The first time I put a face, a story to this name was when this beautiful actress stepped out of an animated fire in the 2014 version of Mahabharata on Starplus. For an 11-year-old girl, finding out that a full-grown woman was birthed by a ceremonial fire to change the course of history for the humankind was mysteriously mesmerizing. I fell in love with that woman. Yes, I said ‘woman’ because back then, she was not playing the character in my head, she was really Draupadi to me. I felt drawn to this princess, it was weird because I had never felt that pull and energy before. I gave the actress’s beauty the credit for it and moved on when the show ended. I still had dreams of the same scene, of her walking out of that bright fire, with heavily kohled eyes, long black hair, hands joined to pay her respect, but her shoulders pulled back showing her confidence and this long train of yellow cloth following her.

In 2017, someone recommended to me the book that would then go on to change me, my perception of life, and to an extent, people’s perception of me- The Palace of Illusions.

Then began my journey with Mahabharata. I have read more than a dozen books on it, different perspectives, different versions, different writing techniques.

In this process, I fell in love with characters I hated back in 2014 and began to dislike some I closely identified with. I saw the flaws in characters, but never the tale itself. Mahabharata was impeccable, tainted with imperfections yet carefully painted to perfection.

But throughout, Draupadi and I shared the same bond, rather we grew closer. I no longer equated her to that actress.

Now, she was a philosophy personified in the pureness of a daughter’s devotion, in the brightness of the fire, in the redness of my blood, in the anger of a hurt mother, in the pain of the rape victim news channels covered on their shows, in the forgiveness in a wife’s heart but most of all, in the vengeance of a wronged woman.

I truly fell in love with the portrayal, the characterisation, the idea of Draupadi.

But you see, we humans have a tendency to ignore the flaws of our loved ones, so did I. Draupadi was perfect in my mind, she was everything I ever wanted to be until I chose The Palace of Illusions to write my 4000 words research paper on. My mentor warned me about the biases I will be bringing to the table due to my personal attachment to the book and all its characters but I was willing to take the chance. But as I did my research on the internet, not as a fan of the Indian epic but as a literary critic, as I reread the novel, I finally started seeing Draupadi as a human and not as a goddess. I finally saw her flaws and pin-pointed the times she made mistakes. The prominent stroke of adharma in the clean slate of dharma; of impurities on the pure, of a hideous colour on her vibrant untouched red was finally visible to my eyes.

Why is it that I love her a little more now than ever? Why is it that humanizing this epitome of badassness, savageness, sassiness makes me want to place her on a pedestal and worship her all day?

Draupadi’s flaws make her more relatable to me, more trustable to open up to, more reliable to fall back on. I feel the same pull I felt just by this name that I did seven years ago and that is weirdly comforting since I just notified my mentor about allowing me to switch my novel from The Palace of Illusions to The Forest of Enchantments to leave my biases behind and have been feeling like I am cheating on my dear dear Panchali with the ever-famous Janki.

But, appreciation for the author of both these masterpieces- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. I am in awe of her talent with words. To those who haven’t read any of her books, give it a try. I am sure you will not be disappointed.