Mahesh Dattani: Human Rights
Mahesh Dattani: Human Rights
“The earth
is the mother of all people and all people should have equal rights upon it”
- Chief Joseph (1732-94)
The world
we live in abounds with quiet number of discrimination based on gender,
community, culture, colour, etc. This paper sheds light on these things with
the special focus on the selected plays of Mahesh Dattani. Mahesh Dattani’s
themes are obviously about the ills of the society. “The individual versus
society, I guess, is a theme that’s in all my plays” asserts Dattani himself. His
protagonists are denied basic rights which are normally enjoyed by the other
set of the society.Education, law, medical care, technology, etc. are the birth
rights of every human being in the world. Such things are denied to the
protagonists of Mahesh Dattani.Dattani’s characters struggle for some kind of
freedom and happiness under the weight of tradition, Cultural, Constructions of
gender, and repressed desire. Mahesh Dattani is a sensitive playwright who
writes about issues like gender bias, social discrimination of the girl child,
etc. This theme can be seen in his plays Tara, Bravely Fought the patriarchy
and Gender in Mahesh Dattani's plays Bravely Bought The Queen, Where There's a
Will, etc. the theorists democrat between sex and gender. This difference is
more lucid in the following words: “The concept of gender." is typically
placed in opposition to the concept of sex. When our sex is a matter of culture,
Gender may therefore be taken to refer to learned patterns of behavior and
action, as opposed to that this is biologically determined. Crucially, biology
need not be assumed to determine gender. This is to suggest that while what
makes a person male or female is universal and grounded in laws of nature;
precise ways in which women express their masculinity will vary from culture to
culture..." Mahesh Dattani’s plays
have contemporary values and his plays can be said to have been impaired by
Ibsen the father of realism.Dattani handles every problem from gender issues to
sexuality very successfully. Dattani’s achievement as a playwright depends on
the fact that his plays are a slice of
life.
Seven Steps
Around the Fire talks about two types of gender discriminations. Uma isone of
the victims of the play, not able to stand on her own due to the domination of
her husband. Will she bow to her husband’s wishes and destroy the notes she has
so painstakingly prepared for her thesis? Perhaps we have to wait and see. But
as she tells her guide on the phone:
“Oh…I guess
I will have to…..If my family throws me out, I hope that doctorate will come in handy”
Uma, the
heroine, is the scholastic sleuth there two, using rather unconventional means,
uncovers the truth behind a murder in the city’s hijjra community. As an
unwilling accomplice in her detective exploits, constable Munuswamy (deputed by
superintendent Rao for keeping his wife out of trouble) provides an excellent
foil. Mahesh plays to quote Jermey Mortimer, “often feature characters who are
questioning their identity, and who feel isolated in some way. Uma certainly
feels isolated in her marriage, and this sense of isolation makes her empathize
with Anarkali, the hijjrashe be friends.” The futility of Mr.,Sharma’s
machinations and his version of ‘truth’ find reflection in futility of Uma’s
sleuthing for truth which becomes meaningless with the hushing up the case and
the realization, “They have no voice.” The irony arises from the fact that even
she has no voice on the face of political clout of Mr.Sharma and her husband’s
complicity.
“They knew, Anarkali, Chamba and all the hijjra people knew
who was behind the killing of
Kamala. They have no voice. The case was hushed up and was not even reported in the newspapers….Subbu’ssuicide
was written off as an accident. The Photograph
was destroyed. So where the lives of two young people….” (P.52)
The right of law is denied to hijjra people in Dattani’s
Seven Steps Around the Fire. Although everyone knows who is behind the murder
of Kamala (one of the major characters of the play) cannot do anything against
the murderers, this is what happens in all part of India.
Majority of people
become minority against people who are in power so, obviously their right of
being free is taken away from them.Patriarchy is something that cannot be
separated from the structure of the Indian society.According to sociologies,
the family in the Indian society is dominated by male and it is he who is
considered as the head of the family. The powers that he enjoys over his family
members are not allowed to question him. Since he is the head of the family,
the freedom is hardly given to the other members of the family especially to
the women. Being the head of the family and more powerful than others in the
family, the important decisions are taken in the aspects of an individual's
life and career such as education, marriage, property, etc. Mahesh Dattani
portrays women suffering under the oppression of patriarchy and gender bias in
his writings Final Solutions; Daksha (Hardika after her marriage) is married to
Hari at the tender age of 14. She comes to her husband's house on her 15th
birthday. Her name is also changed from Dakshato Hardika "to match with
Hari" along with her life. She becomes a typical house wife at the age of
15 and not allowed to continue her education. With her marriage "All my
dreams have been shattered...I can never be a singer like Noor Jahan. Hari's
family is against my singing film songs. His parents heard me humming a love
song to hari last night. And this morning they told him to tell me...I'm just a
young girl who doesn't matter to anyone outside her home..."
