Rights Issue in the Play of Mahesh Dattani: Tara
Rights
Issue in the Play of Mahesh Dattani: Tara
Saifuddeen.c.,
Asst. Professor.,
Mohamed sathak
engineering college,
kilakarai.
Mahesh
Dattani is one of India's best and most serious contemporary playwrights,
writing in English. He is the first playwright in English to be honoured with
the “Sahitya Akademi Award”. A director, actor, dancer, teacher and writer,
Mahesh Dattani was born on August 7, 1958. Before entering the world of
theater, he worked as a copywriter in an advertising firm. In 1986, he wrote
his first play ' Where There's a Will'. Since then he has never looked back.
There is a long chain of plays written by him as “Tara”, “Night Queen”, “Final
Solutions”, “Dance like a Man” and many more. These are the plays, which embody
many of the classic concerns of the drama world. His plays deal with the social
and contemporary issues. Apart from theater, he is also active in the field of
filmmaking. One of his films “Dance like a Man” has won the award for the best
picture in English awarded by the “National Panorama”. In the domain of Indian
English Drama, Mahesh Dattani’s plays have emerged as ‘fresh arrivals’. His
plays present real problems and sometimes cause controversy. Dattani’s plays
are “about the marginalized sections of our society: minorities, women, gays,
and hijras (eunuch).” They expose the violence of our private thoughts, and the
hypocrisy of our public morals. His work expresses his political beliefs
without being instructive or revolting. His plays question all kinds of
discrimination, including religious prejudice, gender discrimination and
homosexuality. The subjects of recognition and power struggles, run right
through all his plays. His plays not only bring up gender issues and the space
allotted to women in a patriarchal society, but also they deal with gender
biases and prejudices which still affect the lives of many girl-children even
amongst educated, urban families.
He has indeed added a new dimension to Indian drama in English.
His plays are known for exploring contemporary issues of the modern urban
society which are always drawn under the carpet like religious tension,
discrimination, gender identity, gender discrimination, and sexuality. He takes
the family unit as the locus of most of his plays focusing on human
relationships and personal choices representing contemporary people with their
predicaments and complexities, joy and anguish which are the classic concerns
of world drama. Dattani makes an abundant use of Indian mythology, rituals and
traditions and contemporary problems, India is beset with and hence, all his
plays address social issues, not the very obvious ones, but thedeep-seated prejudices
and problems that our society always hide. His characters reveal, belittling
their families and neighbours, leaving each reader with a storm within as the
consequence. And by revealing the complexity, he makes the world a richer place
for all of us.
Dattani’s
writes about the real life situation of Indian society and his plays are about
the marginalized sections of our society: minorities, women, gays, and hijras
(eunuch). They are the weakest but integral part of our society and culture.
Dattani has thus unfolded words of Beena Agrawal which are worth to be quoted
here:-
“Theatre is not a mute and mechanical
representation of social dynamics but it is a lively representation of the
voices resounding in context of totality of human experiences that consciously
or unconsciously affect the existing dynamics of human sensibility. Dattani, in
the process of engineering the current of Indian drama by bringing it closer to
the real life experiences, tried to articulate the voice of the oppressed sections
of society whose identity is shrouded in the cover of myths and social
prejudices. They have been dragged in darkness, doomed to survive in perpetual
silence bearing the oppressive burden of hegemony of the elitist class. Dattani
within the framework of dramatic structure tries to investigate the identities
of those who occupy no space in social order.”(34)
‘Tara’ (1990) is a play that
raises questions to the society that treats the children of the same womb in
two different ways. It deals with the theme of gender discrimination and
reveals a tremendous artistic amalgamation of Indian and Western cultures and
concerns. Tara is a touchy play which shows the favoritism towards the male
child in an upper middle class educated society. The play centres on the emotional
separation of the Siamese twins, chandan and Tara Patel, who are born with
three legs. The probability of the third leg’s survival is greater with Tara as
it is supplied by Tara’s blood system. But their physical separation was
manipulated by their father (Mr. Patel), mother (Bharati) and doctor who decide
to fix the third leg on to the male baby’s body to favour the boy [Chandan]
over the girl [Tara]. The decision was influenced by the maternal grandfather
of children, a politician, who favors to make male child physically fit and
complete. It is our cultural heritage that boy is always superior to girl. This
discrimination against the girl child by family members shows the mentality of
the society. The leg that had survived only for two days with Chandan could
have been accompanied Tara’s forever. This operation to separate the twins at
birth devastated Tara and leaves her crippled for life. It is tragic that the
mother also supports in the act of attaching the third leg to the boy’s body.
Dr.
Thakkar belied his godly profession and led himself to be bribed by Bharati`s
father into becoming an accomplice in the bizarre act of severing the leg. He
should have upheld his profession by denouncing the decision at his inception
whereas he in a way took Tara`s life by severing the leg. His wise decision
could have given Tara a safe, secured and complete life. For doing this
malicious act, the doctor was bribed with a plot of land in Bangalore by
Bharati’s powerful and political father.
"Yes, I plans for
her happiness .I mean to give her all love and affection which I can give .Its
what she deserves have can make up for lost "[CP p-349] 3
Bharati is quite much fearful about the future
of her daughter. She determines to donate her kidney to give a new life to Tara
which ultimately turns useless.
