Reading "The Palace of Illusions" .. what an amazing book.. retells "Mahabharata" from Draupadi's perspective.. the familiar tale.. sounds so different .. What seemed righteous doesn't anymore, loyalties shift, concerns change, heroes fall, motives differ.. is really everything we think just a matter of perspective? the angle of viewing? the side we are on? If the Ramayana was written by Bali's widow - would Rama still be a hero? Is anything in the world really black or white? simply good or bad? Everything is shrouded in shades of gray...clouds of in-betweens. .Then is our opinion really worth anything? Does what we think really matter? knowing as we do that our opinion only depends on where we stand.. Why then are we so glued to it? so married to it that we can bear to hurt or even lose those who love us for the sake of them? What makes our opinions so real to us? Is this one of the frailties of the human race? .. the tendency to see their viewpoint as the only one.. or atleast the only one that matters .. What if miraculously we could each one of us start understanding the counter viewpoint :Radical Islamists of hindutvaists / Palestinians of Israelis/ men of women/ government of Maoists/ the privileged of the poor/ the rapist of the victim/ the doctor of the helpless patient.. would there ever be a conflict again? A scuffle? A disagreement? A fight? A war? Can all the misery in the world then ... just be attributed to this.. difference in perspectives and an inability to understand those on the other side of the fence.. too simplistic .. is it???
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