“Sita Sings the Blues,” an animated modern take on the Hindu religious epic, “The Ramayana,” has won awards and been shown at hundreds of locations across the world since its release two years ago.
Never has creator Nina Paley faced a problem until now, oddly enough, in Queens, one of the most diverse communities in the country.
The three-year-old film was originally scheduled to be screened at a public space, but a Hindutva group – Hindu Janajagruti Samiti got wind of it and launched an Internet and telephone campaign to protest against it. Things got out of control – over 1,000 protest emails that the organiser – Rohan Narine, a 26-year-old devout Hindu, decided to cancel the screening. Instead, he invited his friends to watch the film in his parents’ living room.