Palace of Illusions!!

Cover of The Palace of Illusions: A Novel

Mahabharata!! my first memories of it was the serial which used to come on Sundays. In those pre cable times, Sundays were essentially T V watching days and Mahabharata ensured a full family entertainment. It was later while studying history I realised that it was a great epic ...in fact the longest epic we have. When I took up Ancient Indian history I started having a very ambivalent attitude of it. I realised that it was the reflection of a past society, its customs, its ethos . And finding contradictions and interpolations within the text was a high point for me. But all throughout I felt that it lacked a female voice, a female perspective. This grouse I do have with majority of other epics and ancient texts too...this lack of a female voice.
Finally I found a book which filled this void. Reading Chitralekha Bannerjee Devakaruni's Palace of Illusions gave a new twist to the tale. It is the story of Mahabharata from the perspective of Draupadi.Right from the time when she stepped out of that great yagna kund... a dark girl child, coughing ,stumbling behind drishtadumya...Uncalled for, unwanted. Her lonely childhood is reflective of several childhoods..those of girls who come into this world..uninvited, unwelcomed. Draupadi's marriage to five pandavas.One can feel the frustruation of Draupadi. A princess suddenly reduced to a commodity to be shared. In order to obey your mother's ill fated words ,you can decide on a person's life without consulting her. But then when has a woman been considered a person especially in our epics. The boon given by Vyasa that she will be a virgin every time she goes to a new brother. Her conjugal time table set.Though she has 5 husbands she doesn't have any choice , any freedom. It all depended on where she should be according to set timetable, unlike a man who has several wives... a common practice those days..but can choose whose bed he wants to share who's not. And made avirgin everytime... it reeks of patriarchal set up. For whose pleasure was her virginity?...the pandavas because all should feel that their wife has come to them untouched.Probably it soothed their ego..their machismo. A very good line is written. Boons given to women are also for the pleasure of men. So true.
Then the book reveals Paanchali's attraction to Karna. This I can relate to. An attraction or love which is all wrong... which never will be fulfilled but which still lingers on. How much you try to weed it out ,it doesn't go. This doomed love which is against logic and rationality .. but like a stubborn stain remains..refusing to go completely.
The way we hurt the person we actually love the most in order to protect our vulnerability. I think all of us do it sometime or the other.
Draupadi's enigmatic relationship with krishna was another high point of this book. The love which cannot be described. Something which has always been there...will always be there. The actual unconditional love. I think this love is only possible with God.
I don't know what I expected to write ...a kind of book review I guess. But the words..good read, unputdownable are looking so farce ,so incomplete. I think after a long time I've read a book which made me think and weep and smile .

{P. S. will try to write a post on Karna separately. }