The Palace of Illusions

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Dhristadyumna, Destroyer of Enemies. Draupadi, Daughter of Drupad.

“A problem becomes a problem only if you believe it to be so. And often others see you as you see yourself.”

He called me by a special name, the female form of his own: Krishnaa. It had two meanings: the dark one, or the one whose attraction can’t be resisted. Even after he returned to Dwarka, the notes of his flute lingered in the walls of our cheerless quarters—my only comfort as Dhri was called away more and more to his princely duties, and I was left behind.

Three dangerous moments will come to you. The first will be just before your wedding: at that time, hold back your question. The second will be when your husbands are at the height of their power: at that time, hold back your laughter. The third will be when you’re shamed as you’d never imagined possible: at that time, hold back your curse. Maybe it will mitigate the catastrophes to come.”

“He believes it to be so. Isn’t that what truth is? The force of a person’s believing seeps into those around him—into the very earth and air and water—until there’s nothing else.”

“As for being pawns,” Krishna was saying, “aren’t we all pawns in the hands of Time, the greatest player of them all?”

Can our actions change our destiny? Or are they like sand piled against the breakage in a dam, merely delaying the inevitable?

Expectations are like hidden rocks in your path—all they do is trip you up.

Your childhood hunger is the one that never leaves you. No matter how famous or powerful they became, my husbands would always long to be cherished.

But truth, when it’s being lived, is less glamorous than our imaginings.

“Don’t be so attached to what is, after all, no more than stone and metal 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.”

Distance is a great promoter of harmony:

situation in itself,” he said, “is neither happy nor unhappy. It’s only your response to it that causes your sorrow. But enough of philosophy! I’m hungry.”

I took love and used it as a balm to soothe my ego.

Let the past go. Be at ease. Allow the future to arrive at its own pace, unfurling its secrets when it will.

But here he stood, elder son of the wind god—and thus my brother. A god in his own right. He embraced me and said, I give you my strength. At Kurukshetra I will be with you, though none will see me except as an image on a chariot flag.

What is more numerous than the grass? The thoughts that rise in the mind of man. Who is truly wealthy? That man to whom the agreeable and disagreeable, wealth and woe, past and future, are the same. What is the most wondrous thing on earth? Each day countless humans enter the Temple of Death, yet the ones left behind continue to live as though they were immortal.

How little we know our own reputations, I thought with a bitter smile.

Just as we cast off worn clothes and wear new ones, when the time arrives, the soul casts off the body and finds a new one to work out its karma. Therefore the wise grieve neither for the living nor the dead.

The pleasures that arise from sense-objects are bound to end, and thus they are only sources of pain. Don’t get attached to them. And: When a man reaches a state where honor and dishonor are alike to him, then he is considered supreme. Strive to gain such a state.

Because of anger and desire, our two direst enemies.

Happiness, like a mischievous bird that hops from branch to branch, would continue to elude us. Duryodhan’s last words to Yudhisthir echoed in my ears: I’m going to heaven to enjoy all its pleasures with my friends. You’ll rule a kingdom peopled with widows and orphans and wake each morning to the grief of loss. Who’s the real winner, then, and who the loser?

You call them mine, and you call the others theirs. For shame! Hasn’t this been the cause of your troubles ever since the fatherless sons of Pandu

arrived at Hastinapur? If you’d seen them all as yours to love, this war would never have occurred.

To see a loved one in pain is more wrenching than to bear that pain yourself.