The Traditional
Like a true goddess, Sita's birth was like totally awesome. I mean, a friggin' king just somehow saw this perfect tiny human in his golden watering can... like WUT! She was of course way prettier than her sister Urmila and the twin daughters of her uncle, Prince Kushadhwaja (brother of her dad, King Janaka). But, the four of them were a total girl gang so no bashing here! Sita was wanted by like so many dudes that her dad decided to have a competition to win her as their wifey. The competition was so rad, and the guys had to pull a bow back to shoot at a target, but it was sooo impossibly hard. All of a sudden, Rama entered the picture and it was love at first sight, literally! Rama was a total babe, like, super manly and stuff. He sweet-talked Sita to the max and the two were dying to know who the other was. Finally, the like whole challenge thingy was supposed to happen to put a ring on it. None of the dudes could even move the bow like an inch, that is, until Rama (aka Mr.Hottie) came along. Rama broke the bow like super easy and boom, they were destined to be together forever (even their dads agreed). The wedding was HUGE and like all the princes (Rama's three bros) and princesses (Sita's sis and two cousins) got married and OMG like best day ever am I right?! But of course some jerk who wanted Sita like ages ago had to go and ruin all the fun by starting a stupid war with Rama.... like who are you again? Any-who, Rama broke this dude's bow too and so he ended up bowing at Rama's feet anyways lol.
The happy couple went back to Rama's kingdom and of course everyone adored our babygirl! Sita basically got a Princess Diaries makeover with a flower crown, jewelry, ya know... all the works! Unfortunately, Sita's story followed in the footsteps of many great princess movies. By this I mean that the evil step-mother had to come in an ruin everything. Rama's dad was tricked by his favorite wife, who wanted her son to be king instead of Rama. On top of that, she wanted to banish poor Rama for fourteen friggin' years... like what the heck? His bro didn't even want this to happen, and he was mad at his mom too! But of course Mr.Hero had to go and listen to daddy, so our poor girl Sita followed the love of her life into the forest in banishment. Then to add to the drama even more, the king (Rama's dad) DIED. Yeah! HE DIED. Like this couple has been through enough crap don't ya think...ugh!
Then the juicy part of the story becomes even more juicy! This like monster's sister totally gets a major crush on Rama and like he doesn't want her of course. Who would want anyone over Sita?! So, this chick goes and whines to her brother and like now everyone has it out for them. The monster even goes and imitates Rama's voice to act like he is in trouble or something, so Sita of course like yells at Rama's brother (he came along too) to go and save him. After having enough of it, he finally leaves Sita (against Rama's better judgement) and goes to "help." Little do they know that all this time babygirl is getting like totally kidnapped by this scary guy who pretended to be a starving Yogi. Homegirl was just trying to get him some fruit and he was in disguise! Total jerk-face right?
To be continued babes! ;)
Author's Note: I decided to use the Sita chapter in Nine Ideal Women by Sunity Devee as my resource for this page. I chose to use this text because it gave a traditional viewpoint on who Sita is thought to have been from the point of view of someone who has a keen eye for the beauty of femininity in Indian women. Sunity Devee was the Maharani of Cooch Behar in West Bengal, India. She married at the young age of fourteen after much debate with her fatherDevee was born in 1864, and died at the age of 68 in 1932. . Devee was not only an author, but also a renowned educator as well as an awesome activist for the rights of women. Fun fact: her third son was the godchild of Queen Victoria, which is a hint into her relationship with the English court.
I wanted to be able to portray Sita in a variety of ways, and of course I wanted to have a traditional and sort of expected page in my site on Sita. But I have to also say that the traditional was also mixed in with some feministic girl power as well. Sunity Devee was such an inspiration, and even today she should be receiving much more credit on her attributes to society and women than what she currently is. I am honored to use her writing as a source for this page in my project, and I look forward to using more of her work as sources and for background/research information in the future for this site as well.