Sita in the 1920's Wiki
He was the stereotypical tall dark and handsome... and I fell in love with him. It ended up being the stupidest choice of my entire life. He turned out to be the biggest jerk you could ever imagine. Wanna hear the story? Here goes...
I was living in a big city, pursuing my dreams as a flapper girl dancer at the local Speakeasy. It wasn't the most honorable life, but I kept my values and I loved the glamour of the lifestyle... and hey it was an easy job that was new and empowering to women my age. I met a lot of guys... but Rama... he was different from the first time I met him. I fell madly in love with him, following him everywhere, and slowly losing myself. I always considered myself a strong and independent woman, but when I was with Rama I found myself depending on him for everything. I was so in love with him that my life starting revolving around whatever he wanted.
We were together for quite a while, but he never talked about us getting married. I didn't want to give up my glamorous lifestyle and he disapproved of it secretly. I found this out the day that I told him I was pregnant with his child. He didn't believe me. He told me he loved me but we could never be together because he didn't trust me because of my job. He was quite an affluent man, and he didn't want to ruin his reputation by marrying me. So he told me to leave.
I had nowhere to go because I had become so dependent on Rama. I would soon lose my job due to my pregnancy, and it was definitely frowned upon to be in my situation during this time. I took all the money I had and bought a small apartment in a sketchy part of town. I kept my job for as long as I could, and saved everything up in my apartment, because it wasn't much and I didn't care for banks.
I had the babies... twins and moved on with my life. I started out as a secretary for an up and coming business and my life slowly started to turn around. I worked my way up the chain and now I am making more money than Rama ever did, I fell in love even harder than before, got married, and I have been raising my boys happily with my new husband...but that's not the end of the story just yet.
The other day Rama decided to try to find me. As it turns out, he lost all of his fortune in the great depression. He has been miserable ever since, never being able to regain his money or status even when the economy recovered. He contacted me to try to convince me that he had made a mistake and wanted me back. When I said no, he went for custody of the boys... which was obviously shot down immediately by the courts since I have a stable family, have raised the boys since the beginning, and I make more money than he ever will again.
Maybe I should feel bad for this miserable man, but I don't. He had no compassion for me when I was carrying his children, so he can go enjoy what's left of his unhappy life. As for me, I'm the happiest woman in the world. I'm Sita, the queen of the big city, the girl who overcame the selfishness of Rama, and the woman who regained her strength and independence.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story was based upon Nina Paley's version of the Ramayana: Sita Sings the Blues, which can be found here. I twisted the story to be about the relationship between Rama and Sita, and I made Sita into a stronger character. I wanted her to have the victory in the end since Rama treated her so badly. The setting and time were changed from India in BC times to the 1920s in the United States.
This story was really neat! I did not read the original source, but I loved how the character seemed new. She reminded me of Daisy from The Great Gatsby. My initial thought was Trouble, the Taylor Swift song lol.
ReplyDeleteI loved that her character was so strong that she did not crawl back to Rama once he back into her life. Very empowering as a woman. I know that it is easy to write love stories where the woman just goes back to the guy and girls often think that is a fairy tale. You go girl.
I wonder if Rama came back to Sita because he missed her and his feelings were true. Like, did he realize that once he was no longer living a lavish life, or if he just wanted her money since he had ran out.
I understood that she was pregnant, but I was slightly confused because she told Rama she was pregnant with his "child" but then she told the story and said I had the babies.. twins and I was slightly confused.
Great story!! I love the modern twist!
I really liked your story. It was interesting to read it in the first person rather than third person. It made the story feel more personal. The fact that Sita was talking to us gave the story a feeling of conversation. I enjoyed that change. Every story I have read has mostly been told in the aspect of an all knowing narrator. Good read!
ReplyDeleteThis was cool! Setting this in the 1920's was unique and made sense with how you built Sita's character. I haven't had a chance to watch Sita, Sings the Blues, but I read a review of it from a different source for my reading notes post. I wonder if it is a coincidence that we are grouped together this time or not. Either way, I love that you placed Sita as the power player of the story.
ReplyDeleteI loved this take on the story. I would never have thought about putting a speakeasy spin on it. Great job.
ReplyDeleteThe reason for the speakeasies were in place because of the prohibition during that time. It reminds me of the fact that the mob was usually in charge of these places.
Perhaps Rama is the untouchable gangster with the full auto tommy gun or maybe the silky voiced lounge singer with a strong moral character and a hot temper. You have made me start thinking about original content. Great job.
I like how you added a flare to the story, which was not previously in the original. Sometimes it is nice to add a strong female role to the character because it tells a different tale that way. Sometimes if a story is just told from the males point of view the story is not quite as complete. In this way you let us see inside herself and it allowed us to understand her more when we otherwise would not have. I think you did a great job at making the story flow the way it should have and helped us gravitate more towards the narrative. You gave a good amount of description through the story as she kept talking about the relationship she had with Rama. The way you added true historical events that happened also added to your story because it made it more realistic. I think you did a fantastic job and you should keep it up.
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