I have been reading The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The author has placed Draupadi in the forefront of the action…her joys, doubts, struggles, triumphs, heartbreaks, achievements…
Presenting some of the excerpts that have touched my heart.

Dhai Ma says to young Draupadi:
…“Love comes like lightening and disappears the same way. If you are lucky it strikes you right…I advise you to forget about love, princess. Pleasure is simpler and duty more important. Learn to be satisfied by them”



Krishna says to Draupadi:
…“A problem becomes a problem only if you believe it to be so, and often others see you as you see yourself”…

…“As for being pawns , ar’nt we all pawns in the hands of Time, the greatest player of them all”…

When Draupadi asked Krishna what kind of palace He thought she should have, Krishna said: “Already you live within a nine-gated palace, the most wondrous structure of all. Understand it well: it will be your salvation or your downfall.”

Draupadi said: “If I am a queen I owe it to my palace.”
Krishna frowned and said: “Don’t be so attached to what is, after all, no more than metal and stone and asura sleight of hand. All things in this world change and pass away—some after many years, some overnight. Appreciate the Palace of Illusions, by all means. But if you identify so deeply with it, you set yourself up for sorrow.”

…Krishna gazed into my eyes. Was it love I saw in his face? If so, it was different in kind from all the loves I knew. Or perhaps the loves I had known had been something different, and this alone was love. It reached past my body, my thoughts, my shaking heart, into some part of me that I hadn’t known existed. My eyes closed of their own accord. I felt myself coming apart like the braided edge of a shawl, the threads reaching everywhere…

…Can’t you ever be serious? I asked mortified.
“It’s difficult,” He (Krishna) said. “There’s so little in life that’s worth it”….

…”They’re saying the gods are angry at Sisupal’s death.”
“Priests like to say such things” Krishna replied. He didn’t seem too concerned about the anger of the gods…

When Draupadi was being disrobed:
…The wind smelled of sandalwood. Krishna sat beside me on a cool stone bench. His glance was bright and tender. “No one can shame you, He said, if you don’t allow it”
It came to me in a wash of amazement, that He was right.
Let them stare at my nakedness I thought. Why should I care? They and not I should be ashamed for shattering the bounds of decency”.
Was that not miracle enough?
Krishna nodded. He took my hands. At His touch I felt my muscles relax, my fists open. He smiled, and I prepared to smile back…

… “A situation in itself is neither happy or unhappy. It’s only your response to it that gives you sorrow. But enough of philosophy, I am hungry…”

Krishna explains to Draupadi about hatred

…Suddenly Krishna reached out and pulled a half burnt stick from the fire. He thrust it at me so that I flinched back.
“What are you doing?” I cried startled and angry.
“Trying to show you something. The stick—it scared you right? It may even have hurt you, if you hadn’t been so quick. But look –in trying to burn you, It’s consuming itself. That’s what happens to a heart---“

Draupadi thinks later:
“I know you want me to drop my hatred, Krishna” I whispered, It’s the one thing you’ve asked me for. But I can’t. Even if I wanted to. I don’t know how anymore”
Outside the hut, the shal trees bent and swayed, their leaves like sighs.

…I knew that the remedy lay not in finding a new flower but in what Krishna had advised me over and over again: Let the past go. Be at ease. Allow the future to arrive at its own pace, unfurling its secrets when it will. I knew I should live the life that teemed around me: this clear air, this newborn sunlight, the simple comfort of the shawl around my shoulders…”