decided to visit your lovely city.”
“How do you like it?” asked King
Janaka.
Rama answered, “Oh, the city is lovely, but it is very dull
in comparison to the beautiful princess.”
The king thought Rama a very agreeable person. “If only I
had not made that one condition so long ago,” thought King Janaka, “then I
would let Rama marry my Sita tomorrow!”
He told the prince of what he must do in order to marry his
daughter and expressed his regrets to Rama of setting such a high bar to jump
over. He dismissed Rama.
Rama went back and told his travel partners all that passed between him
and the king. Viswamithra, confident in Rama’s abilities, sought King
Janaka’s presence to ask to give Rama a chance. “He is no ordinary man. His
abilities are greater than most. Please ask him to try to lift and string
Shiva’s bow. You won’t be disappointed.”
The king, hopeful that the sage was not lying about Rama’s
abilities, called his servants to bring in the bow. It took twelve of his
strongest servants to lift the bow to be transported to the palace. While they
were bringing it, the king called the prince back to him. “Rama, you must try
to string the bow. If anyone can do it, you can.”
Sita was still distraught by the fact that she was in love
with a man whom she thought she could not marry. As she was weeping, she heard
a loud CRACK! “The earth is breaking just like my heart!” she thought.
Just then a handmaid burst in to her chambers and declared,
“Prepare for you wedding, Princess! Rama, the prince you saw the other day, has
lifted and strung the bow! He was so strong that it broke under his strength!”
Hurriedly all of the servants and citizens of the city
prepared the wedding. The next day everything was ready and they had a glorious
ceremony. There was a large feast and all over the city people were dancing,
singing, and drinking spirits in celebration of the beautiful couple. Rama and
Sita were married!
And they lived happily ever after.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Author’s note: Inspiration for the story comes from R. K. Narayan's 1972 edition of the Ramayana, which you can find on Amazon. I realize this story gets a bit rambly at times, but I couldn't decide what to cut where. Halfway through writing it I considered starting over and making it so that Sita had been cursed by an evil stepmother or something so that she would never marry, then Rama comes along and saves her. I realized that I’m not a huge fan of writing this style of story today. In India, brides don't wear white; they wear red (just a bit of information I picked up from watching too many wedding shows; I'm not sure which episodes from which series). The picture I put at the beginning implies that the princess was wearing red, as if longing to be a bride.
I really enjoyed your version of this love story. I also chose to write about Rama and Sita falling in love. I liked that you kept your story similar to the original but gave it more detail. I would've preferred to read your version, honestly! Also, I thought what you said about Indian brides wearing red was very fascinating. I would have never known that otherwise. Good post!
ReplyDeleteGretchen- the way you added so much detail, dialogue, and thought to this story is remarkable! I really enjoyed how you included so much emotion and feeling behind each character rather than just stating the facts. I chose to write about this scene as well, but I really admire how much life you put into the story, especially in a blog post! Great writing and I look forward to reading more!
ReplyDeleteThis was a great story to choose to retell because there are so many different ways to tell it. I like how you chose to tell the story from a narrator point of view, like the book, instead of choosing one character and looking through their eyes. In doing it this way, you are able to go into the emotions of more than one character and switch back and forth from one scene to the next without dragging a certain point of view along. I like how you added you were thinking about doing it a different way but decided not to, it can be hard to come up with a way to retell a story without deviating too much from the book. -which is probably why I refrained from doing my storytelling post...I could not for the life of me think of a creative way to retell a story- Good work!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your retelling of this scene of "The Ramayana." First off, I love that you added in the symbolism of Sita's red clothes! That was a great addition to the story. Also, the way in which you told the story reminds me of all the fairy tales I was told as a story, so your tale has a very nostalgic and warming ambience that I appreciated. Great job!!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your Author's notes I tend to agree with your instinct to give the story a curse factor, I know it kind of feels like you would not be telling the same story or changing it too much, but I think the most important thing is keeping with the spirit of the story, and if you did give it a evil step mother spin it would open the door for further character development. You could explore the relationship between the step and Sita, along with Rama and his quest to earn her hand in marriage and break the curse, maybe this could be something you could use for your storybook, That being said I also think that you wrote an excellent version of the story as it sits so, either way you can't lose. Excellent Job!!!!
ReplyDeleteI think you came up with a great piece here. I like the addition of the red clothing and the representation of Sita's longing for marriage. I don't think most of us would have thought to incorporate that type of symbolism while rewriting a piece. I also liked how you told the story from and outside view point which allowed for an in depth look at each and every one of the characters involved.
ReplyDelete