In “Three Hundred Ramayana’s,” Ramanujan discusses the multiplicity of Ramayana tellings around the world. He starts by portraying a story that highlights how many versions of the Ramayana exist. In this story, Hanuman goes looking for Rama’s lost ring. The King of Spirits who has the ring tells Hanuman: “there have been as many Ramas as there are rings on this platter… this incarnation of Rama is now over” (24).
There have been many versions of the Ramayana and many stories about Rama. None are more important than the other, but, as Ramanujan notes throughout his work, each is affected by the cultures in which it appears and the people who tell it. Sita Sings the Blues shows how there are different ways to tell the Ramayana, just as different cultures tell the story in different ways. Throughout the film, we see the Ramayana story depicted through a present-day romantic couple, through a cartoon singing blues songs, and through narrators discussing the plot. These narrators at one point in the movie discuss whether or not Sita should have been so loyal to Rama. The male narrators say that they don’t understand why a woman would be loyal to a man who hurts her and the female narrator disagrees saying that Sita has to be loyal to Rama. Similarly, Ramanujan points out how different cultures view Sita, some portraying her as a “heroic character” and others “even conceive Sita as unfaithful” (43, 44).