The Palace of Illusions

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Remember that, little sister: wait for a man to avenge your honor, and you'll wait forever.

In any case, you're wrong in thinking of woman as an innocent species.” She waved her hand again and the map flickered. It seemed to me that I was looking into a hundred homes, humble and kingly both. I heard the voices and thoughts of women, bitter and bickering. Some wished death and disease on their rivals, others wanted control of their household. Some berated children with words that left scars on their hearts. Some beat servant girls or forced them out, penniless, into the jaws of a ravenous world. Still others whispered their discontent into their sleeping husbands' ears all night, so that the men, waking in the morning, acted out the anger that festered within their wives. “As you see,” the sorceress said, “women contribute to the world's problems in a hundred insidious ways. And you, who will be more powerful than most, could wreak greater havoc if you aren't careful. I've taught you some better alternatives—if only you can keep them in mind and not get swept away by passion!”

Gandhari's marriage, although she'd given up so much for its sake, was—like Kunti's—not a happy one. (Later I would wonder if that was what gave them strength, both these queens. But perhaps I'd got the cause and effect mixed up? Perhaps strong women tended to have unhappy marriages? The idea troubled me.)

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

Nor was I particularly delighted by the virginity boon, which seemed designed more for my husbands' benefit than mine. That seemed to be the nature of boons given to women—they were handed to us like presents we hadn't quite wanted. (Had Kunti felt the same way when she was told that the gods would be happy to impregnate her?

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

Suddenly he 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—” I could see where he was headed.

Was this, then, how the people viewed me? All this time I'd seen myself as the wronged one. I'd believed that the people of the country—especially the women— sympathized with me because of the insults I'd suffered at the hands of Duryodhan. That they admired me for the hardships I'd chosen to share with my husbands in exile. When I'd looked down on the huge Pandava host on the battlefield, I'd surmised that those soldiers had chosen to join my husbands because they supported our cause. Now I realized that for many of them, it was merely a job, an alternative to poverty and starvation. Or maybe they'd been forcibly conscripted by their overlords. No wonder that for their wives, I was a harbinger of ill luck, the woman who had torn their husbands from the safety of their homes, the witch who might, with a wave of her hand, transform them into widows.

Perhaps it was good that Abhimanyu fell when he did. He could die believing that the Pandavas, at least, had maintained the battle code with which they'd brought him up. He didn't have to witness how, in the days that followed, they, too, swerved from honor when it was expedient, attacking the unarmed and maimed, justifying their actions by stating it was for the ultimate good.

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?