Storytelling for Week 3: The Great Abduction

Once upon a time in a far away forest, there was a poor old man. This man had been living in rags and had not had a stable home, a woman, or even a friend in years. He became so discouraged with himself and his ability to accomplish anything that he turned into a vein hermit. This hermit went by the name of Ravana. Many, many years had passed and not much had changed in Ravana's life. He lived a life full of emptiness, sadness, and quite frankly had not a single loved one. One day, Ravana had reached an all time low. He had never been so lonely before, and longed a woman more than anything. He gave himself two options: to continue his life full of loneliness or to get up and change something. With great debate, he chose the second option. It may seem easy to others to make a change like this, but Ravana was so severely out of the loop, he had not talked to a single being in hundreds of years. Instead of easing into things and taking small steps toward finding a wife and a life full of love and happiness, Ravana dives into this task with full fury. He was going to do whatever it takes, and I mean whatever it takes, to find the perfect woman to spend the rest of his life with. He begins his journey with a search. He searches all throughout the woods, backwards and forwards, looking for any sign of a living woman. He has no luck. Ravana becomes extremely anxious and begins to go mad. His search becomes frantic and he begins to loose hope. Days, weeks, months go by with no sight of a woman. Ravana is hopeless and decides to give up on his search. As turns around and endlessly walks back toward the way he came, he spots something shining out of the corner of his eye. He turns toward the shining figure and he sees shiny blonde hair on the most beautiful he has ever seen or imagined in his lifetime. Her name is Sita. He becomes so flustered because he has not had contact with anyone, yet alone a woman, in years so he has no idea to react. He follows his first instinct, which is to catch her before he looses her. He approaches her in his ragged state, anxious beyond belief. She was startled at first, saying "Who goes there? Turn back now or I will have you sought after!". Ravana responds by saying, "I want no harm, I am just a poor old man, coming for something I need." This eases Sita, as she plans to just fetch him some food and a new pair of clothes and send him on his way. He comes closer and closer until he stands on the ground right in front of her and says, "I need you, I will take you with me now", clearly not knowing how to properly interact with another human being. This takes Sita off guard, "I am a married woman, you cannot have me. I demand you to leave!". Out of fury, Ravana shakes the ground below her feet causing her to fall and then lifts the ground as a whole. In her helpless state, Ravana grabs onto her arm and ties his arm to hers. She exclaims, "You cannot take me like this, I have a husband who will find me!", and without caring Ravana responds by saying, "You are the woman I need and the woman I want, for the rest of our immortal lives you will be bound by my side.", and heads deep into the forest with his newly found woman.

Ravana Capturing Sita. Wikipedia

Author's Note: This week, I decided to retell the story of Ravana abducting Sita.  I decided to tell this story, because I thought there were so many different twists and spins you could add to it, and I wanted to bring simplicity and background to the story. In the actual story, Ravana had a thought out plan to abduct Sita, by approaching her as an old hermit while she is unguarded and then taking her. In my story, I decided to come up with a back story for Ravana, as if he hadn't planned her abduction, and simply was actually an old hermit, whom she thought was approaching her. The abduction was meant to be similar to the actual abduction, but reasons for doing it and the way it ends were meant to be dramatically different.

Narayan, R.K. (1972) The Ramayana.