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All history, accounts of religion, social thought and philosophy reflect woman as the “other” even while speaking for her. Myth constitutes the elemental structures and patterns which shape the thought of a people. This paper explores how Pritabha Ray‟s novel Yajnaseni and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni‟s The Palace of Illusions re-write the myth of Draupadi, the legendary wife of the five Pandava warriors in the epic Mahabharata. The two contemporary women writers from India recreate a protagonist who voices her opinions, musings, desires in a first person narrative from a woman‟s point of view. As upholder of Dharma, she is at once a player and a pawn in the patriarchal tale of jealousy and revenge. Yet, remaining within the bounds of Dharma, Draupadi, the protagonist in the novels, interrogates the symbolic values attributed to femininity, the meaning of duty, loss and death. Through a feminist re-reading the authors redefine the notion of Svadharma (an individual‟s duties) vis-à-vis the duties of a woman towards her husband and her society. The re-invented myth resists „spousification‟ and deification of the woman, rendering her instead, a palpable character, vulnerable as well as independent. While Ray‟s character is in a search of a spiritual rebirth and relies on her inner deity, Krishna, for guidance all along the tortuous path of Dharma during her life and after her abandonment by her husbands, Divakaruni‟s heroine is a modern day adolescent, impetuous, intelligent and spontaneous. The two narratives may differ in their vision and style, yet, both these narratives succeed, in their unique way, to deconstruct the image of a deified ideal wife and to bring myth close to life.

Re-Writing the Myth of Draupadi in Pratibha Ray’s Yajnaseni and Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions