![The Palace of Illusions: 10th Anniversary Edition [Paperback] Banerjee Divakaruni, Chitra](https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A1dtQ-soQEL._AC_UL160_SR160,160_.jpg)
It's not just merely a love story shaded with the angst of the protagonist and the trials and tribulations on her part to prove her integrity, loyalty and honesty towards the love of her life. It is rather the story of love and the very many facets of it, embodied in the form of reluctance, control, hatred, desire, longing, unadulterated affection, human complexes and lastly forgiveness. Starting from the prologue, we find Sita, the protagonist, keen to express the story of not just her experiences, but also of the numerous other female characters who, although being substantially significant in their respective ways contributing to the then society, have been conveniently avoided by literateurs and historians of the patriarchal society resulting in being written about neglectfully, or perhaps having no mention of them at all almost as if they were inexistent. As the book progresses, we find the characters (both male and female) unfold themselves into complex people, yet being realistically relatable. While Sita's mother prepares her how to deal with every individual in the new home she is about to go into, she takes up this as a challenge, knowing that in order to be with the person she loves, this would be a very nominal price that she would have to pay, least realizing that all the while, her grooming up, the way her beloved bow had trained her would be needed much later at a time, when she would have to stay away from Ram. As we go deep into the book, the author magically transports us into the magical world of the Forest of Enchantments, where Sita makes her own sweet home bereft of all the luxuries of palace, devotes her time and care to her husband, falls in the unconditional love that she harboured for her husband and gives in to her desire for the golden deer, hurting the person she had hoped not to hurt ever, the person whom she loved possibly more than herself, eventually followed by her abduction by the demon king Ravan. Strange revelations such as Sita being Ravan and Mandodari's long lost daughter is also a chapter worthy of remembrance.
Sita's portrayal as the story teller herself is achieved in its entirety. That being abducted by Ravan was perhaps not the most devastating thing happening to her is vividly elaborated in the future chapters where she is forced to confront situations that were worse than her nightmares. After the end of the Sitayan, there is this epilogue that is poignant, yet being overwhelmingly simple. The epilogue effortlessly brings tears to the eyes of the readers. That the fact she chose to live for the sake of her sons and she chose to die for the sake of her daughters is vividly described in the epilogue, beautifully detailed with every bit of emotion she possibly must have been through. The story of Ramayan has been told thousands of times before, and a hundred of them must have been from Sita's perspective, but this one is unique, and possibly the best. It is a book that needs to be taught in the schools. It is a book that needs to be read by not just women to feel the angst of Sita, but also by men to realize what it takes to love. It raises pertinent questions regarding duties of a true king to his subjects, why only every man should be heard in Ramrajya and not every woman.
This should be there in every Bibliophile's collection. This happens to be the author's most loved book and the hard work behind it shows through very effortlessly. Simplicity of language makes it widely acceptable among the masses and it is not surprising that the book is soon going to be considered among the best sellers in fiction category in India. It is a must read.
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Popular Highlights in this book
How entangled love is with expectation, that poison vine! The stronger the expectation, the more our anger towards the beloved if he doesn’t fulfil it—and the less our control over ourselves.Highlighted by 641 Kindle readers- Such is the seduction of love: it makes you not want to think too much. It makes you unwilling to question the one you love.Highlighted by 605 Kindle readers
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I am glad we have another voice of Sita, a real voice who can stand for her own
He has come to teach the men, but you have come to teach the women. The lesson you teach will be a quieter one, but as important.Most of us know Ramayan, having heard it from the mouths of our grandparents or having read/saw it as kids, or, having at least acquainted ourselves with the basic facts, post the Babri Masjid-Ram Janma Bhoomi issue. With mythology becoming the hottest trend in the story writing market for some years now, I must say it was getting annoying to see everyone trying their hands at it. Choosing the right one seemed impossible. What if it was just fan-fiction? (I must mention here that I am not too fond of fan fiction, I find them ruinous) Or worse, what if some writer was just trying to get in a few bucks by preaching rather than actually presenting a worthwhile retelling to the readers?Write our story, too. For always we’ve been pushed into corners, trivialized, misunderstood, blamed, forgotten- or maligned and used as cautionary tales.The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is not a retelling of Ramayan, it is, for lack of a better word, Sitayan. Because it is the story of Sita, from her own mouth. It is the story of Sunaina, helping her husband Janak run the kingdom from behind closed doors. It is the story of Kaushalya, a queen forgotten. It is the story of Kaikeyi, a woman who’s role as a mother clouded every other aspect of her life. It is the story of Urmila, left behind to wait and weep. It is the story of Meenakshi turned Surpanakha, the trusting asura. It is the story of Ahalya, the unfairly judged. It is the story of Mandodari, the blind supporter of her husband. It is the story of us women, in this world, and those who were before us and will come after us. And most of all, it is a story about women in love.Red. But of course. How else could I write my story except in the color of menstruation and childbirth, the color of the marriage mark that changes women’s lives, the color of the flowers of the Ashoka tree under which I had spent my years of captivity in the palace of the demon king?Sita was found as an infant by the King of Mithila and lived her life as a princess, the elder daughter of King Janak and Queen Sunaina, along with her jovial younger sister Urmila. Both the princesses shared a camaraderie beyond just words. They knew the other without them telling anything. So when brothers Ram and Lakshman came to the palace with their Guru, both knew that the other had lost her heart to the respective brother.