Storytelling for Week 4: Dave and Nina

Author's Note: This story is based off of the film, "Sita Sings the Blues." In the film, it depicts Dave and Nina living together in an apartment, and then Dave leaves to go to India. Eventually Nina follows him to India after his company offers him more time in India. When Nina comes back to New York on a business trip, she receives an email from Dave telling her not to come back. Nina hits a breaking point while in New York and calls Dave. She begs for him to take her back, but he does not. The story of Dave and Nina was a modern parallel of Rama and Sita in Ramayana. When Rama abandons Sita after Ravana kidnaps Sita because people were questioning her purity. Sita gets her purity put to the ultimate test and passes but only for Rama to reject her a second time after she says that she is pregnant. Sita has two twin boys, and Rama eventually comes across them again after banishing pregnant Sita. Sita returns to Earth’s womb after proving her purity a second time to Rama.  I wanted to make a story that gave previous knowledge of Dave and Nina before the setting of “Sita Sings the Blues.” I feel like my story depicts a very modern fairy tale of what people typically think about when people fall in love in this time period.

There once was a girl named Nina. Nina was very smart, beautiful, and successful. She was the all-around girl. She worked for an architecture company that made the most beautiful buildings in the entire world. One day, Nina was walking to her desk at work when she dropped all of her papers and sketches of the project that she was working on. This charming man came to the rescue and helped her pick up her things. As they were both picking up the papers, their eyes locked onto each other. They both smiled and blushed. The boy said, “Hi, I am Dave. I am new here.”

Dave was new to the company. He was originally from a small town in northern Idaho. He loved potatoes but decided to try out New York and city life. It was definitely a major change from back home. He and his miniature pig, Hector, arrived just a couple of days ago. Dave thought Nina was very attractive and sweet. He thought she could be a great friend to have and possibly something more!

Nina fell in love at first sight. She thought Dave was the most handsome man she ever saw. Nina politely thanked him for his help and quickly scurried back to her desk. She kept looking around the office, in hopes of seeing Dave again.

A little while later, Dave came to her desk and asked if he could take her to lunch. Nina was very busy with work and had brought her lunch with her but she could not possibly pass up a lunch date with Dave! She was so excited and giddy! She counted down the minutes till noon.

Sita admiring Rama

Eventually noon came. Dave and Nina left the office together. Everyone that had not gone to lunch yet nonchalantly watched the new couple leave, and wondered when this new love arose. No one really knew who Dave was yet. So, the whole office was whispering and gossiping about the duo.

“Who is that guy, and what is he doing with Nina and not me?”

“Wow, does he work here? He is so cute!”

“Maybe I should ask him to lunch,” Nina and Dave’s coworkers murmured.

Dave and Nina’s date went amazing. They hit it off instantly. Dave thought Nina was wonderful and smart. Nina thought Dave was handsome and charming.

A couple years passed. Dave and Nina were married with a small apartment of their own to call home. Nina grew to love Hector, and they became great friends. The marriage went perfectly fine, so Nina thought anyway until Dave came home with the announcement of a new job in India. Dave said that the proposal was to build a small building in India and after the job, he would be back. “It is only six months. I will leave little pig Hector here with you to keep you company!” Dave said.

Nina was devastated. She had no idea what to do or think. 
"What am I supposed to do while you are gone?"

Dave just kissed her on the forehead and said, "It will be over before you know it!"

What Dave did not know was that Nina had some big news to share.

Hector was going to be a big brother. Nina was pregnant.   

Bibliography: Sita Sings the Blues, Nina Paley, 2008

Week 4 Reading Diary: Sita Sings the Blues, continued

The first part of Sita Sings the Blues, Rama saves Sita from Ravana but then questions her purity. Sita then passes the test of purity and Rama accepts her back, asking her to forgive him. 

The second part of the film begins with dumb ole Dave breaking up with Nina by email after she moves to India for him and is currently in New York on a business trip. Dave tells her to stay in New York and to not come back to India. Complete jerk! She also calls him and begs him to have her back. This is a correlation with Sita requesting to prove her purity to Rama.

I really enjoyed Sita’s singing throughout the film. It was definitely entertaining and easy to follow. Sita drops a huge ball on Rama and tells him that she is pregnant. Apparently, people throughout the community are talking about Sita’s “unfaithfulness.” So Rama tells Lakshmana to take Sita into the forest and leave her there. This part is what really confuses me about the message of the story. I assume that it is to show how important your reputation is. I really have no idea, but I would love to find out if anyone else knows. I just feel so bad for Sita. She was completely faithful to Rama, and Rama just abandons her. I just do not understand. Rama eventually sees Sita again only this time with their twin boys. Sita proves, yet again, her purity to Rama by going back to the Earth’s womb.   

Narrator explains how Rama questions Sita's purity

Wikipedia

Author: Laura Gibbs

Sita Sings the Blues

Week 4 Reading Diary: Sita Sings the Blues

I really enjoy watching videos, so it was a lot of fun to get to watch a video for this weeks readings. I will admit, I just sat down and watched the entire video yesterday. The different version of Ramayana was quite interesting to say the least. I kept thinking of how long it had to take them to make that video. That must have taken a lot of time and effort from quite a bit of people. At first, I was confused on what all was going on. There were a lot of different stories within a story, type thing. But, the further I got into it, the easier it was to put it all together. I really liked how they started out with kind of a modern story and really just explained Ramayana in a way that everyday people (like me) really get and are actually interested in the story. When I first read Ramayana, I did not really know what the main idea or the message of the story was, and to be honest I am not entirely sure exactly what it is still or even if it has a message. I would be very curious to see what a Hindu believer had to say about Ramayana, for instance, if it had one overlying theme or many small messages and also if they thought it was a true series of events. I really liked how the narrators throughout the video were putting it into more modern thinking and most of the time quite comical, that was a funny addition that really tied the multiple stories together in the video. 

Sita Sings the Blues

Video based off of Ramayana, 

created by Nina Paley

Sita Sings the Blues

Author: Laura Gibbs