De-Stereotyping Ex-Centric Identities in a Few of Mahesh
Dattani’s Plays in the Light of Performativity by Shyamolima
Saikia
Abstract
Gender, today, is not seen as a creation of different
properties of bodies but is a creation of social behaviour and practices. Since
at least the 1970s, anthropologists have described gender categories in some
cultures which they could not adequately explain using a two-gender framework.
Simultaneously, feminists began to distinguish between (biological) sex and
(social/psychological) gender. Contemporary gender theorists usually argue that
a two-gender system is neither natural nor universal. A sex/gender system which
recognizes only the following two social norms has been called
"heteronormative". Queer theory, for instance, includes a broad range
of theoretical possibilities that mainstream feminism has not been able to
accommodate. It is a structuralist approach to the analysis, documenting,
history and understanding of human sexuality, particularly interested in forms
of sexuality that fall outside of the so-called heterosexual norm. It raises
definitional and ontological questions concerning what it means to be bisexual,
gay, lesbian or straight. To “queer” becomes an act by which stable boundaries
of sexual identity are transgressed, reversed, mimicked, or otherwise
critiqued. “Queering” can be enacted on behalf of all non-normative sexualities
and identities as well, all that is considered by the dominant paradigms of
culture to be alien, strange, unfamiliar, transgressive, odd—in short, queer
(Buchanan, 394).
De-Stereotyping Ex-Centric Identities in a Few of
Mahesh Dattani’s Plays in the Light of Performativity
Michel Foucault’s work on sexuality anticipates and
informs the Queer theoretical movement in a role similar to the way his writing
on power and discourse prepared the ground for New Historicism. Foucault’s work
sought to find out both how and why human sexuality came to be treated as an
item of knowledge and the cultural and political implications of the attempt to
make it knowable. In general, Foucault’s work shows that power exerts itself by
creating regimes of inclusion and exclusion. Heavily influenced by the work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler,
and Lauren
Berlant, queer theory builds both upon feminist
challenges to the idea that gender is part of the essential
self and upon gay/lesbian studies' close examination of the socially constructed nature of sexual acts
and identities. Whereas gay/lesbian studies focused
its inquiries into "natural" and "unnatural" behaviour with
respect to homosexual behaviour, queer theory expands its focus to encompass
any kind of sexual activity or identity that falls into normative
and deviant
categories. Queer theory's main project is exploring the contesting of the
categorisation of gender and sexuality; identities are not fixed – they cannot
be categorised and labelled – because identities consist of many varied
components and that to categorise by one characteristic is wrong.
The insights provided by recent developments in theory can
show the diverse aspects and hitherto unexplored layers, for instance, the
complex nature of contemporary Indian subjectivity as a multidimensional
construct. Literary theory, which is broadly speaking anti-foundationalist and
anti-essentialist, has in recent years moved away from outmoded terminology and
increasingly employed the term “subject” in place of “self”. The term “self”
assumes the idea of Unitarian identity, of identity as something
unique, coherent and autonomous but the term “subject” is relatively open and
marked by difference as it takes into account various socio-political,
linguistic and cultural factors that constitute subjectivity. The subject is no
longer regarded as a definite, coherent and fixed construction but as a
flexible structure open to change, moulding and remoulding by a variety of
factors. Subjectivity thus can be examined as to how it is fashioned by
language, discourse, power, culture and ideology (Saini 10-11). Based in large
part on the writings of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and other late
twentieth-century theorists, early modern subjectivities have come to be
considered as provisional and performative cultural constructs and subject
performance in the early modern theatre has been and continues to be widely
theorized as perpetually created and redefined in complex relation to
socio-political and discursive pressures. Yet the poststructuralist concept of
the universally discontinuous subject has proved problematic as regards to
“subjects” who have been marginalized or excluded from official culture,
whether premodern or postmodern. Judith Butler herself in Bodies that Matter
cautioned against the uncritical enunciation of a theory that upholds
non-essentialist subjectivities and identifications without an attendant exploration
of the ideologies of exclusion that initially gave rise to those structures
(Viviana et al. 87-88).
Writers like Dattani try to uncover the excesses and
repressive forces behind the construction of the notion of gender by the media,
the families, the courts, literature and art.
