The Palace of Illusions Read online

  Acclaim for Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's

  “An exotic escapist tale.… With The Palace of Illusions… Divakaruni has proven that her storytelling talents put her right up there with the best.”

  —The Miami Herald

  “Divakaruni, renowned for her skillful take on women's relation ships, creates a very believable character in Panchaali, a queen who must choose between making history or following her true desires.”

  —The Oregonian

  “A lyrical tale imbued with the scent of ancient incense yet… rooted in modern day relevancy.”

  —BookPage

  “Full of wonders.… Draupadi is a complex, impassioned heroine with a wry sense of humor, and the women who surround her are fierce and uncompromising.”

  —The Onion A.V. Club

  “Introduces Western readers to an ancient mythology—this time with complicated, strong, memorable heroines.”

  —San Antonio Express-News

  “Divakaruni has taken a male-centered story and breathed new life into its female characters, giving us a rich tale of passion and love, power and weakness, honor and humiliation.… Entertaining, insightful, and suspenseful.”

  —The Union

  “A novel look at [an] ancient Indian epic.”

  —New York Post

  “The Palace of Illusions is not only an exciting, action-packed read, but also an educating one, and will likely encourage those curious enough to delve into the original Mahabharata.”

  —The Toronto Star

  “As grand and tragic as the epic poems by Homer.… Divakaruni's best work yet.”

  —Bookreporter

  “[Divakaruni's] women are desperate, wonderful, complicated, lyrical, memorable, even magical.… Daring.”

  —Vogue India

  “The Palace of Illusions is unique, amongst Divakaruni's very best.… A creative, illuminating feminist work that compels us to re examine the original text.”

  —India Currents

  “Imaginative.… Poignantly told.”

  —Hindustan Times

  Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the author of the bestselling novels Queen of Dreams, The Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, and The Vine of Desire, and of the prize-winning story collections Arranged Marriage and The Unknown Errors of Our Lives. She lives in Houston, Texas, and teaches creative writing at the University of Houston.

  www.chitradivakaruni.com

  Queen of Dreams

  The Vine of Desire

  The Unknown Errors of Our Lives

  Sister of My Heart

  The Mistress of Spices

  Arranged Marriage

  Poetry

  Leaving Yuba City

  Black Candle

  For Young Readers

  The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming

  The Conch Bearer

  Neela: Victory Song

  Abhay

  Anand

  Murthy

  Who is your sister? I am she.

  Who is your mother? I am she.

  Day dawns the same for you and me.

  From Innana's Journey to Hell,

  3rd Millennium BCE,

  translated from Sumerian by N. K. Sandars

  My deepest thanks to:

  My agent, Sandra Dijkstra, and my editor,

  Deb Futter, for guidance

  Antonya Nelson and Kim Chernin

  for encouragement

  My mother, Tatini Banerjee, and my mother-in-

  law, Sita Divakaruni, for good wishes

  Murthy, Anand, and Abhay for love

  Baba Muktananda, Swami Chinmayananda, and

  Swami Vidyadhishananda for blessing.

  Like many Indian children, I grew up on the vast, varied, and fascinating tales of the Mahabharat. Set at the end of what the Hindu scriptures term Dvapar Yug or the Third Age of Man (which many scholars date between 6000 BCE and 5000 BCE), a time when the lives of men and gods still intersected, the epic weaves myth, history, religion, science, philosophy, superstition, and statecraft into its innumerable stories-within-stories to create a rich and teeming world filled with psychological complexity. It moves with graceful felicity between the very recognizable human world and magical realms where yakshas and apsaras roam, depicting these with such exquisite surety that I would often wonder if indeed there was more to existence than what logic and my senses could grasp.

  At the core of the epic lies the fierce rivalry between two branches of the Kuru dynasty, the Pandavas and the Kauravas. The lifelong struggle between the cousins for the throne of Hastinapur culminates in the bloody battle of Kurukshetra, in which most kings of that period participated and perished. But numerous other characters people the world of the Mahabharat and contribute to its magnetism and continuing relevance. These larger-than-life heroes, epitomizing inspiring virtues and deadly vices, etched many cautionary morals into my child-consciousness. Some of my favorites, who play prominent roles in The Palace of Illusions, are: Vyasa the sage, at once the composer of the epic and a participant at crucial moments in the action; Krishna, beloved and inscrutable, an incarnation of Vishnu and mentor to the Pandavas; Bheeshma, the patriarch who, bound by his promise to protect the Kuru throne, must fight against his beloved grandsons; Drona, the brahmin-warrior who becomes teacher to both the Kaurava and Pandava princes; Drupad, the king of Panchaal, whose desire for vengeance against Drona activates the wheel of destiny; and Karna, the great warrior, who is doomed because he does not know his parentage.

