Stories and Illusions

Just finished reading The Palace of Illussions - by Chitra Banarjee Divakaruni.
I was just walking thought the bookstore, and randomly picked it up. I like to read, but its not often I buy hardbacks. Lately Ive started to indulge myself in the luxury - first with Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth and now this one.
I am not the one for writing reviews, for me a book, a story if a far more personal experience. So I will just put down a few words : my personal take on the book.
What I liked about the book was the facet it gave to the whole story, being from a woman's perspective . . . . .the subtleties and details that matter to them, far different from those that are quoted and appeal to a traditional perspective - usually male.
I haven't before heard women empathise with the female characters of Mahabharata, not that I have been delving into the study of scriptures and heavy books hence. But when we talk about it at homes, refer to incidents and stories told by elders, the underline is only on the moral, the message, who did what right and who did what wrong. Nobody delves into the motives, the histories and other fineries of human nature. Agreed, they are too complicated , lengthy and tedious to be taken up in the course of a day or a few minutes. Yet women are never shown much sympathy, even by other women. (And that's another discussion for another day)
After my school days it was often that I had wanted to go back to reading those big books, because I was sure at some level that there is much more to them that had caught my eye as a child in the abridged course book, and glossy epic Sunday TV must watch.
Coming back to the book I enjoyed simple things in the narrative . . . . . starting from how Krishan's one simple comment changed Draupadi's entire perspective towards her own self , when she grows up she begins to learn that despite all the drums of equality men and women wield power differently - with which she realises her powers and learns to use them to suite herself. She also learns some hard lessons, that despite having five husbands (like any other woman with just one) she too cannot depend on them to avenge her honour who seek fame and dharma beyond emotions of love and devotion that drive women, and have driven them in all ages and times.
She learns to be manipulative as a survival instinct and does a great job of it. Her character is not built out as perfect, nor does she hold any qualms for not being one.
Am not sure if the story of Karna's affections are true, or correct as per the original text, but at some places I thought it was a card little overplayed. Besides it was not a very comfortable angles for me.
I enjoyed the reading the book for being a little more honest account as that of an active participant's rather than that of a passive judgmental narrator’s, less strained in the seeps of good-bad, right-wrong, as scriptures traditionally are, and because even after innumerable number of years, the story of Mahabharata is so fascinatingly gripping.

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And since we are at it, I ll take it a tad too far. . .
Unaccustomed Earth, was fascinating in its own way, dark, more heart wrenching though. I would have preferred the shorter stories of Interpreter of Maladies any day better with a little more sunlight, but if such is life, lets face it in all its dark and saddening form - for once doing away with the blanket of joviality we always pull over.
Maybe not every cloud has a silver lining, some are just doomed, gloomy dark clouds full of rain. It left me a little depressed, a little less excited, disappointed too maybe - because fiction is not supposed to be so faithfully gloomy, dejected and hopeless.
Life serves more that enough portions of it any day.