“Remember this, too: sometimes our ill luck has consequences that bless others”Marriage was bliss. Love was aplenty and so were pleasures and comfort in the palace of Dasharath, father of their husbands and King of Koshal. The coronation day arrived in a blink of an eye, love tends to do that, pass time like it was just yesterday when they were gawking at the handsome princes in their father’s palace. And then it was time for the fates to turn. Exiled for 14 years of forest living, Ram and Sita along with Lakshman made their way away from the palace and Ayodhya.Years passed with simple living and minimal troubles. But just when their exile was about to end, Sita was abducted by the demon king. Prisoned and guarded all the time, time seemed to stop for Sita. Waiting for Ram to come and rescue her was the hardest thing she had to do, or so she thought. But when she was finally reunited with her beloved, she faced her life’s exams, and it was even more difficult than the year she spent in captivity.“What occurred when I was alone in the darkness, under the sorrow tree, you don’t know. You don’t know my despair. You don’t even know my exhilaration, how it felt- first in the forest and then in Ayodhya- when I was the most beloved woman in creation.”Oh, what a book it was! Lucid and profound, the words slipped easily into my mind and it wasn’t long before I was deep into Sita’s world. Ms. Banerjee’s Sitayan is so relatable! Why couldn't we have been exposed to such interpretations earlier in life? Why did we have to think that being perfect is the benchmark? Why did we have to grow up thinking that ‘Agni Pariksha’ was necessary to prove women’s innocence and purity? And what does purity even mean? Is it of body or mind? And why, o why, does ‘Log kya kahenge’ matter so much!?“Anything that makes us forget our true selves is a trap, princess- even something we love or define as beautiful.”Ms. Banerjee, for me, has done justice to the topic she chose. Trust me when I say this because we are a community of unbending uptight people who regard such writings as blasphemy as they don’t sit well with our patriarchal setups. Although I don’t really know/believe that epics like these are true or not, I cringe when someone breaks them into thousand pieces and makes something indigestible. Why then, this has me swooning all over? Because it has blown me over with the portrayal of love and its different facets at every step. The lovers’ love, the mother-child love, the sibling love, the friendship love, and most importantly, self-love, all are laid bare with the rawest of emotions dripping. And with that, comes the sense behind the entire story. It is all for love, in the end.Why was it our holy men who made a big deal of giving up on so many things- comfort, fame, family- couldn’t seem to give up their tempers?While Sita’s character was beautifully built and matured, other characters weren't given their own voice. Rather, it was Sita from whom we learn of their roles and I would want to go with the flow and think that Sita did justice to them when she spoke about them. Her relationship with Ram is explored beyond the measures we have usually read, or at least I have known. It was a refreshing insight for me to feel connected to her, her human side rather than her being the unreachable Goddess. However, her other roles got subdued in the glow of her wifely duties. Her relationship with her parents, her sister, her mothers-in-law, Lakshman, and lastly Hanuman, there was so much scope to explore there, but I know it would have been a humongous task. Maybe there is time for those voices to come alive. For now, I am glad we have another voice of Sita, a real voice who can stand for her own when the need arises.Remain true to yourself- and to your heart. Be courageous and remember, even the blackest night must end in dawn.
Top reviews from India
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Reviewed in India on 23 March 2024
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Reviewed in India on 2 October 2019
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When was the last time a book made you cry? Unless, I was PMSing pretty strongly, I found myself fighting back tears by the end of this one.
The cover art is beautiful and does full justice to the narrative that is to follow. It depicts Sita sitting under the Ashoka tree that was to be her solace in her confinement and the palm leaf in her hands on which she is presumable writing her story. Reminiscent of the Kangra Miniature art form, which originated and is now struggling to survive in my home district was another reason to fall completely in love with this cover.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has presented to us Sitayana or the story of sita and what a job she has done with it. Its beautiful, its compelling and it is truly engrossing. At the end of this book, I felt peaceful - a word I have rarely, if ever, used in reference to a book. Divakaruni’s Sita is so much more than a woman scorned. She is indeed a queen. A Goddess. And the universal mother. The author does full justice to a woman who lost everything again and again and yet faced all her travails with dignity, drawing from reserves of knowledge that she had gleaned from people around her and choosing to live her life in a way that was an example to others. The book is truly inspirational in the subtle messaging that it is sending out through the life of this great deity. It is a definite recommendation for young women before they go out into the world as it teaches the importance of choosing your battles, standing up against wrong-doing and understanding the many forms that love can take.
Divakaruni talks a lot about the love in this book. Usually a topic that is not easy to talk about without sounding trite or preachy. And easy to get on the nerves. Here though she handles the subject with an art that is subtle and truly interesting. Every episode in the life of Sita is turned into an example of love of a different kind with its myriad colours and consequences. As you read, you nod along in agreement and smile and even find yourself shaking your head at the consequences. Over and over again, Sita asks the age-old question of ‘what if?’. As ordinary humans have we not done the same again in our lives making us relate to this celestial queen.
