Back in the days of Very Long Ago,
a blue baby was born. Her name was Rama, daughter of the Maharajah Dasharatha.
The Maharajah had prayed for a son and made sacrifices and very likely put a
lot of guilt on his four wives…but instead he was finally given a daughter.
The
Maharajah couldn’t have been too upset for long however, because they quickly
figured out that the bright blue baby girl was the Avatar of Vishnu, born to
win a great victory someday and rid the world of a dreadful enemy. So, with
minimal grumbling, the Maharajah raised her with all the education and combat
training that a male heir would have received.
Somewhere
else in the same time zone was born a baby boy named Sita. He too was an
avatar, hosting the goddess Lakshmi. His father, the King Janaka, was a little
more overprotective, and thought no woman would be good enough to marry his
son. When Sita was of age, his father presented a challenge to any eligible
woman for his hand in marriage. There was a divine bow that only Sita could
bend, and if any woman could match his strength and bend the bow, then they
would be married.
Rama,
in all her blue glory, strength, and education, decided to give the competition
a try. She presents herself to King Janaka and his son, picks up the bow, and
steels herself. She begins to bend it as the watching crowd gasps in awe, when
SNAP! The bow breaks cleanly down the middle.
The king
and his son freeze in wonder and incredulity; so far no one had been able to
even bend the bow, and this woman had just broken it with minimal effort.
Nonetheless, the guidelines of the competition were clear, and Rama and Sita
were married soon after, quickly finding themselves in a genuinely happy union. (Who wore the pants at the wedding? We don’t know.
That detail was lost to history.)
 |
| Rama and Sita's Wedding (Creative Commons) |
Author’s Note: This is a retelling of the traditional story
of Rama and Sita’s marriage, except gender swapped. Why not switch up the
gender roles? The story shows that they were almost equal in strength anyway.
Bibliography: “Rama wins Sita”, from Indian Myth and
Legend by Donald A Mackenzie. Web source.
This is a fun story! You have a lot of funny moments in the story that made me laugh! Like "who wore the pants" and "in all her blue glory". I also liked that even though you made them gender swapped, you still kept Rama as strong and powerful, and Sita as a protected beauty. It shows that gender doesn't determine these types of traits. I think that you could add more detail in the part where the parents of Rama find out she was an avatar of Vishnu. Like how did they figure that out? And in the original story do the parents of Rama know this information? I don't remember exactly lol
ReplyDeleteHey Alana! I love how you gender-swapped the roles because as you said, why not? Although I already read this traditional story, you made it very interesting to read and retold the story from a new perspective! Moreover, I felt more informed about the traditional story because I felt like I was able to understand more about what was going on.
ReplyDeleteHi Alana! I liked your story because the genderbent angle in your title really piqued my interest. After my initial feeling of intrigue, I felt as though your story gave me a different perspective on the initial myth, and also raised some questions, causing me to wonder what different legends would be like if we saw them from a female perspective, or even what great historical heroes we've overlooked or have been forgotten with time, simply because they were a woman. I think it would be great if we were able to read more gender swapped stories, since many of the major gods have been men. It makes me think what if major gods were all women? Would we have a different idea of femininity or power in general? I also wondered if you could have spent more time fleshing out the story. I felt like some of the characters I didn't have any idea of their personality or motivations, so I wondered what would happen if you expanded on that a bit more.
ReplyDeleteHaha, I loved your last sentence in the story about who wore the pants! This story is like reading a woman empowerment campaign telling how if a male has the power to do something, so too does a female. The amount of strength and awe that Rama gets in this story makes me think of all the famous female heroes and warriors in movies. The first ones that come to mind are Mulan, Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel. They should make a movie based on Rama as a superwoman too!
ReplyDelete