Week 2, Storytelling: Love and Marriage...

One day Rama and Siva were sitting around their condo, drinking coffee, talking, and basically enjoying their morning. Rama went outside to get the morning newspaper as usual and as he stood up he saw this BEAUTIFUL woman walking by with her dog. His mouth literally dropped open and he stood there until he could not see her anymore. After shaking his head to regain his bearings, he turned around and went back inside. He told Siva, who had already started reading the paper, about the woman he had saw, but she just muttered a response, not really hearing him, already engrossed in the article. Rama spent the whole day in a daze daydreaming about the beautiful woman.

The next day, Rama went outside again to get the paper and the same beautiful woman was walking her dog again. He had thought all night about what he would say to her if he saw her again. He waved hello and she waved back. He then introduced himself as did she. Her name was Suparnakha. She said she had been walking by his house everyday waiting for him to notice her. Now that he had, she intended to have him. She was getting really close when Siva walked up into the doorway to see what was going on. When she realized what was happening she started shooing the woman away and telling her to leave. Rama turned on her and said he would not allow her to get in the way of his and Suparnakha's love and that he would be asking for a divorce. Siva was obviously not happy about the quick turn of events, but turned and walked back inside, not knowing what to do. Rama and Suparnakha walked off together as Siva watched from the window.

She could not believe he was doing this to her. She would make him PAY! Oh, yes, she would get him where it hurt. His dad was a big wig politician and had plenty of money for her to go after. She went and visited a lawyer who gladly took her case and won. Now Siva had the condo, enough alimony to keep her comfortable and nothing else to do. After the divorce was final, Siva began to become depressed. She bought a kitten to see if that would ease her loneliness. The kitten soon grew to a cat and no longer needed Siva's constant attention, so she bought another kitten. The dependence of that one soon waned and so her collection of cats began.

Now, if you want to see Siva, you can walk by the condo that she used to share with Rama and see children outside looking in and laughing at her. She is there on the couch every day watching soap operas and eating bonbon's surrounded by all of her cats.

Rama Spurs Suparnakha by Warwick Goble. Date unknown. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Author's Note: I based this story on the meeting of Soorpanaka, the demon sister of Ravana, and Rama, the protagonist of the story. In the original, Rama rejects Soorpanaka in her human form (Suparnakha) and decides to go back inside with his wife, Siva. In this story I wondered what would have happened to Siva if Rama had went with Soorpanaka. I kind of saw her as a Peg Bundy from "Married With Children".

Bibliography: "The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic" by R.K. Narayan, 1973.