The Palace of Illusions

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

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

why did my father allow him to visit me freely when he had kept me segregated from other men and women?

Is her father aware? Is he a physival being or some celestial one?

You will marry the five greatest heroes of your time. You will be queen of queens, envied even by goddesses. You will be a servant maid. You will be mistress of the most magical of palaces and then lose it. You will be remembered for causing the greatest war of your time. You will bring about the deaths of evil kings—and your children’s, and your brother’s. A million women will become widows because of you. Yes, indeed, you will leave a mark on history. You will be loved, though you will not always recognize who loves you. Despite your five husbands, you will die alone, abandoned at the end—and yet not so.

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.”

The god Shiva himself had promised me that in my next life I would kill him whom no man had defeated before.

wait for a man to avenge your honor, and you’ll wait forever.

“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.”

“Karna never said that, though. He took me aside and said you were noble and beautiful—and he was right.”

“A situation in itself,” he said, “is neither happy nor unhappy. It’s only your response to it that causes your sorrow.

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.

mahaprasthan, the path of the great departure.

Over the next months that glance would remain with me, as palpable as a warm hand slipped into mine, reminding me that I wasn’t forgotten. It gave me the strength I needed to survive, to hold back from acts of desperation that might have exposed us all.