Week 4 Storytelling: Hanuman Saves Sita

Hanuman would have made an excellent repo man.  He possessed superhuman strength, was a master of stealth, and he regularly parachuted from airplanes just for fun.  Unfortunately, his only job was working for Rama, an abusive husband and boss.    Rama was the King of Ayodhya, and it certainly went to his head.  When Rama was making the rounds with his various girlfriends, he left his wife Sita at home.  Sita was a faithful and loving wife.  She cared for their home, managed the day-to-day affairs of Ayodhya, and was passionately devoted to her husband despite his extracurricular activities.

Tap. Tap. Tap.  It was a knock on the door.  She was puzzled.  Who would be at their door at such a late hour?  Thinking that Rama must have forgotten his keys, Sita walked from the living room to the foyer.  She glanced over at the clock.  It was just past midnight, but she hadn't heard the chimes.  She flipped on the outside lights, turned the lock, and opened the door.  No one.  Only the sweet song of crickets.  She peered across the street to see if the neighborhood boys had been playing pranks again.  A black dog scampered down the pavement.  Sita sighed.  She closed the door and turned around to head to sleep.  A man with ten heads stood in front of her.  Every face smiled in unison.

"I am the one who knocks."

Black.

Rama stumbled home at 11 the next morning.  At 1 in the afternoon, he finally noticed that Sita was missing.  He summoned Hanuman.  "Find Sita for me, she seems to be missing."  Hanuman searched all of Ayodhya.  Sita was nowhere to be found.  He then checked the security cameras, and the verdict was unmistakable - Ravana had kidnapped Sita.  It was difficult to mistake a man with ten heads.  He sent a messenger to notify Rama and wasted no time going to the airport.  Within twenty minutes they were airborne and en route to Lanka.

Meanwhile, Ravana was busy trying to woo Sita.  She was held captive in the world's most beautiful garden, and Ravana brought her lavish gifts.  Sita could not remember the last time Rama had given her a gift or even written her a letter.  Yet she lay facedown on the ground, weeping for Rama.  Ravana tried in vain for the next hour to convince her to become his wife.  Frustrated, he gave her an ultimatum, "you have two months to join my bed, otherwise your head will be on a spike."

Hanuman's aircraft passed over the island of Lanka.  With the array of cameras mounted to the bottom of the plane, he was able to pinpoint Sita's location.  He dove out the door, plummeted towards the ground, and executed several front flips.  Two minutes later, he was standing next to Sita, and every guard within a mile was dead.

"Follow me."

Hanuman's Flight

Image by Lachlan Rogers

They ran to the center of the gardens where the plane had just landed on the grass.  Sita and Hanuman jumped into the plane and were back to Ayodhya before a soul in Lanka noticed anything wrong.  Sita was so relieved to be home and she sprinted into Rama's arms.  Rama smiled and said, "thank goodness Ravana slipped up this time.  I was looking forward to annihilating him."  He nonchalantly reached over and pressed a giant red button.  Two miles away, fire and rock spewed from the Earth as a missile lifted into the sky.  It detonated three hundred feet above the surface of Lanka with a blinding flash.  Two seconds later, all the blind men on Lanka were dead.

Rama's Missile Launch

Image from Wikipedia

The Earth shook and so did the gods.  "Rama, you have disgraced yourself by not meeting Ravana in battle and saving Sita yourself.  For this, you must die."  With a strike of lightning, Rama was dead.

Sita weeped for a fortnight.  They finally placed Rama's body on a pyre and the fire immediately consumed him.  Without a thought, Sita jumped into the fire with Rama.  She screamed in agony for an hour.  The wood was entirely consumed and yet Sita still burned.  Finally, she collapsed in a heap of ashes.  They say if you go to the field where she burned, you can still hear her screams reverberating off every surface.  Hanuman, now jobless and homeless spent the rest of his life in poverty.  Without a leader, Ayodhya fell into ruins.  Lanka is still absent of monkey life; the nuclear blast provides too many bananas of radiation.

