Abstract
Dramatic art has been of great interest in oriental as well as occidental world since times immemorial. The genre became very popular in the western part of the globe, especially in Greece and Britain, and with the passage of time it travelled to the British colonies. But the tradition of drama in India existed even before we became a British colony. Its history goes back to 500 B.C. when Bhasa wrote plays like Urubhanga and Karna and became the oldest known dramatist. Later Sanskrit drama flourished here with the contribution of great playwrights like Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti. Soon the glory of Sanskrit drama vanished because it distanced itself from life. Drama regained vigour when the British, who were fond of going to theatre in moments of leisure, set up their government in India. But since then drama in English has not sailed smoothly in spite of the presence of the sage poet and dramatist Rabindernath Tagore who made a notable contribution to the enrichment and revival of Indian drama. Fortunately the contemporary Indian drama in English is continuously being enriched by creative and socially committed writers like Vijay Tendulkar, Girish Karnad, Badal Sircar, Mahesh Dattani and Manjula Padmnabhan. These playwrights have shown a special penchant for the study of man and his milieu and have produced interesting and stageable plays. Their plays have been acted and appreciated all over the globe and have brought recognition to both Indian drama and Indian dramatists.
Keywords: Indian drama, Communication, Perfection, Sectarianism
Dattani’s Dramatic Vision
Mahesh Dattani is one of the most vocal dramatic voices in India who gave fresh life to the otherwise neglected field of Indian theatre in English. He is the first Indian playwright writing in English to be awarded the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award for his brilliant contribution to the world of drama, and has been hailed as “one of India’s best and most serious contemporary playwrights writing in English” (International Herald Tribune 27 July 1994). Just like Henrik Ibsen or Bernard Shaw, Dattani explores social and familial issues of vital importance. His plays are contemporary in theme and style beyond doubt: “I’m certain that my plays are a true reflection of my time, place and socio-economic background … in a country that has a myriad challenges to face politically, socially, artistically and culturally” (Preface, Collected Plays: 2000). The present paper proposes to analyse the major characters of three of Dattani’s plays namely Where There’s a Will (1988), Dance like a Man (1989) and Final Solutions (1993).
Varied in form and diverse in content Mahesh Dattani’s plays deal with the theme of lack of communication: between different communities, between individual and society, parents and children, and between man and woman. Dattani underlines the difference between tradition and modernity in exploring the conflict between the old and the new generations. The new generation has a fresh sense of freedom and it refuses to be a blind follower of the preceding generation. Dattani’s characters live in this transitional world where the old values are dying but the new values are yet to be born. The playwright lays bare the deeds of his characters that seem to sacrifice their noble virtues like love, compassion, sympathy and humane attitude in pursuit of perfection.
Where There’s a Will: Patriarchy and the Quest for Control
The characters in his play Where There’s a Will are denied freedom throughout by the domineering patriarch Hasmukh Mehta. Ajit, the son and Preeti, the daughter-in-law have to strive hard to get rid of the ire of the unfatherly father. But in the process of their search for identity and perfection they slaughter their own soul and fall prey to dishonest practices. Hasmukh exercises hegemonic power over his dependents and wishes to perpetuate it not only when alive but even after his death also. About this bossy-natured head of Mehta family Kiran concludes: “Hasmukh Mehta was living his life in his father’s shadow… . [He] didn’t really want a mistress. He wanted a father. He saw in me a woman who would father him!” (WTW 509-10).
Hasmukh hands over the reins of the family to Kiran Jhaveri through his ‘will’, and now all the members of Mehta family get a democratic and caring head. But all of them appear to be driven by selfish ends in one way or the other. They slay the soul of joint family system for the greed of gold. Preeti goes to the extent of facilitating Hasmukh’s untimely death by replacing his medicine meant for controlling his blood pressure with her own vitamin tablets. Thus Preeti, like many characters in the play, slaughters her soul in pursuit of perfection.
