Week 12 Reading Diary, Continued: Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley

For this post I finished the film Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley. This was much shorter than the first portion of the film, but it was still interesting.

I continued to enjoy the humor that was randomly injected into both the narration and the animation. I finally came to realize that the break-aways to Dave and Nina were supposed to be a reflection of how Sita gave her all to Rama but he still rejected her. I was pretty sad for Nina and I hope this did not happen to her in real life.

Anyways, Nina found comfort in reading the Ramayana because such a similar situation occurred to her as did to Sita. I may have forgot, but I think I learned that Sita told the stories of the Ramayana to Valmiki when she came across him during her exile with her twin sons.

The best story to come out of this portion was the one where Sita asks to be reclaimed by the Earth if she had always been true to Rama. I just cannot believe that Rama, who was supposed to be so virtuous, always doubted his one true love. Sita was reclaimed by the Mother Earth because she, as any rational person would know, had been always faithful to Rama. Rama was deservedly crushed by losing Sita once and for all.

I'm just baffled that Rama went through all the trouble to get Sita back if he was always going to distrust her. Seems like a lot of trouble to be that cold-hearted in the end.

I think a good story would be to use this doubtful attitude towards a loved one followed by that person losing them forever.

Source: Sita with Valmiki