My Take - The Palace of Illusions

Five years ago an awe-struck teenager read The Palace of Illusions and was absolutely swept off her feet. After the lapse of five years she, now an adult in her early twenties, once again picks her one time favourite book up only to realize it isn’t her favourite book any longer. That once awe-struck teenager and present disappointed woman is me. I picked this book again as it happened to be a mandatory reading of a course in my post-graduate program.

However, it would be wrong to say that I am utterly disappointed by the book and it had lost all its charm which once so mesmerised me. As I was reading it I couldn’t stop admiring the enchanting writing style of Chitra Divakaruni. It is still one of my favourite imaginative re-tellings of the ancient Indian epic, Mahabharata mostly because it gives voice to the female protagonist, Draupadi and gives her the liberty to tell the story of the Great War as she saw it. Female voices in ancient epics are either absent or very feeble, if present. Hence, it is obvious that a teenager beginning to perceive and comprehend the nuances of the social order is mesmerised to find a female voice telling her own story in a male-dominated world. I would say that had I read the book the first time now as an adult woman I would have still loved it. But my main issue, though it is very subjective and has nothing to do with the book is that I have read so many novels re-telling the story of Mahabharata and scholarly articles on Mahabharata that there is nothing new for me to know about the story as such. I know it is very presumptuous of me to say so but having read the story of Mahabharata so many times and from so many angles it has become thread-bare to me. There’s nothing new that I can take from the story except perhaps aesthetic pleasure and a new philosophy. As the story of Mahabharata has been worn out by my reading it over and over again, it also wears away the charm of Palace of Illusions which once so mesmerised me. There was nothing to look forward to and also because of that course since last few weeks I have been only reading novels on Mahabharata, so this novel, though brilliant in its own right became boring for me.

In my first reading of the book as a teenager, I agreed with everything that the author had to say. But now as an adult equipped with theoretical and analytical aids I found myself disagreeing with Divakaruni a lot of times. First, in her attempt to make Draupadi shine above the rest she ended up trivialising and perhaps demeaning most other women. Let me elaborate here, Draupadi according to Divakaruni is better than other women because she doesn’t indulge herself in other ‘womanly’ activities such as dressing up, gossiping, make up, etc. Hence, the women who like such activities are labelled by Divakaruni as feckless, Queen Sudeshna is a case in point. Hence, women only when they indulge themselves in ‘manly’ activities such as intellectual, legal discourses or reading, etc. can they be considered as worthy. In her attempt to portray Draupadi as a rebel who breaks free from the shatters of convention imposed on her, Divakaruni dismisses other ‘womanly’ activities which I feel are important in their own right.

Second, Divakaruni’s attempt to add magic and thus spice up the narrative through characters such as the sorceress. I think that character was an unnecessary addition and was added merely to make the narrative more interesting to the western tradition. Since, in western eyes India is a land of sorcery and snake charmers, the existence of such a character would further buffet their pre-conceived notion of India.

Third, Divakaruni’s portrayal of Karna. I don’t think Karna is really the unfortunate hero wronged and battered by a cruel destiny. In the original Vyasa Mahabharata he plays an important role in instigating and supporting Duryodhana in all his wrong, shameful deeds. However, since this is an imaginative re-telling I guess Divakaruni has taken liberty in her portrayal of characters.

Nevertheless, the novel has many strong points which in my view make it one of the best imaginative re-telling of Mahabharata. It has a mesmerising lyrical writing style just like the enchanting tunes of Krishna’s flute, coherent story-line, non-linear narration which renders a dream like quality to it, strong, well-rounded protagonists and finally my favourite the enchanting character of Krishna whose mere presence soothed not only the characters in the novel but also the readers.

I would recommend this novel to anyone who wants to hear Mahabharata from a different voice and perspective or to anyone who is looking for a beautiful novel, I am sure this novel will mesmerize you just as it did to my five years younger self.

I end my review of this lyrical novel with one of my favourite lines from it:

“Time is the great eraser, both of sorrow and of joy.”

My rating – 4 stars