Week 4 Storytelling: Two Narrators

Author’s Note: This story was inspired by the “Sita Sings the Blues” film. I enjoyed watching this film as a part of the assigned readings and wanted to incorporate its style into my story telling this week. A big part of the story setup was to reenact how the story was told in “Sita Sings the Blues”. I thought that the narrators who told the story were hilarious and comical so I thought that I would attempt to do the same in my storytelling. I do feel as if the dual narrator dialogue is better expressed in a video like the one I watched, but I still made an attempt for the fluidity of conversation. Most of the story of the Ramayana is the same, including character names and setting. When Raymos mixes up the names of Rama and Ravana in my story, this is similar to when one of the narrators is having trouble pronouncing and remembering the names of Ravana’s sister, Soorpanaka, in “Sita Sings the Blues”. In addition, the main part of my story that is different is just the presentation of the information and the side comments from our narrator’s, Raymos and Varun. Thanks for reading and feel free to comment on the style or story.

Ravana, from Sita Sings the Blues (YouTube)

“Rama was the king of Lanka and was a very talented man in many ways. He was master of many weapons and had much intelligence. His level of mastery even extended as far as playing instruments without his hands. The only major down fall of Rama however was his envy of Ravana” replied Raymos, the water God.


“No, no, no… you got it all wrong Raymos. Ravana rules over the land of Lanka and he is whom is envious of the great Rama from Ayodhya!” said Varun, the God of the wind.

Raymos remarked, “ah yes, that’s right my brother. You know me, I am always getting confused about my stories. I mean c’mon, both names start with “R” at least.”
“Anyways, yeah this guy named Ravana was just over zealous about the things Rama had that he didn’t. Most of all that he wanted was Sita. He’d do anything in the world to have Sita… So he did, he stole her from Rama and took her back to Lanka.”

“Yeah, but you know how the gods like to tell the stories Raymos. The good guy always wins. So my main man Rama comes marching down to Lanka to take back what’s his, aka Sita. And as every good story goes, Rama ends up winning Sita back and out smarting the multi-talented, multi-headed Ravana. And you know, Rama and Sita head back to their kingdom where Rama can claim his throne” replied Varun.

“See that is where you are wrong this time, Varun. The gods of Vishnu will nine times out of ten have a happy ending to their legends, but not this time. So when Rama and Sita arrive back in Ayodhya, Rama gets the throne and all is well. HOWEVER, he sends his lady Sita off into exile for an unknown reason at all! I mean why would you go track your “love” down from Lanka for 14 years to then just send her away. I just don’t understand it man. And then to top it all off, Sita’s kids still praise Rama even though their mom was sent off into exile!” added Raymos.

Varun said, “I am going to have to agree with you here this time. This story is just unorthodox and lacking a better finish. I mean, I feel the worst for Sita. If I were her, I would be thinking that I should’ve just stayed with Ravana.

The gods of Vishnu should let you and I write these stories, Raymos. We could come up with a ten times better ending than that!”

Bibliography: "Sita Sings the Blues" written, animated and produced by Nina Paley.