His characters represent especially the marginalised sexualities who
struggle for some kind of freedom and happiness under the oppressive weight of
tradition, cultural constructions of gender and repressed desire. He is mainly
concerned with the “invisible” issues in Indian society. For instance,
homosexuality which is a taboo issue, is brought out of the closet and placed
onstage for public viewing and dialogue. Classification of sex in terms of
biology or ascribing connotation to words in terms of logic or grammar as
masculine, feminine and neuter that produces the gender system has not
categorized homosexuality under another independent gender. The biological and
grammatical classifications exclude the real relations in conformity to the
ideology that govern the system of relations among human beings in the society.
Dattani by portraying a life of indignity, exclusion and repression of the
sexually deviant marginalised people, usually set aside as perverse by authors
and dramatists, challenges the heterosexual normativity considered normal in
our culture. Since contemporary Indian drama is very complex and employs the
latest technique and innovative themes, its critical evaluation also calls for
fresh critical analysis in the light of modern literary theory. The aim of this
paper is to interrogate such ex-centric identities as depicted by Dattani, with
special reference to Dance Like a Man (1989) and Seven Steps Around the Fire
(radio play for the BBC, 1998) in the light of recent theory, particularly
Judith Butler’s theory of performativity.
Judith Butler revisits the question of identity from a
somewhat different position but one which is situated within the Derridean and
Foucauldian territories of Poststructuralism. Butler is also influenced by Lacanian
psychoanalysis, phenomenology, structural anthropologists and speech-act
theory, particularly the work of John Searle in her understanding of the
“performativity” of our identities. A good example in speech-act theory is what John Searle terms illocutionary speech
acts, those speech acts that actually do something rather than merely represent
something. A common example is the “I pronounce you man and wife” of the
marriage ceremony. In making that statement, a person of authority changes the
status of a couple within an intersubjective community; those words actively
change the status of that couple by establishing a new marital reality: the
words do what they say. A speech act can produce that which it names, however,
only by reference to the law or the accepted norm, code or contract which is
cited or repeated and thus performed in the pronouncement (Felluga,pars.1-2).
She also links gender with linguistic performativity .She explores the ways in
which linguistic constructions create our reality in general through the speech
acts we participate in every day. By endlessly citing the conventions and
ideologies of the social world around us, we enact that reality; in the
performative act of speaking, we
incorporate that reality by enacting it with our bodies, but that
“reality” nonetheless remains a social construction (at one step removed from
what Lacan distinguishes from reality by the term, “the Real”).In the act of
performing the conventions of reality, by embodying those fictions in our
actions, we make those artificial conventions appear to be natural and
necessary . All of these theories explore the ways that social reality is not given
but is continually created as an illusion “through language, gesture, and all
manner of symbolic social sign”(quoted in Felluga, pars.1-2).
The root of Butler's argument in Gender Trouble is that
the coherence of the categories of sex, gender, and sexuality—the natural-seeming
coherence, for example, of masculine gender and heterosexual desire in male
bodies—is culturally constructed through the repetition of stylized acts in
time. This is the way in which Butler
famously theorizes gender, along with sex and sexuality, as performative.
The performance of gender, sex, and sexuality, however, is not a voluntary
choice for Butler, who locates the construction of the gendered, sexed, desiring
subject within what she calls, borrowing from Foucault’s
Discipline and Punish, "regulative discourses."
These, also called "frameworks of intelligibility" or
"disciplinary regimes," decide in advance what possibilities of sex,
gender, and sexuality are socially permitted to appear as coherent or
"natural." Regulative discourse includes within it disciplinary techniques which, by coercing
subjects to perform specific stylized actions, maintain the appearance in those
subjects of the "core" gender, sex and sexuality the discourse itself
produces ( Butler 171-90). Foucault argued that speaking about sex is a way of
simultaneously producing and controlling it; and since there can be no position
outside the law, subversion of law also must take place within the existing
discursive structures. It means that the dominant discourse of heterosexuality
requires homosexuality to define itself and maintain stability.
