Palace of illusions or Draupadi's Mahabharat traces her entire life.. sort of like an autobiography.. Her love for Karna or a greater feeling for Krishna.. Her conflicts with Kunti.. Apart from all the miracles, this is a more realistic interpretation of the epic. I grew up watching 'Mahaaaaabharaaaat' (note the stress on 'a') on Doordarshan where every character was either white or black. None were normal and although the arrows flying across made it immensely enjoyable, there was always a disconnect. Given a chance, Roopa Ganguly can still carry off a real Draupadi any given day. But I digress.
So the book makes for a wonderful read.. so much that I stayed up till 3 in the morning to finish the book. It is very difficult to view the epic from a woman's point of view.. specially since most stories objectify them .. there is no value add from their characters and even if they do.. it is primarily as the reason behind huge wars. Never have they been portrayed as being intelligence or having distinct individuality.. Although this wasn't exactly what was missing in Chitra Lekha Bannerjee's book, Draupadi did come across as a mere tool in a bigger scheme of things.. things that she was 'destined' for and could never have changed. Not that I expected the entire story to be different, but atleast Draupadi could have at least shown to have made her decisions and not just left it to destiny... hmm..but that would have changed the course of story.. innit? ;)
So over the last one month I managed to read two books that probably would be listed under the humor section.
Exhibit 1 was Cyrus Brocha's Karl Aaj Aur Kal.. which came across more like a loving tribute to Kunal Vijaykar. Although it did start off well.. ahem..with some insights into Parsi culture (Please to note Mr.Mistry).. it turned into a drag and could have been 100 pages smaller.
Exhibit 2 was Sidin Vadukut's The incredible adventures of Robin 'Einstein' Verghese. Now this one, I had huge expections. I have been reading Sidin's blog since a long time and really liked his writing. However after I read the book, I realized why blogs are so much better.. There is just one post at a time... You read it.. enjoy it and move on. But with a book you have to read through hundreds of pages of something that never really leads to anything particular.
So I guess, the sales of these two books would primarily depend on the popularity of the writers rather than the actual content of the book.. pretty much like our so called block buster movies
