I finished reading The Palace of Illusions a couple of days ago and I absolutely loved it! Chitra Banerjee has taken the Mahabharat from an all male centered epic and shown it to us from the eyes of Draupadi.
If you do not know the Mahabharat story, it is the epic story of the Kauravas and the Pandavas (who are cousins) which leads to one of the most well known battles of all time - The Battle at Kurukshetra. When you read the Mahabharat, you read about all the men and their roles towards this battle. You don't hear much about the women. When I read this book, it gave insights to everything Draupadi went through her entire life from childhood, to her marriage of the five Pandavas brothers to the battle.
The way she has written this book makes you really lose yourself into the character. Draupadi is a powerful woman and is really stubborn in the way she thinks which, after reading this book made me realise that maybe I shouldn't be as stubborn as I am.
With this book and looking at it from her side of the story, I want to read the Mahabharat because this book doesn't delve so much into the past, before she was born. There are only bits and pieces of some stories and I want to know more about it.
Like I mentioned above, the one thing that I did learn from this is that sometimes it's not good to be stubborn. If Draupadi had let go of her anger and not been so stubborn, then maybe she wouldn't have influenced her husbands and the battle wouldn't have happened in the first place.
So yes, sometimes letting go of your anger and being less stubborn will help you in the long run. If the consequences of Draupadi's actions won't make you realise it, I don't think anything will.
S
If you do not know the Mahabharat story, it is the epic story of the Kauravas and the Pandavas (who are cousins) which leads to one of the most well known battles of all time - The Battle at Kurukshetra. When you read the Mahabharat, you read about all the men and their roles towards this battle. You don't hear much about the women. When I read this book, it gave insights to everything Draupadi went through her entire life from childhood, to her marriage of the five Pandavas brothers to the battle.
The way she has written this book makes you really lose yourself into the character. Draupadi is a powerful woman and is really stubborn in the way she thinks which, after reading this book made me realise that maybe I shouldn't be as stubborn as I am.
With this book and looking at it from her side of the story, I want to read the Mahabharat because this book doesn't delve so much into the past, before she was born. There are only bits and pieces of some stories and I want to know more about it.
Like I mentioned above, the one thing that I did learn from this is that sometimes it's not good to be stubborn. If Draupadi had let go of her anger and not been so stubborn, then maybe she wouldn't have influenced her husbands and the battle wouldn't have happened in the first place.
So yes, sometimes letting go of your anger and being less stubborn will help you in the long run. If the consequences of Draupadi's actions won't make you realise it, I don't think anything will.
S
