In our enthusiasm to appropriate the Mahabharata as a compendium of human conflict and frailty, we often forget how gods, boons and miracles catalyse the events of this epic poem. Draupadi, for instance, was never strictly born. She emerged from sacrificial fire. In Panchali: The Game of Dice, artist Sankha Banerjee beautifully illustrates her conception, showing the princess wrapped in flames, but, sadly, his collaborator, author Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, never gives her agency that’s half as fiery.
Reading this graphic novel, one feels confounded by how little Draupadi has to say or, for that matter, even think. When her father turns her svayamvara into a muscle and archery contest, stealing from her the right to choose her own husband, she doesn’t once protest. She doesn’t demur when Kunti decrees she must…