Butler
argues that the category of the subject is a performative construct and there
are ways of ‘doing’ one’s identity which might trouble the neat binary
oppositions of male/female, masculine/feminine, straight/queer etc. She claims
that gender identity is a sequence of acts, but she does not mean that there is
a pre-existing performer who performs these acts. However, this does not mean
that there is no subject: it merely means that the subject does not come before
these acts. She believes that sex, gender and sexuality do not exist in
relation to each other. Generally, sex is seen to cause gender and gender is
seen to cause desire, but Butler’s
attempt is to show that gender and desire are not fixed but flexible. It is
possible to be female by sex and yet display masculine traits. Gender,
according to Butler is a “choice” .However, by
“choice”, Butler
does not mean that a subject is an entirely free agent who can select her/his
gender; this is not possible because the choice of gender is always limited from
the start. But she suggests that it is possible to “do” these constructions
differently (2).
Thus, the idea that the subject is an effect rather than a
cause lies at the basis of Butler’s
theory of performativity. Gender then, according to Butler, is constructed and not naturally
determined by sex. Further, questioning the distinction usually made between
sex and gender, Butler
says that both these categories are performative: Gender is not a noun but it
proves to be performative, that constitutes the identity it is purported to be.
Butler does not
claim that gender is a performance. She distinguishes between performance and
performativity. Performance presupposes a pre-existing subject; performativity
contests the very notion of the subject. Since gender identities are
constructed and constituted in language, there is no gender identity that
precedes language. And if there is no identity outside language, the existence
of an inner core or essence is thrown open to challenge. Butler suggests that gender acts are not
performed by a subject, but these acts constitute the subject performatively.
Gender is not what we are but what we do at particular times within the
possibilities of discourses. Thus, any identity acquired through the repetition
of expected acts is not truly coherent and stable. Its coherence and stability
are only illusions and can be deconstructed to reveal their constructed nature.
In fact, there are many performative acts which undermine the normative
conceptions of sexual and gender identity, such as cross-dressing.
Cross-dressing and other unusual experiments with sexuality lay bare the
constructedness of sexuality and show that there are no fixities but
ever-shifting differences in the field of sexuality. Butler suggests that certain cultural
configurations which have come to seem natural in our culture are only effects
of discourses. As such, these cultural configurations are not fixed and can be
changed. Butler
calls for action to change gender norms and the binary understanding of masculinity
and feminity. Since there is scope for combining and recombining certain
markers of gender and sexuality, gender is open to re-interpretation and
resignification. Yet, even this subversion and re-signification will be
determined by dominant discourses, since there is nothing outside discourses
and therefore the freedom of choice is hopelessly limited. Yet, Butler is optimistic about
the possibility of redoing gender identities to reveal the constructed nature
of heterosexuality. She, thus, examines subjectivity on a performance axis,
calling for subtle actions to subvert pre-existing gender norms gradually. She
dismantles the last traces of the Cartesian self and inaugurates a conception
of the performative subject as both free and unfree (Saini 65-66).
Indian society has always been phallo-centric one, steeped
into stereotypes, where any deviation on the part of gender or sexuality is a
source of ridicule or scorn. One always finds men to be at the zenith of power
and hegemony, while the women remain at the background, either as a moral
support to their men or as an innocent confidante, of course with certain
exceptions. The son in the family is supposed to be the harbinger of peace and
prosperity which is in tune with his traditional role of a protector and
provider. Even today, the society, represented by these patriarchs, denies
accepting any deviations on the part of a son .Thus, as Butler says, gender, along with sex and
sexuality are performative. The collapse of the traditional world as it comes
in conflict with the modern sensibilities is also Dattani’s perception of
subversion of patriarchal stereotypes. Dance like Man is a play dealing with
gender, through dance, one of Dattani’s principal passions. Dattani uses
Traditional Dance as a medium that creates conflict in the play within the
minds of the other characters. As the play goes forward and the actions take
place, Dance takes the center stage and pushes the characters outside. In India, people think that
traditional dance is meant only for women and it is a realm in which no Male
should ever tread. Here the question is not of mere dance form as a hobby but
it has also very deep roots in our culture. It is about the whole conditioning
of a Nation that boasts of having the most ancient cultural tradition. Here,
dancers are identified as ones who have long hair, womanly gait and effeminate
speaking style.
