Week 4 Storytelling: A Lifetime with the Blues

      In all of Ayodhya, there was only one place where the loners and outcasts can go without being ridiculed by the rest of the population. Bedoul Night Club was located in the heart of the mysterious forest and was the ideal safe haven for all the misfits of the Kingdom. It is rumored that the owner, Ravana, built the place for his unrequited love. Every night he tries to make his move on the beautiful girl but to no avail for her heart belonged to another fellow. If it wasn’t all so pathetic, some would actually admire his adamant persistence.

       It was not hard to fall in love with Sita. Her beauty was unlike any of the other maidens and her talent was fantastic, particularly when she tried to sing away the blues. The male inhabitants of the club often daydreamed about being the one she chose to fall head over heels for. It is not easy getting over your first love, especially when he was the Kingdom’s golden boy, the only heir to the Maharaja. 

       When they were little, Sita, Rama, and Ravana were the best of friends. Since Sita’s mother and father were servants and Ravana's mother a maid, they all lived within the castle. However, when Sita’s budding beauty caught the attention of Rama, Ravana felt more like the third wheel than the three amigos.Oh how he longed to be Sita’s mate! As the years passed by with his dream girl on another’s arm, his dull bitterness turned into outright resentment. 

        Ravana’s mother, Manthara, took notice of her only son’s anguish and hatched up a plan to break the couple up. For weeks she examined the pair to find holes in their seemingly unbreakable bond. Finally, she realized that the only person Sita loved more than Rama was her mother, Kaikeyi. She spoke cruel things to Kaikeyi’s ears, hoping that her unknowing friend would get her daughter to leave the future king. 

Rama’s bad. He will make your daughter mad. He is the worst in all the land. He will beat and he will cheat. Tell Sita to cut him loose while she still can. 

        At first Kaikeyi did not listen to the hateful gossip Manthara had spread. However, Manthara tried and tried. Every day it was another scheme. She even paid one woman to flirt with Rama in front of Sita hoping to get to the young woman’s insecurities. But the ever faithful Rama's love was unwavering. Instead, he told his brother Lakshmana about the beautiful Urmila and the pair got married right away. This went on for about a year before Manthara even thought about giving up. Unfortunately, she found her weak spot once Kaikeyi became ill, and her reservations about the treatment of her daughter became the only thing she could think about. After all, how could such a powerful future king be so in love with a women born with such simple means? So on Kaikeyi’s death bed, her sole wish was for Sita to never marry or be with Rama. Upon hearing the news from his mother, Ravana covered up his mother's tracks in the matter by pledging his false loyalty to Rama by telling him that he would forever take care of his Sita. Now she sings the blues every night, going through life without her one true love.

Source

Author's Note: I watched Sita Sings the Blues for this week’s reading diary. I absolutely loved the parts where Sita sang about her adventures and inspired me to write this story. In between the ninety minute short animated movie, two storylines intertwine: the relationships between Rama and Sita and Nina and Dave. Though I could not exactly figure out how to incorporate Nina, Dave, or either of the cats, I did want to play off the sort of heartbreak and turmoil of the loss of love.

       I Googled the term misfit in Hindu and that is how I got the term Bedaul. I felt that it was appropriate for Ravana to name the club after that because he could not find his place in the real world of Ayodhya and in a sense created his own version of reality in the forest. Though I wanted to change the epic up a bit, I still wanted to portray Ravana as the villain keeping Sita hostage. The italicized text played off the song Rama’s twin boys sing at the end of the movie. Sita is forced to live the rest of her life singing the blues because she cannot be with Rama. I wanted to do something different this week so I changed up the backgrounds of the characters. In the original story, Sita was the daughter of a King, Kaikeyi was the second wife of Rama's father, and Manthara was a servant who absolutely detested Rama. 

This story is based on Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley.