Book review: The Palace of Illusions

It's funny how one's perspectives on the same stories change as one grows up. Such is the case with the Mahabharata and me. What I regarded as a simple fairy tale of good vs. evil as a naive child, morphed, as I grew up, into one of the most complex and fascinating epics of all time where every character is an interesting web of many shades of gray, where circumstances drive good people to do terrible things and where ends often justify the means. My favorite character in the epic also changed with me: Yudhishthira: the upholder of truth when I was a child, Arjuna: the handsome warrior in my teens and eventually, Karna: also a great warrior, equal or better than Arjuna in fact, courageous, very generous and yet showered with one tragedy after another throughout his lifetime and finally cursed that he would be killed ruthlessly at his most helpless hour.

If you grew up in India, it is nearly impossible for one to not know at least the basic the story of the Mahabharata. Almost every other kid in my generation had at least read the Amar Chitra Katha version of this great epic. I had never given much thought to one of the central characters in the epic - Draupadi - until I picked up The Palace of Illusions on my trip to Peru last year. This book is a retelling of the Mahabharata from Draupadi's perspective, in first person.

The book portrays Draupadi as a multi-dimensional woman. She is intelligent, perceptive and yet flawed in very human ways: vengeful and proud all the same. She, the fire-born princess of Panchaal, was told of a prophecy when she emerged from the fire that she would change the course of history. However, she is forced into a lonely childhood by her circumstances and left to wonder whether the prophecy would ever come true. As destiny unfolds over the course of time, she finds herself facing difficult decisions time and again, often having to choose what "must be done" over her deepest desires.

I really liked the portrayal of the relationship between Draupadi and Krishna. At some level, Draupadi has an inkling that he is divine, but her rational, intelligent self questions this thought constantly and her conscious mind does not allow her to believe that readily. She returns to him for advice very often, though he never seems to give her a straightforward answer.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has done a brilliant job of capturing the essence of the Mahabharata through the eyes of Draupadi, albeit with some literary license. She's weaved in rather imaginative arcs of her own into the epic in very interesting ways. I don't want to spoil it if you haven't read it yet. So I won't mention any of it. Overall, I enjoyed the writing thoroughly. It's captivating. I couldn't put it down for the most part. Highly recommend it.