Author's Note:  During a discussion in Sita Sings the Blues, one of the commentators mentions that it would have saved a lot of trouble if Hanuman had saved Sita when he was in Lanka.  I thought this was an interesting idea, and I wanted to explore what could have happened if Hanuman did save Sita.  The first half of the film focuses on Rama and Sita's relationship and leaves out many other details and stories.  The entire second half of the film is about Sita's exile after Rama sends her into the wilderness.  Sita Sings the Blues exaggerates Rama's abandonment of Sita.  I wanted to take this a step further and portray Rama as good-for-nothing.  Sita's abduction sets the direction for the rest of the story; I added the clock and dog as omens to foreshadow her eventual death.  My brother enjoys watching the show Airplane Repo.  I used their crazy methods of repossessing planes as an inspiration for Hanuman's rescue of Sita.  If you didn't follow the link, I used one of my favorite quotes from Breaking Bad.  I also referenced bananas as a benchmark for radioactive levels.  I thought it was fitting since the hero of the story is a monkey.

Bibliography:

Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley. Website: YouTube

Reading Diary B: Sita Sings the Blues

It seems like the entire first half of Sita Sings the Blues was devoted to setting up the second half.  Right after the intermission, Dave breaks up with Nina over email.  All he says is "Don't come back."  This harsh email is an enormous criticism of Rama and shows the the writers of the film think Rama is extremely cold and neglectful.

The Dhobi is mentioned a couple times in Sita Sings the Blues.  I don't remember him being mentioned in the PDE Ramayana.  A Dhobi is a washerman.  We hear that the Dhobi beats his wife and refuses to take her back after she has been with another man, saying that he is not like Rama.  Then Rama decides that he needs the respect of his subjects and banishes Sita.  Rama is portrayed as extremely cold, and he even walks on his pregnant wife at one point.

Rama Walking on Sita

From Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley

At 1:04 Sita has twins in the forest.  Which leaves me wondering: what are the sons of avatars?  Are they demigods, gods, or mortals?  As the twins sing their song about Rama, the writers take another kick at Rama by making the songs as hypocritical as possible.  They sing: "Sing his love.  Sing his praise.  Rama set his wife ablaze" then, "Duty first.  Sita last."

Next, we go back to Nina in New York.  She dials Dave and pleads with him to take her back.  I noticed that she dials 16 numbers to make her call.  However, a call to India should only be 15 numbers (011 - US exit code, 91 India country code, then 10 digits in the Indian phone number).

When Sita is swallowed up by the Earth, she is portrayed as vengeful.  At this point, I realized that her fingers are entirely red.  I'm not sure if this is supposed to be finger nail polish or something else, but to me, it looks like her fingers are covered in blood.  I also noticed that the film doesn't show Rama's departure from the Earth.

The last scene shows Nina reading the Ramayana, seemingly over her depression about Dave.  I did not realize that this story was from her own experience until I saw the note in the credits about her cat.  According to the introduction of a talk Nina gave, this story details the end of her marriage.

Reading Diary A: Sita Sings the Blues

Of all the differences between the PDE Ramayana and Sita Sings the Blues, I found what the animated film chose to leave out to be very intereesting.  For instance, Lakshama is not in the story except for a brief mention at the beginning.  Most of the sub-stories are left out.  We don't hear about Bharata, Vali and Sugriva, Vishvamitra, or even how Rama wins Sita.  Instead, the focus is on Rama's banishment, Sita's capture, Rama's rescue of Sita, and Rama's refusal of Sita.  The film is only half-finished, and it is already near the end of the story.

You would expect that, as an animated film, there would not be very much violence.  However, the film seems to satirize the violence with a near celebration of violence.  Rama and Sita are seen under the fountain arch of rakshasa blood.  During fight scenes, heads comically pop off and blood gushes everywhere.

Fountain of (Rakshasa) Blood

Image from Kristian Golding

I like how the film is broken into commentary, singing, story, and the modern-day story.  I think it breaks up each section well and keeps the entire story interesting.  The gives a different perspective on the story.  The comment that most stuck out to me was the question why Sita didn't leave with Hanuman.  It seems logical that Sita would accept rescue when she had a chance.  They also portrayed Ravana to be originally good but was slowly corrupted, while the PDE Ramayana only mentioned negative qualities of Ravana.

The side story of Nina and Dave is also an interesting addition to the story.  I assume their relationship will parallel Rama and Sita's relationship in some way, but I don't know where they are going with the story yet.  So far, it all seems like setup for some larger event.  Dave flew to India for a 6-month contract, leaving Nina behind.  When his contract is extended, Nina joins him in India for the next year.  We can already see some strain in their relationship, and Dave seems somewhat clueless to Nina's emotions.