Book review - The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

First things first, before this book I had never read Mahabharat or never saw it on TV because of its hugeness. Though I had heard lot of stories from it but never got a chance to complete it in any format. And, let me be honest, one of the reasons I didn't read this greatest epic because I never liked the character of Krishna. But this book just did the enlightenment.

Hats off to Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni for writing the most of the story of Mahabharat in just 360 pages. I wrote words "most of the story" in previous line because she missed/skipped some of the stories which I have heard. This is acceptable because this is not the complete Mahabharat but is the story of the Pandavs' wife Draupadi.

Draupadi is a character which is considered as the reason of the war because of her laugh & comment made on Duryodhan and a question she asked Karn. The author wrote brilliantly about Draupadi's birth, her lonely childhood with only his brother and her Dai Ma as her companions, her love, marriage, post-marriage love, her role in war and explain why Draupadi did those things and why she remained helpless though her future was told to her by Sage Vyas. Author explained every aspect of her character. The way she was attached to his brother and their talks about the stories behind their birth and why their father wants revenge from Dron-Acharya. The story of Dron and his son asking for milk is a touching one.

Draupadi's friendship with Krishna is also very beautifully written. As I said earlier, I didn't like Krishna before but after reading this I realized how intelligent and an enlightened one he was. He was there every time when Draupadi needed him. Though, he sometimes made Draupadi's mind spin by confusing her with his words.

One thing I liked most about this book is that it is full of love. Love between brother-sister, love between Draupadi-Krishna, an untold love between Karn-Draupadi, a shared love of five brothers and also love of power of Arjun & Duryodhan.

It also has hateness. The hateness of Draupadi towards her father and his queens. The hateness of Draupadi towards Karn after her cheer-haran. Her hateness towards Yudhistar on putting her on line in a gamble game and loosing her. Her hateness towards her husbands, Bhism-Pitama, Dron-Acharya who stood helplessly when her clothes were being removed in palace. Her hateness towards Kunti- which later turned into sympathy.

The two lucky ones towards whom Draupadi never showed any signs of hateness were Krishna and her palace - The Palace of Illusions.

I didn't remember if there was any boring paragraph. The story keeps on getting interesting with every chapter. I recommend this book to everyone.

In one line I would say that this book is a great mixture of history, love, hate and power.