THANK GOD you are back! i wa swaiting for 2 months for you to continue the story. i must say the break has not affected your story telling.

waiting for more!

brilliant again. I only wish you would put your MB updates out at a faster pace! :D Moving on to the review part of it:

The great thing about the Mahabharata is that every character is good and bad in equal parts. I think you have tipped the scales too far in the Pandavas favor in this chapter by adding the bit about Yudhishthir not being able to stop gambling because of a curse. This is not mentioned anywhere in any of the Mahabharata books I've read. Shakuni's dice always played in his favor, but Yudhishthir lost everything of his own will. He could have stopped betting anytime he wanted, but he couldn't bring himself to stop when he was on a losing streak. It is important to keep this part in, otherwise the Pandavas seem morally superior and the Kauravas automatically become the villains. I really really hope you will change this bit in your chapter.

Cheers,
Vedang

too lazy to sign in, sorry...but i'm loving it!! i thought that draupadi would have been a little more rebellious about marrying five princes but she agreed to it so fast!!

please please please update soon!!

cheers,
~ scorpiogirl1031

ps -sorry for all the exclamation points lol...

Marvelous story! Exactly the way I see it every time I read it: Science fiction in ancient times.

I like the details of characters, their feelings, doubts. Also the locations and description of places and the natural interventions of gods.

Keep writing! I'd like to see the end!

yay! arjun finally found his calling and his teacher!

Excellent, excellent chapter! Loved the depiction of the swayamvar and the battle afterwards! Keep them coming!! :)

the part where duryodhan gets punched by bhima, i thought for a second that you wrote "he didn't see the fish flying at him" and i started laughing like a manic (in the middle of my office, too!)...and i thought wow, all these killer fishes are everywhere! and then bhima came along and i reread and realized it was a fist, NOT a fish. WOW.
anyways, im just finishing up this chapter, i love it, and cant wait to read the rest! keep up the excellent writing! :)

cheers,
~ scorpiogirl1031

i've been re-reading the palace of illusions, by chitra banerjee divakaruni, and looking around for mahabharata fanart and fanfiction and i found yours!! I havent read through the whole thing yet, just kind of skimmed, but i love it!
Can't wait to read the whole thing and the upcoming chapters! keep writing!! :)

cheers,
scorpiogirl1031

hi,

i have never read such a beautiful interpretation of our great epic by a foreigner. sometimes i wonder whether you are really a japanese or indian. the way you described the battle of arjuna and the hordes of indra in khandavaprastha is absolutely fabulous.

pls do keep writing and waiting desperately for the next chapter in the story.


regards,
saikat

Aw! I read the whole chapter at break-neck speed to check out how you managed the shooting of the fish and the stringing of Pinakin. And you had to leave that for the next chapter! sigh! :D
I'm a big fan of the Mahabharat, and I'm loving this alternate telling too. I love the way you're bringing in the obscure bits of the mahabharat too (rukmarath :)).
Now print the next chapters ASAP!

SRI KRISHNA?! I nearly choked on my pie. I hope this will not affect the story too much but I have a favour to ask. It's strange enough, reading fanfiction about a God I actually do pray to. Please, don't make Him too weird.

I have read the story about Agni and the forest but of course, it was different; as usual you've changed the Mahabharata slightly while still maintaining the essential story arc.

Uh-oh, both Yudhisthira and Arjuna are attracted to Draupadi... And there was humour, which lessened the shock and heart-thumping pace of the abduction, the near-invasion and the surprise division.

I look forward to the next chapter!

I'm sorry I haven't been reviewing recently but stuff kept coming up. I loved the last few chapters, although I do want to know - is the bit about the sexual relationship between an agrapani and his King your invention or was it actually in the original? The version I read didn't even mention agrapani. Poor Arjuna, he's so innocent! I see Draupadi has already caught his fancy, though. :D I rather pity the woman, though - come on, five husbands?!

My God, during the archery tournment, I was so torn! It was Arjuna's big day, and he was so happy, and yet Karna would have been so humiliated when his title was taken away due to his parentage... In our culture, Duryodhana and Karna are like the epitome of selfless friendship - some versions do have Duryodhana starting out with ulterior motives but eventually they are very close friends. Like how you would see Romeo and Juliet as synonymous with love, we see Duryodhana and Karna as synonymous with friendship. The agrapani bit, though, as I said, I never heard of it until I read your version, and I can bet Duryodhana doesn't know exactly what comes with it.

Ah, you have set the stage for Kunti's later epic request that made my cry for its consequences. Talking of which, I though Kunti was upposed to recognise Karna at the tournament - will you be writing about her thoughts?

~ Sivaroobini

Parashurama started. "What... you can't see it?"

"See what?"

"My obvious divinity," Parashurama said, without a trace of joking in his voice.

"Honestly? No."

"Ah, my boy," Parashurama said, "then you still have much, much to learn."


*

Definitely laughed out loud there. :) Sorry for the extended absence from this, school just got a little crazy in my second term!

I really love this story. It's like a combination of Arabian Nights meets sci-fi, and makes me even more excited about going to India.

I hope to see more of Karna in later chapters! :)

O-kay... I can say that this particular chapter has NEVER cropped up in any of my books, TV series or movies. I really feel bad for both Yudhisthira and Duryodhana, and Bhima. Nakula, Sahadeva an Arjuna just made me laugh - at the all, that is; I do feel bad for Arjuna because he's so close to Duryodhana and he'll be betrayed. And that girl... *wrings imaginary neck*

Yudhistra is so innocent he can't even make the connection between the fog and his cousin's mood.. then again we're more informed than he is...

Gotta go. Another wonderful chapter as usual.

Somehow I doubt the others will be very happy when they discover that Arjuna has just given water mining rights to the Panchalans. ;) And as I have mentioned before, I love this. It's a wonderful retelling of the epic I grew up with, and once you finish I'll print the whole thing out, bind it and put it in my bookshelf as an alternative version of the Mahabharata. So no pressure. :D

There are many characters in the Mahabharata, and as a child even I had trouble keeping track of them all. Yet you write all of them beautifully and their emotional development is very well-captured. You showed us Arjuna's affection for Duryodhana, thus laying the foundation for his hesitation at the Battle of Kurukshetra (btw, will you mention the Bhagavad Gita?), and as I mentioned before, most versions mention only the Pandavas' view of everything. You show us both sides, and I truly symphatise with Duryodhana as well as the Pandavas (although I would like to see how you justify/write how he and Dushashana humiliated Draupadi).

All in all, wonderful, beautiful work! I cannot wait for the next chapter!

~ Sivaroobini