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| Illustration by Gemini AI |
“Krishna touches my hand. If you can call it a hand,
these pinpricks of light that are newly coalescing into the shape of fingers
and palm. At his touch something breaks, a chain that was tied to the
woman-shape crumpled on the snow below. I am buoyant and expansive and
uncontainable – but I always was so, only I never knew it! I am beyond the name
and gender and the imprisoning patterns of ego. And yet, for the first time, I’m
truly Panchali. I reach with my other hand for Karna – how surprisingly solid
his clasp! Above us our palace waits, the only one I’ve ever needed. Its walls
are space, its floor is sky, its center everywhere. We rise; the shapes cluster
around us in welcome, dissolving and forming and dissolving again like
fireflies in a summer evening.”
What is quoted above is the final
paragraph of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel The Palace of Illusions
which I reread in the last few days merely because I had time on my hands and
this book happened to catch my attention as I stood before my bookshelf four
days ago. Good books can be read again and again with new lessons sinking into
you each time. This one was no different though it’s little more than a
retelling of the epic from the point of view of Draupadi aka Panchali.
The Mahabharata is one of the most
complex books you can ever read because it has layers and layers of meanings.
For example, the character of Yudhishthir. He is a gambler who loses everything
including their common and beloved wife Draupadi. Yet this man turns out to be
most righteous in the epic, more righteous than even Krishna who is an
incarnation of God. In the character of Yudhishthir, Vyasa offers us a profound,
non-dogmatic understanding of dharma which is “subtle” according to Bhishma who
is another staunch advocate of dharma.
Dharma is subtle because human life
is complex. There are no easy answers to most vital questions in our individual
lives. Why did Karna have to suffer all through his life for no fault of his? Why
did Arjuna stand impotent on the battlefield though he was the best of the warriors
with perhaps the sole exception of Karna? [I say ‘perhaps’ because Ekalavya
rises with fury in my consciousness – rebelling against the entire “subtle” dharma
of the epic.]
I don’t wish to go into those
details, however; I wish to focus on Draupadi, Divakaruni’s protagonist. I
loved this Draupadi. Not because she is a feminist, which she is. But because
of the fire in her soul. It is that fire which burns in the last lines of the
novel, which I have quoted at the start of this post. Let me come to that
paragraph in a little detail.
They are faced with the worthlessness
of it all. Renunciation of power and earthly delights is the only option left
to their guilt-ridden, grief-ridden souls. And so they leave for the Himalayas –
their final journey on earth. Climb the peaks until your peak takes you
to the next world. No one is supposed to look back on the way.
Draupadi falls and she is left behind
to die. Each of them will fall when they reach the level beyond which their
individual flaw won’t let them proceed. What is Draupadi’s flaw? Bheem wants to
know. Yudhishthir knows but he won’t tell the truth – in spite of his staunch
adherence to dharma and righteousness. The truth is that Draupadi loved Karna
more than all her five husbands.
The concluding paragraph of
Divakaruni’s novel brings Karna to the dying Draupadi. Of course, Karna was
dead long ago, during the war. Krishna was dead too, after the war. But they
are there now with the dying Draupadi, not physically, but as “pinpricks of
light” and a “solid” grasp. Krishna, who viewed life from a sublime position that
lay beyond dharma and righteousness which allowed him to be playful often and tricky
too when required, is a better guide than Yudhishthir with all his morality and
righteousness. And Karna is the object of her forbidden desire, the symbol of
human passion, pride, and the kind of love that’s destined to be tragic.
Yudhishthir and Bhisma, both
apparently ideal human beings in spite of their flaws, are “paralyzed” by their
dharma, Divakaruni’s Draupadi reflects while she lies dying on the way to her
Himalayan peak. Yudhishthir will reach heaven alone – without relatives and friends
– with his dharma. “Ultimate loneliness,” Draupadi calls the situation. [I
loved that part of the novel the most.] “The ultimate loneliness: to be the
only human in the court of the gods.”
Humans have passions and hence flaws.
That is why it is Karna who descends as a balm for the dying Draupadi. None of
her five husbands are there with her now. Krishna with his transcendent vision
of life and Karna with his robust passion are her final companions. I’m with
Draupadi here in her heaven that has space as walls and sky as floor – and a
dharma that transcends human codes and creeds + as much passion as I can still
muster.
PS. The above is my
personal interpretation of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel.
PPS. This post is a part of Blogchatter Half
Marathon 2025
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