  But always, listening to the stories of the Mahabharat as a young girl in the lantern-lit evenings at my grandfather's village home, or later, poring over the thousand-page leather-bound volume in my parents' home in Kolkata, I was left unsatisfied by the portrayals of the women. It wasn't as though the epic didn't have powerful, complex women characters that affected the action in major ways. For instance, there was the widowed Kunti, mother of the Pandavas, who dedicates her life to making sure her sons became kings. There was Gandhari, wife of the sightless Kaurava king, who chooses to blindfold herself at marriage, thus relinquishing her power as queen and mother. And most of all, there was Panchaali (also known as Draupadi), King Drupad's beautiful daughter, who has the unique distinction of being married to five men at the same time—the five Pandava brothers, the greatest heroes of their time. Panchaali who, some might argue, by her headstrong actions helps to bring about the destruction of the Third Age of Man. But in some way, they remained shadowy figures, their thoughts and motives mysterious, their emotions portrayed only when they affected the lives of the male heroes, their roles ultimately subservient to those of their fathers or husbands, brothers or sons.

  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. Better still, 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. And who could be better suited for this than Panchaali?

  It is her life, her voice, her questions, and her vision that I invite you into in The Palace of Illusions.

  ASWATTHAMA: Drona's son

  DHRISTADYUMNA: Brother of Panchaali (often referred to as Dhri)

  DRONA: Teacher of warcraft for the Kaurava and Pandava princes; teacher of Dhristadyumna

  DRUPAD: King of Panchaal, father of Panchaali (Draupadi) and her twin brother Dhristadyumna; onetime friend and now enemy of Drona

  KARNA: Best friend of Duryodhan and rival of Arjun; king
of Anga; as an infant he was discovered floating on the Ganga river and was brought up by Adhiratha the chariot driver

  KEECHAK: Sudeshna's brother and commander of the Matsya army

  KRISHNA: Incarnation of the god Vishnu; ruler of the Yadu clan; mentor to the Pandavas and Arjun's best friend; dear friend to Panchaali; brother of Subhadra, who marries Arjun

  SUDESHNA: Virat's queen; Uttara's mother

  VIRAT: Aged king of Matsya; Uttara's father

  VIDUR: Chief minister of Dhritarashtra and friend to the orphaned Pandavas

  VYASA: Omniscient sage and composer of the Mahabharat who also appears in it as a character

  1

  Through the long, lonely years of my childhood, when my father's palace seemed to tighten its grip around me until I couldn't breathe, I would go to my nurse and ask for a story. And though she knew many wondrous and edifying tales, the one I made her tell me over and over was the story of my birth. I think I liked it so much because it made me feel special, and in those days there was little else in my life that did. Perhaps Dhai Ma realized this. Perhaps that was why she agreed to my demands even though we both knew I should be using my time more gainfully, in ways more befitting the daughter of King Drupad, ruler of Panchaal, one of the richest kingdoms in the continent of Bharat.

  The story inspired me to make up fancy names for myself: Offspring of Vengeance, or the Unexpected One. But Dhai Ma puffed out her cheeks at my tendency to drama, calling me the Girl Who Wasn't Invited. Who knows, perhaps she was more accurate than I.

  This winter afternoon, sitting cross-legged in the meager sunlight that managed to find its way through my slit of a window, she said, “When your brother stepped out of the sacrificial fire onto the cold stone slabs of the palace hall, all the assembly cried out in amazement.”

  She was shelling peas. I watched her flashing fingers with envy, wishing she would let me help. But Dhai Ma had very specific ideas about activities that were appropriate for princesses.

  “An eyeblink later,” she continued, “when you emerged from the fire, our jaws dropped. It was so quiet, you could have heard a housefly fart.”

  I reminded her that flies do not perform that particular bodily function.

  She smiled her squint-eyed, cunning smile. “Child, the things you don't know would fill the milky ocean where Lord Vishnu sleeps—and spill over its edges.”

  I considered being offended, but I wanted to hear the story. So I held my tongue, and after a moment she picked up the tale again.

  “We'd been praying for thirty days, from sun-up to sundown. All of us: your father, the hundred priests he'd invited to Kampilya to perform the fire ceremony, headed by that shifty-eyed pair, Yaja and Upayaja, the queens, the ministers, and of course the servants. We'd been fasting, too—not that we were given a choice—just one meal, each evening, of flattened rice soaked in milk. King Drupad wouldn't eat even that. He only drank water carried up from the holy Ganga, so that the gods would feel obligated to answer his prayers.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He was thin as the point of a sword, and hard like it, too. You could count every bone on him. His eyes, sunk deep into their sockets, glittered like black pearls. He could barely hold up his head, but of course he wouldn't remove that monstrosity of a crown that no one has ever seen him without—not even his wives, I've heard, not even in bed.”

  Dhai Ma had a good eye for detail. Father was, even now, much the same, though age—and the belief that he was finally close to getting what he'd wanted for so long—had softened his impatience.

  “Some people,” she continued, “thought he was going to die, but I had no such fears. Anyone who wanted revenge as badly as your royal father did wouldn't let go of body and breath so easily.” She chewed ruminatively on a handful of peas.

  “Finally,” I prompted her, “it was the thirtieth day.”

  “And I for one was heartily thankful. Milk and rice husk is all very well for priests and widows, but give me fish curry with green chilies and tamarind pickle any day! Besides, my throat was scraped raw from gabbling all those unpronounceable Sanskrit words. And my buttocks, I swear, they were flat as chapatis from sitting on that freezing stone floor.

