The Palace of Illusions

Dear Diary,

Guess who has woke again? It is me! Well, yes once again. This time the reason is a bit different. Usually, I am not able to sleep at night, you know, because of COFFEE! Sometimes binge watching series counts as well but not today. I had been reading this book named “The Palace of Illusions”. Strange as it sounds, it affected me as weirdly as it could have had. The whole journey with this book has been different for me.

One day, while randomly searching on “Books everyone must read” on Google, I stumbled upon this list having ten world best sellers. When the title “The Palace of Illusions” caught my eye, I longed to wait what the book originally was about. Upon further investigation (just like a detective) I conquered that the book explicitly took a deep dive into the times of the holy and great Sanskrit epics of all time. I never really read the whole ‘Granth’ (book) but I was aware of the story.

The twist here was the narration was done by Panchali (Draupadi as famously known), you may denote her as the heroine of The Mahabharata. It was a mere thought in my mind that what could be the difference. Thus, the thought of the book vanished away from my head and I got busy in my regular studies. You remember right, how peaceful and lazy my five days of Diwali vacation was and dad took me to the book sale where you got each book at rupees fifty. I got a few books from the store and while extended the budget for the day and I felt like paradise come to earth, my eyes stuck to a green cover which was outside the sale part.

I take it out from the selves to cough due to the thick coating of dust on it and remember the title from my subconscious mind (how intelligent of me see!). It didn’t take long for me to remember that it is merely The Mahabharata, but something about its cover made me buy it (“Never judge a book by its cover.” does not apply to me). I bought it with a good bargain and returned home.

Now the book stayed in my huge little library since the day it was brought, except it did not get a layer of dust on top of it once again, while I prepared for my senior year exams. Once in a while it came to my mind that should open the book and take a peek inside it but merely did I get any time to do the same. As my exam finished, it was time to enjoy nothing but Corona Virus isolation *fake smiles*. So while I sat getting bored, more bored and more bored. I decided to walk to my library thing, open the door and pick out a book to read it. Gracefully, I picked up the green beauty lying there for more than six months.

My eyes began to run through the text which was written about twelve years ago, which was basically from scriptures which were written thousands of years ago, thus basically I was reading a tale from about an ancient time, right? Though, when I started to intrigue more into this novel, I found it fanatically fantastic. The words enraged the imagination inside me, I felt like Draupadi was me or say it another way I was playing her role. Say her a warrior without swords, the most beautiful princess of all time, she who was born out of the fire, the reason for a war, that open-mouthed blabbering girl who fought for self-esteem and justice.

I have started adoring Panchaali and Mrs. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni who wrote this book. I started reading this book last afternoon and then I did not put it down until I completed it this evening. Now, I am not able to sleep at all. Panchali survived a lot of hardships, had to be harassed in front of the courtroom just because her husbands lost at the game of dice. Her pain when his husbands married other women, and her secret admiration for someone who was their enemy, her friendship with Lord Krishna.

How could someone write so beautifully? Did Divakaruni feel the same emotions, the ones I did while reading her work? Did she go through all the scriptures to form this one book? The questions are making me entangled into the world of her book. Oddly as it seems again, she writes the death beautifully, which made me want to cry but I held back the tears as I was surrounded by my parents. Again, her hardships blew my mind off, she fought for her rights but remained loyal to her husbands no matter what happened. Somehow, her friendship with Lord Krishna made me jealous, not because he was God but because he was the most loyal friend plus adviser. I just wish to have someone like him in my life as well.

I do feel like sleeping anymore, I wish to get lost into the world of The Mahabharata where the heroic wars took place, though I am still scared of what loss the wars bring, I am scared of the trance into which one goes after these take place. And what happens when one dies, do hell and heaven really exist? I guess that will remain a mystery forever, for everyone who resides on this earth. Is that not true?

It feels like a movie now, like this all has been scripted, just like The Mahabharata. Each of us will have to go through this war whether we fight inside the battlefield or not. Skeptical yet true, there is no one to answer anyways. I rather keep these questions to myself and see if there will be someone in this world who will come to me to answer. If so, I am sure I will come back to this page and rewrite the answers so that you can know. Right now, I pray to God that no dangers envy us and we all live a prosperous life.