Tomichan Matheikal's blog

The last book I read is a novel, The Palace of Illusions , by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.  Like the Mahabharata, which is retold from the point of view of Draupadi, this novel has the potential to spark infinite thoughts in the reader.  Karna comes across in the novel as a man of nobility, loyalty, pride and, above all, uncomplaining acceptance of the injustices of his life.  Anger seethes within him and yet he is capable of great forgiveness.  Destiny was particularly harsh towards Karna.  He was born of a frivolous experiment carried out by Kunti who had not yet grown out of her childhood but was given a boon by the irascible sage Durvasa.  The boon was a mantra with which she could invoke any god and have a son by that god.  Kunti plays with the mantra even as a child might play with her new toy.  It is none other than the sun god whom she invokes.  Karna is the offshoot.  Terrified by the disgrace that might visit her for gi...

Book Review The Mahabharata is a complex work.  Gods, demons and human beings interact freely making us wonder what really distinguishes one from the other.  Who is good and who is bad?  What is morality?  What is dharma?  The fabulous epic does not give very clear answers to these questions.  Is the complexity and inscrutability an integral part of the cosmic plan that unfolds in a process which we cannot alter much?  In other words, are we puppets in that cosmic game?  Do we really have free will? Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel, The Palace of Illusions , is a retelling of the great epic from the point of view of Panchali, as Draupadi likes to call herself in the book.  The plot is the same.  The very same characters not leaving out the man-like gods and the whimsical sages.  The point of view is different and that matters pretty much. Panchali is a rebel in Banerjee Divakaruni’s retelling of the epic.  “...

Book Review Title: The Difficulty of Being Good Author: Gurcharan Das Publisher: Penguin India, 2012 The Mahabharata is an epic that can be interpreted in numerous ways.  As Gurcharan Das says, “It is a cosmic allegory of the eternal struggle between good and evil on one plane.  At another level, it is about an all-too-human fight between the cousins of a royal family, which leads to a war and ends tragically in the death of almost everyone.  At a third level – and this is primarily the subject of my book – it is about the crisis of conscience of some of its characters.” Das spent six years studying the epic, having taken an “academic holiday” from his successful career as a writer.  Before turning to fulltime writing, Das worked with multinational companies.  The prevalence of evil in the world of human beings set Das on a kind of spiritual quest.  The Difficulty of Being Good was the outcome.  The book is an intellec...