As I said, I grew closer to her, coming to care for her as if she was my sister. Because of this, I do my best to protect her from Ravana's attempts of scaring her into submission. The latest one, however, was difficult. Ravana decided that Sita may choose to marry him if her husband is taken out of the picture. To do this, he originally had his court magicians create an illusion of Rama's decapitated head. He threw this at her feet, trying to convince her that he had defeated Rama and that no one was going to come and save her now. She nearly fell for it, but a lucky mistake allowed her to realize that it was false. He later tried to convince her that Rama was dead by showing her his body lying still on the battle field. This was a very convincing argument. Thankfully, I was able to help her. I remembered that Ravana's chariot would not move if there was a widow on it. This meant that the story being given to Sita was false. Her husband was still alive.
I decided to take the story of Rama's illusioned death and tell it from the perspective of Trijata. She is there throughout the story for Sita, even though she is only mentioned on occasion. I felt that she may be able to give another view of the occurrences, showing how Sita reacted to Ravana's approaches and how it was received by him.
(Image of a puppet Trijata; photo source Wikipedia)
- Buck, William (1976). Ramayana: King Rama's Way.
I like that you didn't really retell one of the stories that we have all already read but instead you brought out a background character and gave her a voice. I think this is an interesting idea and helped to show the progression of Sita during her time in captivity from the eyes of the person who was closest to her. Trijata was constantly around Sita during her times of despair and had it not been for her presence Sita may have failed to realize that Ravana's tricks were just that. Sita may have been fooled into believing the death of her husband had it not been for the consoling and powerful nature of Trijata.
ReplyDeleteHow interesting! This is a very unique take on this story and I like it. I think the stories revolving around Sita are always very interesting because she did trade in such a luxurious life to follow her husband and live in the forrest for so many years. I don't feel like she was talked about enough in the story. Your story shows that Trijata plays an important role in the sanity of Sita and that's very important. I look forward to reading more of your stories in the future!
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this I was reminded of Hanuman watching Sita in Lanka. I think you did a great job of using this method and adding another perspective to the story while still keeping the event in lockstep with Buck's version. For some reason I had always thought of Sita as being alone ( though i know others were around) without any allies in Lanka but your version also opened my eyes to the fact that there were plenty of others there against there will. Good Job.
ReplyDeleteI like how you really got inside the head of the characters and showed us what they are thinking. The way you explained Trijata's thinking process made sense and I understood why she would want to protect Sita. Great job taking a minor character and telling a story about her! Looking forward to reading more of your tales further on!
ReplyDeleteI love the way that you told the story from the perspective of the maid of Sita. Not only that, you chose to tell the story from the perspective of the maid while Sita was captured by Ravana. I think that you chose an incredible perspective because we don't really know that much about Sita's time there, and this story provides awesome insight into her time in captivity.
ReplyDeleteHi Elizabeth! I chose to read this storytelling post because Trijata is actually one of the main characters of my storybook, Asuras Anonymous, because she resisted her asura heritage. I really loved her as a character so I thought it was cool that you wrote from her perspective! She definitely took on the role as Sita's protector during her abduction, which you portrayed very well! I also like that you chose to tell of some the most difficult times that Sita went through, but with the knowledge that she at least had someone looking out for her! Great job!
ReplyDeleteI love that your story reads like a journal. It is like a summary of what has happened with a little bit of personal thoughts from Trijata. I thought it was very creative to tell the story from her perspective. She is a character in Ramayana I wish I knew more about because of her loyalty to Sita. I also really like this picture you put with this story. I have never seen any depiction of Trijata before, and I found it very interesting.
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