Chitra does a wonderful job of establishing the timelines in the narrative. The fact that Raavan was already a well-established king by the time Ram was born, the time between Sita and Ram’s marriage and their exile, the distances they travel and so on. There were many things that one recollects as one is reading, small things that have been forgotten, like the 'kop bhavan' of Kaeikeyi or the fact that all the waives of the four brothers were actually related.
Surprisingly, there were 3-4 editorial mistakes in the book which was as disconcerting as it was surprising coming from a publishing house like Harper Collins. When you replace ‘public’ with ‘pubic’ you need to reassess your editorial staff!
Time and again, I found myself comparing this book with Amish Tipathi’s Raavan ( I thank my stars I hadn’t read Sita by him or else I would have found myself horribly confused by the storytelling). Whenever Raavan was mentioned in the first part of Sita’s story, I kept imagining Amish’s Raavan and the little bit of Sita that appears in that volume. While Amish chose to set his Ram Chandra series in a world of extremely technically advanced humans, Banerjee’s Sita occupies a world where there is magic and the occult and vanishing villains and so on. The first time it happened in the first few pages of the book, it felt a bit jarring, but then the beauty of the author’s storytelling takes over as does the childhood versions of the Ramayan that we have seen or heard, thus allowing the psyche to absorb the tale as it is told.
Definite recommendation. A book that can be re-read. Especially at Diwali.
The cover art is beautiful and does full justice to the narrative that is to follow. It depicts Sita sitting under the Ashoka tree that was to be her solace in her confinement and the palm leaf in her hands on which she is presumable writing her story. Reminiscent of the Kangra Miniature art form, which originated and is now struggling to survive in my home district was another reason to fall completely in love with this cover.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has presented to us Sitayana or the story of sita and what a job she has done with it. Its beautiful, its compelling and it is truly engrossing. At the end of this book, I felt peaceful - a word I have rarely, if ever, used in reference to a book. Divakaruni’s Sita is so much more than a woman scorned. She is indeed a queen. A Goddess. And the universal mother. The author does full justice to a woman who lost everything again and again and yet faced all her travails with dignity, drawing from reserves of knowledge that she had gleaned from people around her and choosing to live her life in a way that was an example to others. The book is truly inspirational in the subtle messaging that it is sending out through the life of this great deity. It is a definite recommendation for young women before they go out into the world as it teaches the importance of choosing your battles, standing up against wrong-doing and understanding the many forms that love can take.
Divakaruni talks a lot about the love in this book. Usually a topic that is not easy to talk about without sounding trite or preachy. And easy to get on the nerves. Here though she handles the subject with an art that is subtle and truly interesting. Every episode in the life of Sita is turned into an example of love of a different kind with its myriad colours and consequences. As you read, you nod along in agreement and smile and even find yourself shaking your head at the consequences. Over and over again, Sita asks the age-old question of ‘what if?’. As ordinary humans have we not done the same again in our lives making us relate to this celestial queen.
Chitra does a wonderful job of establishing the timelines in the narrative. The fact that Raavan was already a well-established king by the time Ram was born, the time between Sita and Ram’s marriage and their exile, the distances they travel and so on. There were many things that one recollects as one is reading, small things that have been forgotten, like the 'kop bhavan' of Kaeikeyi or the fact that all the waives of the four brothers were actually related.
Surprisingly, there were 3-4 editorial mistakes in the book which was as disconcerting as it was surprising coming from a publishing house like Harper Collins. When you replace ‘public’ with ‘pubic’ you need to reassess your editorial staff!
Time and again, I found myself comparing this book with Amish Tipathi’s Raavan ( I thank my stars I hadn’t read Sita by him or else I would have found myself horribly confused by the storytelling). Whenever Raavan was mentioned in the first part of Sita’s story, I kept imagining Amish’s Raavan and the little bit of Sita that appears in that volume. While Amish chose to set his Ram Chandra series in a world of extremely technically advanced humans, Banerjee’s Sita occupies a world where there is magic and the occult and vanishing villains and so on. The first time it happened in the first few pages of the book, it felt a bit jarring, but then the beauty of the author’s storytelling takes over as does the childhood versions of the Ramayan that we have seen or heard, thus allowing the psyche to absorb the tale as it is told.
Definite recommendation. A book that can be re-read. Especially at Diwali.
Images in this review
Reviewed in India on 7 February 2024
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Top reviews from other countries
Flavia Renzelli
Extraordinary story
Reviewed in Italy on 23 April 2021Verified Purchase
Venumenon
Epic Ramayana as narrated by Sita; 'Sitayan'
Reviewed in the United States on 6 October 2019Verified Purchase
Kajal
Fresh perspective!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 May 2020Verified Purchase
Ritu
Beautifully written
Reviewed in the United States on 23 January 2024Verified Purchase
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DISCLAIMER-
There is a mention of “eating meat” which I am not sure is correct, but again it’s just what the author thought happened. Not the ultimate truth. Read it keeping that in mind.
Images in this review
Karen
An enchanting read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 January 2020Verified Purchase