Dattani in this
play, puts a few unlikely questions about the sexual construct that a man is or
the very constituents of a man’s identity-in terms of sexuality, as the head of
the family and as an artist. The play deals with the self and the significance
of the other, through the frameworks of gender and gender roles-the prostitute
as a dancer and an artist; the man as a dancer; the guru who sports long hair
and has an effeminate walk are categories that the older generation, fed on its
perception of the self cannot come to terms with. The stereotypes of gender
roles are set against the idea of the artist in search of creativity within the
restrictive structure of the world that he is forced to inhabit. Jairaj with
his obsession for dance is all set to dismantle these stereotypes. This is the
twist that the playwright gives to the stereotypes associated with ‘gender’
issues that view solely women at the receiving end of the oppressive power
structures of patriarchal society. The play removes this notion and explores
the nature of the tyranny that even men might be subject to within such
structures. Jairaj and Ratna live within such a structure: the domain of the
patriarch Amritlal, Jairaj’s father. His antipathy to a great many things that
concern the activities of his son and daughter-in-law draws the boundary lines
for their behaviour within his sphere of influence. Dance for him is the prostitute’s
profession, improper for his daughter-in-law and absolutely unimaginable for
his son. He forbids Ratna from visiting the old devdasi who teaches her the
intricacies of bharatnatyam; he cannot tolerate the sounds of the dancing bells
that ring through their practice sessions; is astounded at the long-haired guru
with an effeminate walk and cannot, most of all tolerate the idea of his son –a
man- becoming a professional dancer. The underlying fear is surely, that dance
would make him effeminate so that the suggestion of homosexuality hovers near,
though never explicitly mentioned. And hence Amritlal must oppose, tooth and
nail, Jairaj’s passion for dance. This clash brings about the play of property
and money in deciding and manipulating the construction of identities that
would conform, but the result is tragic. He makes a pact with Ratna. He will
permit her career in dance only if she helps him pull Jairaj out of his
obsession and make him a ‘manly’ man. The two can then enjoy the security of
his riches (Chaudhuri 67-68). But the irony remains in Jairaj’s leaving his
paternal house to carve a niche for his own but unfortunately he and his wife
come back ‘defeated’. Amritlal accepts them but his acceptance is tinted. The
authority of a patriarch is always in terms of his wealth for any transaction
he makes, he always equates it with monetary aspects.
When Jairaj takes up Traditional Dance as a hobby and
lifelong craze, he takes it as something that gives him pure delight. He never
thinks of Traditional Dance as something that is ‘Proper’ only for women. This
decision on his part, is brave and daring. He is perfectly convinced with the
idea and allows Ratna also to dance. The radical act of Jairaj, having dance as
a hobby, shows that he believed in carving a new path and had the ability and
mettle to cling to it. He faithfully follows his hobby only to realize
afterwards how he was used by Ratna joining hands with Amritlal. For Ratna
Dance was a medium to gain popularity and status and for that she married Jairaj
who would never stop her from dancing. Ratna’s selfish inner desire was so
powerful that she cold-bloodedly plays with the emotions of Jairaj by
misguiding him constantly. In the guise of a true life companion she deceives
her husband and tries to curb his potential as a dancer. In order to fulfil personal
aims she sacrifices Jairaj’s abilities. Ratna not only spoils Jairaj’s life but
tries to mould her daughter Lata’s life also by making her a traditional
dancer. In spite of being a Male member of the family, Jairaj never tries to
command his authority over Ratna and instead, she very deliberately plays with
his emotions. When Jairaj returns to his father’s house, Ratna dislikes it and
she says in the play once “You! You are fine because you never left your
father’s home and stood on your own two feet...” (105).Shockingly for the readers,
Ratna herself discards Jairaj’s Maleness
openly and he accepts it without any offence. In the play Maleness of Jairaj
was not so much a question of Body but that of mentality. For Ratna, Maleness
might have meant one’s independent decision making power, doing the work that
one liked, living on one’s own terms and conditions, standing on one’s own feet
without any support which Jairaj lacked. Interestingly, even Jairaj was trying
to prove himself an able MALE to Ratna and throughout the play Jairaj appears
as one who suffers on account of choosing his own path, which was untrodden by
others. His portrayal is so noble that he never blames Ratna for the death of
their son Shankar that was the result of her carelessness or insincerity.
