| Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Palace of Illusions narrates the Mahabharata from the perspective of one of the epic's most complex characters "" the heroine Draupadi (or Panchaali, the name she prefers here), born from a yagna's flames, destined to be the instrument for the Kurukshetra War and the cleansing of a world that has become steeped in sin. |
| But Panchaali isn't always a willing participant in the grand script that has been written for her: she wishes she could shrug off these responsibilities and simply follow her heart's desire instead. (That handsome charioteer's son Karna, with the intensely sad look in his eyes ... wouldn't he make a better husband than the five Pandavas put together?) |
| Pratibha Ray's intimate Yagnaseni "" written in Oriya and sadly available to English-language readers only in an awkward translation "" covered similar ground, but a more Western sensibility runs through Banerjee's book, which is written in the cool style of the modern American novel. |
| She doesn't sprinkle the narrative with italicised Indian words, aided by a convenient little glossary; she uses the Tolkien-esque term "Third Age of Man"to refer to the Dvapara Yuga, and "game of tag" to describe children's play. |
| This is fair enough, for the Mahabharata is a story with universal appeal, and one that has undergone multiple retellings to fit different times and places. Divakaruni is an elegant writer and the casual reader should find The Palace of Illusions more accessible than a straightforward translation. |
| It's a book that has a sense of humour: witness the banter between Panchaali and Krishna when they discuss their past lives. I also liked some of Banerjee's creative flourishes, such as the childhood game between Panchaali and her brother Dhrishtadyumna (Dhri), where one of them starts telling a story (involving other characters), the other continues it and so on "" it's a nicely intimate scene and an economical way of filling gaps in the narrative. |
| Some of the character analyses also go beyond cliches "" for instance, Panchaali observes that Bheeshma, in adhering rigidly to his principles and his famous vow, often disregards basic, common-sense humanity. "I wanted to warn my husbands that one couldn't depend on a man who plucked frailty and desire so easily out of his heart. How could he have compassion for the faults of others? Protecting a [dead vow] was more important to him than a human life." |
| An advantage of the numerous point-of-view tellings of the Mahabharata is that they show us people and events through the (naturally biased) perspective of a particular character, and these perspectives add up to make a fascinating tapestry. |
| The Palace of Illusions falls short here, not always acknowledging the subjectivity of Panchaali's viewpoint "" too often, she is presented as an all-knowing sutradhar figure, privy to other characters' deepest thoughts and motivations. |
| Also, the narrative is oddly bloodless, which is something one doesn't expect from the impetuous Panchaali. (She is self-conscious too, beginning episodes with sentences like "Everyone knows what happened next" "" it must be hard being a legend, having to tell one's own widely recited story all over again.) |
| More problematic is the trite handling of the Panchaali-Karna relationship (their forbidden love, her lifelong regret about humiliating him at her swayamvara). I thought it was reductive to take two enormously complex characters and define them largely in terms of their secret feelings for one another. |
| It also causes unintended mirth. When Karna dies, the glow from his body travels straight to the weeping Draupadi: "It grew into a great radiance around me. A feeling emanated from it that I have no words for. Perhaps, freed of its mortal bondage, Karna's spirit knew what I hadn't ever been able to tell him." |
| This is a giggle-out-loud moment to stand with the best of them, but nothing trumps the ending, when Draupadi reaches heaven and is reunited with her love in a passage reminiscent of the final scene of James Cameron's Titanic, the spirits of the doomed lovers Jack and Rose finding validation in a shimmering afterlife. |
| In The Palace of Illusions, Jack and Rose go by the names Karna and Panchaali, and their great big ship is heaven itself. As an enthusiastic Panchaali puts it, "Karna is no longer the forbidden one. I can take his arm in view of everyone." Turns out the war was worth it after all. |
| THE PALACE OF ILLUSIONS |
| Author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Publisher Picador India PAGES 360 Price Rs 495 |
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