This part started with the fire in the forest, the palace, and then the fateful trip to Hastinapura. This is almost exactly the middle of the book too, so it's very artfully set up, with those happy years in the "Palace of Illusions" leading to the pivot in the middle of a book.
19 Palace. This Maya is an odd one! The story picks up after the burning of the forest. Draupadi finally realizes that Bhima loves her. Here is Arjuna, singed by the fire: "The ends of Arjun's long hair were singed. He was still carrying the giant bow that the god of fire had given him. It had a name, he had told us: Gandiva."
Here's an intense description of Maya: "His fleck-brown eyes glittered. Later I'd wonder, was it malice I'd glimpsed in them? Along with gratitude, he must have harbored rage and sorrow, his home reduced to cinders around him, his companions dead or scattered forever."
20 Wives. We don't really learn a lot about the other wives from Draupadi. There's some description of Subhadra, but not friendship. It seems to me Draupadi could have used a friend. I love this metaphor: "If they were pearls, I was the gold wire on which they were strung. Alone, they would have scattered, each to his dusty corner."
21 Afterlife. I had never thought about the provocation for the rajasuya; it comes from Narada provoking the Pandavas with tales of Pandu in Naraka.
22 Discus. Seeing the encounter between Krishna and Shishupala through Draupadi's eyes is so cool, and I really appreciate the way it crystalizes the intensity of her connection to Krishna and his irresistible otherness. Could Krishna really be a god? "What if there were, in truth, worlds upon worlds invisible to ordinary mortals the ways stars are in the daytime? What if the gods did come down, from time to time, to live among us and guide our destinies?"
Krishna's final insult/order to Shishupala is great: “I promised to forgive you a hundred insults,” Krishna said to Sisupal, his voice conversational. “You crossed that number long ago, but I was patient, knowing that you weren't too skilled at counting.”
There is a moment where Draupadi thinks Krishna can read her mind. Can he...?
23 Lake. This is the pond where Duryodhana humiliates himself. I really like the idea that it is not that there was water he did not see it, but instead that there are bridges across a garden lake, but only one of the bridges is real; the rest are illusions. My favorite moment in the reading this time was when Draupadi wonders if maybe the spell was cast on them, not on the palace: "Or had Maya laid a spell not upon the palace foundations but on us, so that the beauties we doted on had no existence outside of our own longing?" It reminds me of the people in Oz required to wear green spectacles to make the Emerald City look green! But she decides that is not it; the palace was, indeed, magical.
I also love the idea that from the beginning, Shakuni had been losing at gambling to Yudhishthira on purpose to lure him in for a future defeat.
(Note to self: the story of Shakuni the survivor.)
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