The Palace of Illusions - Beyond The Storyline

“The Palace of Illusions” has been popping up on the feed of my good reads since a very long time. For my disinterest to read a fiction I did not choose to read it for quite a long time but we never know when and why we choose to read a particular book :) Finally I downloaded it and started reading two months ago in bits and pieces. I was fascinated to see the imaginary yet relatable perspective of Draupadi on the story of the great timeless epic Mahabharata.

          While the story of the epic remains the same, the author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni gives a gripping narration of the story of Mahabharata through the character Draupadi herself. The book sets us on a journey from the superficial understanding to the deepest, darkest thoughts of Draupadi. Draupadi, who is considered as the most powerful, chaste, pure character of the epic Mahabharata, gives a detailed narration of her most vulnerable feelings. In the novel, she asks all the uncomfortable questions we would always want to ask whenever we listen to this great epic. She questions the injustice, unabashedly expresses her feelings of anger, vengeance, frustration, love and longing.

The novel begins with the unusual yet purposeful birth of Draupadi out of a Yagna and how she and her brother Drushtadyumna were raised for a bigger purpose(destiny) of life. Draupadi, right from the beginning is showcased as a hot-headed, laser-tongued, sharp, valorous, angry young lady who has her priorities clear unlike other women of her times. Draupadi expresses her dissatisfaction about how being a girl took away her power to choose. Her dissatisfaction only grows further as her life unfolds when she marries Arjuna and accidentally becomes wife to all the five Pandavas. Just like any other woman, Draupadi longs for a special attention from Arjuna who however behaves only as a dutiful husband rather than as a romantic husband. She further reveals her darkest secret of how she always loved Karna despite him being their enemy. Her secret love for Karna and his reciprocative confession (not to Draupadi directly) at the end is a separate, startling, mysterious track altogether which honestly made me uncomfortable at the beginning as I have always heard only conventional chaste stories of Draupadi and about her faithfulness to her husbands. But then I realized what is being chaste after all? Having no choice left in any of her life decisions from choosing her husband to by being traded off by her husband for a petty dice game and eventually following her husbands to an exile, is it not humanly for a woman to think and fantasize about love and other things? It would be beyond human imagination to think about the suffering of a woman who always had to beg to keep her honour not once or twice but multiple times from people like Duryodhana, Sisupala, Keechaka etc.

The only thing that I couldn't agree with till the end of the novel was how Draupadi was blamed for all the war and bloodshed and how she was always convinced to believe so. Even amidst a fresh, modern, fictional perspective, I wonder why the author chose to keep all the guilt and blame on Draupadi rather than logically relaxing such heavy accusation on her. Although there are several tidbits from Krishna saying Draupadi is only the instrument but not the doer, nothing or no one really empathizes with Draupadi. Instead, Draupadi empathizes with all the men and women who were treated unfairly just for the mere reason that they took the wrong side in the war. She heavily empathizes with Karna, Bheeshma, Drona and Gandhari.

Just like everytime Mahabharata leaves us with a lot of questions despite having heard the answers from  a perspective of Dharma Sookshma, this novel also leaves us with a lot of questions endorsed by Draupadi herself. But, the thought process of Draupadi, which is relatable makes us think, re-think about the choices we make in our life and about the feelings we feel in our life. As a whole, The Palace of Illusions is a good read for us to think beyond the storyline without nagging about the fictional part of it for the reason that it was beautifully interspersed with the original story. And such fiction and imagination is rather important to bring out the vulnerability of Draupadi to the extent that it tears us apart at many instances. Such tearing apart is so important as we are so conditioned to narrate the injustice that happened to Draupadi with apathy. We don't feel the pain and despair of her anymore even while we narrate Draupadi Vastrapaharan. As long as such apathy prevails, we can't really do justice to the women around. This novel, hits the right chords to empathize with Draupadi, which indirectly means that we are empathizing with all the women.

 The novel's title was aptly chosen for the reason that how Draupadi loves her materialistic possession i.e., her palace (The Maya Sabha) at Indraprastha. The story justifies that being devoid of humanly love and emotions; Draupadi finds solace in her new palace where she remains in-charge of the palace which gives her a sense of power. The title also reflects and reiterates the impermanence of material wealth, victory, life, body, feelings and fears. Perhaps this is the reason why the author chose to epitomize Draupadi as desire, anger and vengeance. This, along with making us understand Draupadi and her feelings, through her, warns us about the repercussions of stubborn, strong desires. What I truly enjoyed throughout the novel was a few tidbits of wisdom and here are few of my favorite quotes from the book. 

"The princess who longed for acceptane, the guilty girl whose heart wouldn't listen, the wife who balanced her fivefold role precariously, the rebellious daughter-in-law, the queen who ruled in the most magical of palaces, the distracted mother, the beloved companion of Krishna, who refused to learn the lessons he offered, the woman obsessed with vengeance - none of them were the true Panchaali. If not, who was I?"