Rating:
A proud, egoistical princess. A proud, illegitimate prince. Five noble husbands. A 100 enemies. A divine ally and a war which will change the face of Bharath forever. Of course, I'm talking about the greatest of all the Indian mythological epics - the Mahabharata. And Chitra Benerjee Divakaruni's thoroughly involving version, the Palace of Illusions.
'Palace of Illusions' is the Mahabharata re-told from the feminine perspective and who better to take us through it than the woman who will be the cause of the Great War - the exquisite Princess Draupadi.
We follow Draupadi from her extraordinary birth through her teenage years, and get to know her as the little bit of woman in every one of us - spoiled, egoistical, foolish in love and with the desire to do great things to chart her course in history, and come to know the woman she becomes. A woman moulded by the fire which gave birth to her and flamed by the desire for vengeance until her future lies scorched in the blazing heat of that same spark she ignites.
Divakaruni's handling of Draupadi's thoughts, wishes and dseires is masterful, making the woman who seems to be an enigma in the original version of the great epic come to life between her pages. But, she is of course at her best with the effective, imaginative prose layered all through the story, and also describing simple people like Dhai Ma. One can imagine one's favorite grandmother or dai bent over a stove and ladling out the same effective doses of wisdom. And the treatment of Krishna is inspired! He is fun-loving, caring, taunting, a wise councillor, a dreaded enemy, but always that little bit inscrutable, much as every account of the God seems to relate.
It is not easy to retell a story which most Indian knows the salient points of and keep it fresh, but Ms. Divakaruni manages this with astonishing ease with her first person POV. She evidently has the epic well-in-hand as she uses tales out of chronology to illustrate a point, such as the story of Ekalavya, Drona's hapless disciple.
Possibly the only shortcoming I find with this book was that it was brief, but how can one condense the Mahabharata anyway. I did find myself wishing that Ms. Divakaruni had used her ample imagination and vivid prose to explore the other feminine perspectives too, Kunti comes to mind. Possibly the other disappointment was that with saddling herself with a biased point of view, we dont get any insight to the one character who is the most tantalising and mysterious of them all - Karna. I think I will have to look up Shivaji Sawant's much-acclaimed Mrityunjay after all!!!
'Palace of Illusions' is the Mahabharata re-told from the feminine perspective and who better to take us through it than the woman who will be the cause of the Great War - the exquisite Princess Draupadi.
We follow Draupadi from her extraordinary birth through her teenage years, and get to know her as the little bit of woman in every one of us - spoiled, egoistical, foolish in love and with the desire to do great things to chart her course in history, and come to know the woman she becomes. A woman moulded by the fire which gave birth to her and flamed by the desire for vengeance until her future lies scorched in the blazing heat of that same spark she ignites.
Divakaruni's handling of Draupadi's thoughts, wishes and dseires is masterful, making the woman who seems to be an enigma in the original version of the great epic come to life between her pages. But, she is of course at her best with the effective, imaginative prose layered all through the story, and also describing simple people like Dhai Ma. One can imagine one's favorite grandmother or dai bent over a stove and ladling out the same effective doses of wisdom. And the treatment of Krishna is inspired! He is fun-loving, caring, taunting, a wise councillor, a dreaded enemy, but always that little bit inscrutable, much as every account of the God seems to relate.
It is not easy to retell a story which most Indian knows the salient points of and keep it fresh, but Ms. Divakaruni manages this with astonishing ease with her first person POV. She evidently has the epic well-in-hand as she uses tales out of chronology to illustrate a point, such as the story of Ekalavya, Drona's hapless disciple.
Possibly the only shortcoming I find with this book was that it was brief, but how can one condense the Mahabharata anyway. I did find myself wishing that Ms. Divakaruni had used her ample imagination and vivid prose to explore the other feminine perspectives too, Kunti comes to mind. Possibly the other disappointment was that with saddling herself with a biased point of view, we dont get any insight to the one character who is the most tantalising and mysterious of them all - Karna. I think I will have to look up Shivaji Sawant's much-acclaimed Mrityunjay after all!!!
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