Week 6: Reading A. Palace of Illusions

Palace of Illusions by Chitra Divakaruni

Here are my notes for the first five chapters; I really like the way that each chapter has a single word as its title. I also really like Chitra's description of the project she envisioned even before she wrote this book:

If I ever wrote a book, I remember thinking (though at that time I didn't really believe this would ever happen), I would place the women in the forefront of the action. I would uncover the story that lay invisible between the lines of the men's exploits. ... I would have one of them tell it herself, with all her joys and doubts, her struggles and her triumphs, her heartbreaks, her achievements, the unique female way in which she sees her world and her place in it.

Yes!

1 Fire. This is the fire from which Draupadi emerges with her twin brother Dhri.

2 Blue. This is for Draupadi's dark skin, and the even darker skin of Krishna. I really like the anecdote about Draupadi being perceived as beautiful when she decided to act as if she were, all on Krishna's advice.

3 Milk. Milk is for the story of Drona and Drupada, as told back-and-forth by Draupadi and Dhri. I really like their back-and-forth storytelling. If I decide to do a story inspired by the novel, I would enjoy doing an incident later in their lives when they might trade a story back and forth like that. At a certain point when Dhri doesn't like where the story is headed, he uses this metaphor to take over the telling:

“You're looking at the story through the wrong window,” he said. “You've got to close it and open a different one. Here, I'll do it.”

I also really like the idea that Drona's attack on Drupada is when Draupadi first learns of Arjuna! What drama! She says, "for me Arjun was the most exciting part of the story" (of Drona and the guru dakshina).

Plus the moment when Drona literally breathes out his anger is pretty amazing:

the anger that the brahmin had carried smoldering within him all these years left his body with his out-breath in the form of dark vapor, and he was at peace.

And then Drupada breathes it in... with disastrous results of course, despite his pretended new equality with Drona: "what started with milk could end one day in blood."

4 Cosmology. In this section Draupadi eavesdrops on Dhri's education, including his education in the astras that will be such a powerful part of the Mahabharata. Dhri wants her to pray for his victory in battle, not for his safe return, but Draupadi swears she will not pray that way for her brother or husbands or sons: "I promised myself I'd never pray for their deaths. I'd teach them, instead, to be survivors."

5 Smoke. This was Draupadi's amazing encounter with Vyasa, who is already writing the story of her life! And he tells her, "Only a fool meddles in the Great Design." He gives her three warnings (what a great way to structure the later adventures of her life, like a fairy tale!). And the chapter ends with that mystery of having witnessed Vyasa and also Ganesha together writing the Mahabharata, so cool!

I considered the mystery of the book the sage showed me, the story of my life. How could such a book be written before I'd lived the incidents it described? Did this mean that I had no control over what was to happen?

(Vyasa and Ganesha)