  “But I was scared, too, and stealing a glance here and there, I saw I wasn't the only one. What if the fire ceremony didn't work the way the scriptures had claimed it would? Would King Drupad put us all to death, claiming we hadn't prayed hard enough? Once I'd have laughed if someone had suggested our king might do that. But things had changed since the day when Drona appeared at court.”

  I wanted to ask about Drona, but I knew what she'd say.

  Impatient as mustard seeds sputtering in oil, that's what you are, even though you're old enough to be married off any day now! Each story will come in its time.

  “So when your royal father stood up and poured that last pot of ghee into the flames, we all held our breath. I prayed harder than I'd ever done in my life—though it wasn't for your brother I was praying, not exactly. Kallu, who was cook's apprentice then, had been courting me, and I didn't want to die before I'd experienced the joys of having a man in my bed. But now that we've been married for seven years—” Here Dhai Ma paused to snort at the folly of her younger self.

  If she got onto the subject of Kallu, I wouldn't hear the rest of the story today.

  “Then the smoke rose,” I interjected, with experienced dexterity.

  She allowed herself to be pulled back into the tale. “Yes, and a spiraling, nasty-smelling black smoke it was, with voices in it. The voices said, Here is the son you asked for. He'll bring you the vengeance you desire, but it'll break your life in two.

  “I don't care about that, your father said. Give him to me.

  “And then your brother stepped from the fire.”

  I sat up straight to listen better. I loved this part of the story. “What did he look like?”

  “He was a true prince, that one! His brow was noble. His face shone like gold. Even his clothes were golden. He stood tall and unafraid, though he couldn't have been more than five years old. But his eyes troubled me. They were too soft. I said to myself, How can this boy avenge King Drupad? How can he kill a fearsome warrior like Drona?“

  I worried about my brother, too, though in a different way. He would succeed in completing the task he was born for, I had no doubt of that. He did everything with such meticulous care. But what would it do to him?

  I didn't want to think of it. I said, “And then?”

  Dhai Ma made a face. “Can't wait till you appear, eh, Madam Full of Yourself?” Then she relented.

  “Even before we'd finished cheering and clapping, even before your father had a chance to greet your brother, you appeared. You were as dark as he was fair, as hasty as he was calm. Coughing from the smoke, tripping over the hem of your sari, grabbing for his hand and almost sending him tumbling, too—”

  “But we didn't fall!”

  “No. Somehow you managed to hold each other up. And then the voices came again. They said, Behold, we give you this girl, a gift beyond what you asked for. Take good care of her, for she will change the course of history.“

  “‘Change the course of history‘! Did they really say that?”

  Dhai Ma shrugged. “That's what the priests claimed. Who can tell for sure? You know how sounds boom and echo in that hall. The king looked startled, but then he picked the two of you up, holding you close to his chest. For the first time in years, I saw him smile. He said to your brother, I name you Dhristadyumna. He said to you, I name you Draupadi. And then we had the best feast this kingdom has ever seen.”

  As Dhai Ma counted out the feast foods on her fingers, smacking her lips in happy remembrance, my attention veered to the meaning of the names our father chose. Dhristadyumna, Destroyer of Enemies. Draupadi, Daughter of Drupad.

  Dhri's name fell within the bounds of acceptability—though if I were his parent I might have picked a more cheerful appellation, like Celesti
al Victor, or Light of the Universe. But Daughter of Drupad? Granted, he hadn't been expecting me, but couldn't my father have come up with something a little less egoistic? Something more suited to a girl who was supposed to change history?

  I answered to Draupadi for the moment because I had no choice. But in the long run, it would not do. I needed a more heroic name.

  Nights, after Dhai Ma had retired to her quarters, I lay on my high, hard bed with its massive posts and watched the oil lamp fling flickery shadows against the pocked stone of the walls. I thought of the prophecy then, with yearning and fear. I wanted it to be true. But did I have the makings of a heroine—courage, perseverance, an unbending will? And shut up as I was inside this mausoleum of a palace, how would history even find me?

  But most of all I thought of something that Dhai Ma didn't know, something that ate at me like the rust corroding the bars on my window: what really happened when I stepped from the fire.

  If there were voices, as Dhai Ma claimed, prophesying my life in a garbled roar, they hadn't come yet. The orange lick of flames fell away; the air was suddenly cold. The ancient hall smelled of incense, and under it, an older smell: war-sweat and hatred. A gaunt, glittering man walked toward my brother and me as we stood hand in hand. He held out his arms—but for my brother alone. It was only my brother he meant to raise up to show to his people. Only my brother that he wanted. Dhri wouldn't let go of me, however, nor I of him. We clung together so stubbornly that my father was forced to pick us both up together.

  I didn't forget that hesitation, even though in the years that followed King Drupad was careful to fulfill his fatherly duty and provide me with everything he believed a princess should have. Sometimes, when I pressed him, he even allowed me privileges he kept from his other daughters. In his own harsh and obsessive way, he was generous, maybe even indulgent. But I couldn't forgive him that initial rejection. Perhaps that was why, as I grew from a girl into a young woman, I didn't trust him completely.