I remember sitting at the third desk during History lectures, listening to my teacher passionately explain the multifaceted discourse on the controversial story of Mahabharata. How justified was it for ambition to take over morals? Can justice take a backseat in the presence of authority? Can the epic be compared to Greek mythology? While I learnt a lot of facts about the rituals of marriage, society, and warfare, at no point am I able to recreate today any lasting impression of their nuances that may have been brought to light on those sultry school mornings. No emotional chord was struck, no realities instigated. Mahabharata was a story, not a narration to me.
In a world replete with injustice and inhumane practices, the hardship women face becomes twofold. It’s strange then, that their conditions still end up being last on the list of woes jotted down in history, often left for their own likes to fight for. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is one such woman who rose to that occasion, who stepped out of the realm of right and wrong and presented the Mahabharata from the perspective of being a human. Yes, what makes the book radical is its narration from Draupadi’s point of view, but what struck me the most was how at the end of the read, I was struck not just by the complexity of being a woman in a society, but also equally by the reality of being a human stuck in the crossfire. I was shaken awake, pinched on the skin with the fingers of circumstance. Vyasa’s prediction translated into an all-knowing smirk, Krishna’s perceptiveness sourced a friend in need.
“There was an unexpected freedom in finding out that one wasn’t as important as one had always assumed!”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni; ‘The Palace of Illusions’
“The Palace of Illusions” is more than just a historical fiction. It is about a woman who struggles to dream and evolve in a man’s world : be it family, courtship, warfare or her social milieu. What gives the narration an eternal relevance is Draupadi’s fight to prove herself at every point of life simply in the name of destiny. Till date, women struggle to find their power and cling on to it as a justification to be treated with equality, because equity is a concept too much to ask for. The novel did push me to ask new questions (as Draupadi did): can a woman ever win? What tips the balance between a man’s and a woman’s mistakes? What is the difference between being flawed and unreasonable?
Chitra Banerjee artfully weaves the inception of the cruelest war of Kurukshetra within the highlights of Draupadi’s life. Vividly, she recreates the life of a strong headed girl one instance at a time as she learns about life in the shadow of her loving Dhai Ma. With subtlety she combs the impending doom into daily goings on, so that it hits the reader as surprisingly as the next strike of thunder. As a reader I was soaked into Draupadi’s constant scrutiny of life and social behaviours, which is what made this the most realistic account of the Kurukshetra War ever.
Throughout, the reader is compelled to identify with this woman who at many points finds herself unable to change, unable to forgive, unable to hold back; despite constantly being expected to do so. Isn’t that exactly what makes her so human, in fact, as human as a man? In the perfect righteousness of Yudhishtir we find a compelling helplessness, in Arjun’s devotion a stark insolence: these are only some of the flaws attributed to the men of the anecdotes over time, but the women, somehow, are placed in the crossfire as inanimate objects holding the plot together through the strings of their actions. Chandralekha paints these actions with intentions, breathes life into these objects with her indepth understanding of the heart of a woman.
The titular palace gives the novel a touch of magical realism. It was the object of Panchali’s desire, her safe haven in a world she never wished to create; in an arena where she could never win. With the last of this home burning to ashes, one feels her heart firing up in fiery embers. But like so many women you and I know today, she rises like a phoenix and keeps driving on her passion. In beautiful imagery she was produced to King Drupad, and in even stronger, unequivocal narration she stands in front of the burning pyres crying tears for the woes of her kind. At the end of the imminent tragedy, she is the woman with a broken heart, the one human with a sense of repentance.
