Rachel Fugate Sitayana Make Up Post: Shred the Veil, Till There is Nothing Left

Well now that Sitayana is over I have to say that I feel like my learning experience for one semester has never been so rich. This class was such an excellent accompaniment to the show that I would not have been able to see this class without it. Sitayana explored something that until recently I had not given very much thought to. Women and their roles in society in the past, now, and the future. Up until this point I was laboring under the impression that there was no difference between men and women and that the problem was a thing of the past. Therefore when I started the show I thought we were more showing a historical trial of women and not actually touching on something in our society today. That is why this class was so crucial to my understanding of the Sitayana because it brought about the underlying message. Spivak I think was crucial to this.

Queen Mondodari's trusty fan

            In one section of the play I feel like there was something that was done that no one but a select few actually understood. Those fans that I and the rest of Ravana’s harem had were not just for flare and spectacle. They represented something so important to these women. The ability to speak. In the traditional representation of these epics, the hands are the main form of communication. Without them the voice is restricted, trapped. The fans were the chains that bound our hands and therefore our voices. But when Ravana died we cast away the fans, symbolizing that we are free. Free to speak our minds, do as we please, live for ourselves. While this is a much more happy ending then some of the women that we were introduced to in class, I still felt it had a very powerful message. The harem freed themselves, Sita was not their savior but she was happy for them.

            Sitayana created this world around me that was so rich with a culture that I can still now barely comprehend because it is so different from my own. Like most of the communities that we have met in this class, it has left me with more questions then I care to admit. But also with this sense of exhilaration that the world is not as small and simple as I have previously believed. And while certain things both in this class and Sitayana have rocked the foundation of my understanding of what is actual reality, I am still ready to shred even more of the veil that is in front of my eyes and see the world for what it truly is.