Tara is a play that talks about how the Indian society deals
with girl children, women in general including those who are differently abled.
Tara and Chandan are Siamese twins born with three legs. In the process of
separation of their bodies through surgery, the fateful leg becomes the bone of
contention. The leg to which the main blood supply was from Tara's body is
forcibly given to Chandan, on the decision of mother Bharathi and her wealthy
grandfather. Taracenters on the emotional separation that grows between two
conjoined twins following the discovery that their physical separation was
manipulated by their mother and grandfather to favour the boy (Chandan)over the
girl (Tara), Tara, feisty girl who is not given the opportunities given to her
brother (Although she may be smarter) eventually wastes away and dies. Chandan
escapes to London, changes his name to Dan and attempts to repress the guilt he
feels over his sister’s death by living without a personal history woven into
the play are issues of class and community and the clash between traditional
and modern lifestyles and values. In Indian culture, importance is given to the
male. This discrimination begins from childhood and even before that there are
instances of female feticide which is an example in itself to the attitude of
Indian society towards gender. That is what happened to Tara in the play.
Dattani largely focuses on the ‘different’ or the
‘handicapped’ Dattani’s Dance Like A Man is something different from his other
plays regarding its theme. Jairaj (hero of the play) struggles in quest of
freedom and happiness, under the weight of tradition, gender constructs and
repressed desire. This particular play deals with the domination of a father
over his son.Dattani perceives the family structure as a macrocosm of
microcosmic society, with unwritten laws of conduct. Jairaj follows his heart’s
desire to become a dancer, but this infuriates his father who nurtures a
different set of opinions. The father- son tussle is first implied by Lata,
“They must have had some terrific fights”. The nature of the fight is clarified
in one of the flashbacks:
Amritlal…I didn’t realize this interest of yours would grow
into an obsession.”
Jairaj: didn’t you have your obsessions…
Amritlal: I would like to see what kind of independence you
gain with your antics.”
Jairaj: The independence to do what I want.
Amritlal: “…But there comes a time when you have to do what
is expected of you…”
Later Amritlal tells Ratna, “Do you know where a man’s
happiness lies…In being a man.”
Dattani’s play is also about patriarchal domination and
Amritlal stands for the repression initiated by orthodox patriarchy. He holds
the financial and paternal authority to stop his son from dancing and prohibits
Ratnafrom visiting the old devadasi that might bring ill repute to his family.
Therefore there is a power equation at work reminiscent of Foucault’s theory,
according to which all relationships are power relationships. Amritlal is the
oppressive master while Jairaj is the victim whose long cherished dreams are
crushed by the former’s colossal power. Amritlal is also shrewd enough to
manipulate his daughter- in- law:
Amritlal: “You can do a lot…”
Ratna: “I married him because he is a dancer…/”
Amritlal: “Or did you marry him because he would let you
dance?”
Ratna: “That too”
Amritlal: more of that than the first.” “Well Yes”
He even uses Ratna as a tool to curtail his son’s ambitions
that devastates Jairaj completely. Amritlal’s character is largely associated
with the theme of appearance and reality in the play. When Amritlal plead to
Ratna, Help me make him an adult. Help me to help him grow up”, it is quite
clear that he is not as omnipotent as he declared. He ios exposed as a
vulnerable man seeking aid to have his son love of dance. He is revealed not as
a “liberal- minded person” but a vehicle of subjugation and repression that he
blindly patronizes under the façade of an upholder of ‘progressive’ ideas. His
mask is ripped off when Jairaj confronts his hypocrisy, “Don’t pretend. It
suited your image…to have a daughter- in- law from outside your community”, revealing
the discrepancy between what Amritlal is and what he pretends to be. The
concept of masking and unmasking is also evident early in the play. So, here
Jairaj’s basic right to do things according to his wish by his own father.
“To deny
people their rights is to challenge their very humanity”
-
Nelson
Mandela
Be it Uma
in Seven Steps Around the Fire, Tara in Tara, Jairaj in Dance Like A Man, the
protagonists of these plays are denied the basic rights of being what they are.
So here, their humanity is challenged by the oppressive forces of the society. Thus
characters of Mahesh Dattani are somewhat struggle for freedom and happiness
under the weight of tradition, Cultural, Constructions of gender, and repressed
desire. These things should be taken away from the society.
References
Multani, Angelie. Ed. Mahesh Dattani’s Plays Critical perspectives. New Delhi: Pen craft International,
2011.
Batra, Shakthi. Seven Steps Around The Fire. New Delhi: Sujreet publications,
2010.Print.
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