Dance like a Man: The Pursuit of Artistic Perfection
The sense of feeling of failure and incompleteness again affects the life of the dancers Ratna and Jairaj in Dance like a Man. Ratna has passion for dance and wants to become a perfect Bharatnatyam dancer. She leaves no stone unturned to fulfil this aim and crosses all the hurdles in her way erected by her father-in-law Amritlal Parekh: she sharpens her talent by practicing hard, takes lessons from a devdasi named Chenni Amma, and even sacrifices her son Shankar on the altar of her ambition by administering an overdose of opium to the child so that it might not stay awake and weep when she is away for a dance performance.
When she comes back to her father-in-law Amritlal Parekh’s house, he proposes her a secret agreement that she will be allowed to dance if she co-operates him in stopping Jairaj from dancing. And she accepts the pact readily. Thus to see her dream fulfilled at any cost, she has no qualms about her irresponsible behaviour towards her beloved husband.
Like his wife Ratna, Jairaj is also obsessed with his career as a dancer. He takes to drinking and painfully complains how Ratna used him as a tool, as a stage prop, as a choreographer to her dance items, and never considered him a co-dancer. His search for a career in dance takes him nowhere and in the end he admits: “We were only human. We lacked the grace. We lacked the brilliance. We lacked the magic to dance like God” (DLM 447).
Final Solutions: Communalism and the Search for Understanding
In Final Solutions, Ramnik Gandhi and Babban are secular-minded human beings who feel a need for better communal understanding. It is Smita, Ramnik’s daughter, who emerges as the real icon of equality and fraternity in the two communities. She hands the “God’s vessel” (214) over to Javed to be filled up with water to establish the belief that our prejudices are totally futile. Babban’s act of holding Hindu god in his hand towards the end of the play symbolises oneness of all human beings who, otherwise, keep fighting in the name of religion, caste, creed and region.
Aruna appears to be the one who mercilessly debases the spirit of religion. She glorifies her religion and discredits Muslims as demons, thrusts her wishes on her daughter to make her feel stifled and ignores the human virtues like mercy, tolerance and selfless love. Religious extremists’ belief that their own religion is superior while all other religions are inferior, breeds only fanaticism and intolerance. As Jasbir Jain rightly remarks: “The over-religiosity of religion reduces the humanity of human beings” (Jain 191).
Dattani, a keen observer of the social order around him, makes use of appropriate symbols which not only enriches his dramatic art but also highlight the key issues in the play. In Final Solutions, the darkness of night is symbolic of bitterness and revolt while the morning light denotes acceptance and fairness in relationships. The whole action of the play takes place in darkness and ends with the advent of dawn.
Conclusion
Seen in a larger context, Dattani seems to be concerned with modern man’s life which lacks completeness at several fronts and is very complex in itself. He records ‘the gaps’, with every minor and minute detail, both at familial and social levels and hints ‘some solutions’. He draws our attention towards the evils in society through the portrayal of powerful characters with whom the audience can easily empathise. The issues raised in his plays do not pertain to the bygone era but are of contemporary relevance. Dattani’s whole purpose in this display of miserable life of his characters seems to be to make the audiences aware of the problems that hamper the growth of happy and harmonious relationship between human beings both at familial and social levels.
Works Cited
- Dattani, Mahesh. Preface, Collected Plays. New Delhi: Penguin, 2000.
- Dattani, Mahesh. Interview with Anita Nair, “An Unveiling of a Playwright in Three Acts,” The Gentleman. May 2001.
- Dattani, Mahesh. Collected Plays. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2000.
- Jain, Jasbir. New Concerns: Voices in Indian Writing. ed. Sushma Arya and Shalini Sikka. New Delhi: Macmillan, 2006.
- Padamsee, Alyque. “A Note on the Play ‘Final Solutions’” Collected Plays. New Delhi: Penguin, 2000. 161.
- Rooks, Pamela and Mahesh Dattani. Dance Like a Man, Screenplay prod. by National Film Development Co. of India with Rooks AV, Mumbai, 2004.
- Viets, Alexandra. “A Stark Look at Modern India,” International Herald Tribune. 27 July 1994.