"It`s all right
while she is young .It`s all very cute and comfortable when she makes witty
remarks .But let her grow up .Yes, Chandan the world will tolerate you. The
world will accept you- but not her! Oh! The pair is going to feel when she sees
herself at eighteen or twenty. Thirty is unthinkable and what about forty and
fifty! Oh, God!" [CPp-349]4
Chandan
and Tara`s maternal grandfather was a wealthy politician and came very close to
becoming the Chief Minister. Male domination reflected in the role of Bharati`s
father who donates all his property and wealth to the male child. This further
strengthened gender discrimination by not leaving a single penny to Tara after
his demise. Mr. Patel and Chandan are talking,
"PATEL. He
[grandfather] left you a lot of money.
CHANDAN. And Tara? PATEL.
Nothing CHANDAN. Why?
PATEL It was his money.
He could do what he wanted with it. [CP p-360]10
Mr.
Patel, an emblem of male chauvinism, allows Chandan to enjoy greater
preferences and Tara is left to enjoy the position of a subaltern.The fact that
consciously or unconsciously all the privileges are offered to the son is
obvious from Patel`s planning for Chandan`s education and future career. Even
though Tara is more intelligent, he continuously favours Chandan when it comes
to giving him higher education abroad.
"PATEL .You are
turning them against the whole world.
BHARATI I am doing that.
PATEL. Yes! Look at the
way you treat Tara
.As if she is made of
glass. You coddle her, you pet her, you spoil her, She`s grown up feeling she
doesn`t need anyone but you.!
BHARATI. What you want me to do? Just tell me in plain simple
words what you want me to do and i`ll do it!
PATEL. Let go. Just let
go. And let me handle them.
BHARATI. All right .You
stay at home then! You stay at home and watch what they can do and what they
can`t .You remind them of what they can`t be. It`s easy for you to talk about
their future and your plans. But tell them what they should do now .This day,
this hour, this minute .Tell them! I want to hear!
PATEL. Chandan is going
to study further and he will go abroad for his higher studies. BHARATI. And
Tara?
PATEL. When have you
ever allowed me to make any plans for her? [ CP p-352]11
Later on Patel realises
his mistake and guilty.
"Yes, call me a
liar, a wife beater, a child abuser. It`s what you want me to be! And you .You
want them to believe you love them very much" [CP p-354]8
Again he tells Tara ,
" Tara , please believe me when I say that I love you very much and I have
never in all my life loved you less or more than I have loved your brother. But
your mother----" [CP-p-354]9
In a nutshell, Tara is
more enthusiastic and full of spark of life with high aspirations which were
not fulfilled owing to her handicapped state. Throughout the play she bears
some kind of grudge against the society. She seems to have some kind of
disliking with the outside world though her world consists of only her parents
and her brother whom she was ever close to. The play explores the typical
Indian mind set which has from time immemorial preferred a boy child to a girl
child.
“Tara,
a feisty girl who isn`t 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 is
issues of class and community, and the clash between traditional and modern
lifestyles and values." CP [p-319]2
If
she had been given moral support by her parents .She might have shone like a
star as her name signifies. Tara is killed by social system, which controls the
minds and actions of the people. This makes her life a burden on this earth and
consequently she loses interest in life.
"TARA. Oh! What a waste! A waste of money
.What spends all the money to keep me alive? It cannot matter whether I live or
die. There are thousands of poor sick people on the roads who could be given
care and attention, and I think I know what I will make of myself. I will be a
crier for those people . I---- I will spend the rest of my life feeding
and clothing those. ----starving naked millions everywhere is talking
about. May be I can start an institution that will ---- do all that.
Or I could join Mother Teresa and sacrifice myself to a great cause. That may give---purpose
to my ---existence .I can do it .I can do it , can`t I ?I will be
very happy if I could , because that is really what I want .That really ---
[with emotion].Oh! , bullshit! I don`t care .I don`t care for anyone except
mummy! [CP- p-370]12
In the end, I can say that Mahesh Dattani has
excellently revealed the issue of gender discrimination in this play (an
inequality against the girl child). To look son and daughter with biased and
discriminating eyes has been traditional and age old custom in India and Tara
is a victim of this social system, which controls the minds and actions of the
people. In Indian society, woman is variously presented as a mother, wife,
daughter and sister even goddess. But ironically in the patriarchal structure
of an Indian family, Women and girls are trained to remain confined to kitchen
and courtyard. Be it a daughter, wife,daughter-in-law or mistress all are
dependent on man for financial and physical security. They were treated to
secondary position in all walks of life. At every stage in the life –cycle, the
female body is both the objects of desire and of control. Dattani gives the
message that the final solutions comprise in the words like tolerance,
generosity and respect for other human beings, which are the strength of Indian
culture.
Works Cited
1.
Dattani, Mahesh, Collected Plays, Penguin, New Delhi,2000.
2.
Dhawan, R.K.,Flowering of Indian Drama. Prestige Books, New Delhi,
2004.
3.
Agrawal, Beena. Mahesh Dattani’s Plays: A New Horizon in
Indian Theater. Jaipur: Book Enclave, 2008.
4.
Antares. Bharatanatyam Blues: Review of Primetime
Theatre’s Dance Like a Man. 5 Aug., 2002.
5.
Chaudhuri, Asha Kuthari. Mahesh Dattani. Delhi: Foundation Book,
2005
6.
Mee, Erin. A Note in the Play .Collected Plays. Mahesh Dattani.
Penguin Books. New Delhi.
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