Opposite to what is expected, it is not the woman but man who is targeted. In
the play we witness the psychological manipulation of a man by his wife and
father.
What therefore starts as a portrayal of staunch patriarchy
in most of his plays opens up new domains of study, where Dattani subverts the
norms to present the alternate views. Thus, what emerges is a new definition of
masculinity not merely as an antonym of feminity but paving a way for men to
break their “alpha roars” and do what they would perhaps like to. As Butler opines, it is
possible to “do” these cultural constructions of sexuality. And as for the
females, they can opt for a path of their own too, breaking their silence and
the performative roles that they have always played, knowingly or unknowingly,
willingly or unwillingly (Mallick, par.33).
Dattani’s Seven Steps Around the Fire depicts a minority
of hijras and the specific subjection of the community by the rest of the society.
The Hijras of India are probably the most well-known and populous third type
sex type in the modern world, whose population is estimated between 5 and 6
million. They are known differently as Aravani/Aruvani or Jogappa. They are
often somewhat misleadingly called eunuchs in English. They may be born
intersex or apparently male, who dress in feminine attire and generally see
themselves as neither men nor women. The central concerns of Dattani’s play are
set on uncertain ground that are hardly well-documented, given the stigmas
attached to them-hence making Uma’s
academic exercise plausible while being sensitively humane. The eunuch
community that inhabits tiny pockets of Indian cities occupy areas that are
generally pushed aside to the fringes, the margins of society, as it were. This
is literally no man’s land in many senses of the term, and no woman’s, either
(Chaudhuri 63).The playwright plunges into the lived realities of these people,
their struggle through scars, losses and indignity. The major character Uma
Rao, wife of the Superintendent of police, daughter-in-law of the Police
Commissioner and the daughter of the Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University is
empowered enough to reach the inaccessible dens of the city, establish contact
with ‘hijra’ heads in the pursuit of her research on the community. In the
manner of the detective fiction the anxiety is built around a murder mystery,
the murder of a beautiful eunuch, Kamla. Uma’s thoughts and fragments of tests
of her dissertation available as voice in the radio medium attempts at
documenting the origin of hijras. This is a pretext to create an “alternative
historical narrative” to assure the subaltern a place in mainstream
narrativization (Misra 190). Uma’s voice can be quoted here:
the term hijra, of course, is of Urdu origin, a
combination of Hindi, Persian and
Arabic, literally meaning
‘neither male nor female’. Another legend traces their ancestry to the
Ramayana. The legend has it that God Rama was in the forest to cross the river
and go into exile. All the people of the city wanted to follow him. He said,
“Men and women, turn back.”Some of his male followers did not know what to do.
They could not disobey him. So they sacrificed their masculinity, to become
neither men nor women, and followed him to
the forest. Rama was pleased with their devotion and blessed them (239).
Dattani’s characterization of hijras like Anarkali,
Champa, Kamla evoke sympathy while the begging and dancing hijra in groups draw
human attention when they are treated as unwanted and abominable. A minister
manages to have Kamla burned to death to suppress the fact of the secret
marriage between his son Subbu and the hijra. But it was the minister’s son who
used the hijra for his pleasure and was bringing him regularly to bed. The
‘invisible minority’ is denied visibility and used as a salt-lick by the wild
and the powerful of the society. The Anarkalis are to be blamed, picked as
scape-goats and tried for murder cases. The constable in the jail refers to
‘Anarkali’ not as ‘she’ but as ‘it’. Suresh, the superintendent of police
thinks the hijras to be criminals, liers, dogs and castrated degenerate men
(Misra 191). Munuswamy is highly amused at Uma’s reference to Anarkali as
‘she’, himself preferring the neuter ‘it’. He piously declares that a lady with
antecedents like Uma should perhaps look
at more acceptable cases like “Man killing wife, wife killing man’s lover,
brother killing brother...dowry death cases...’’(234).This is how, these
ex-centric gender identities are constructed and constituted in language.
Marginalized even in crime, the community Uma focuses upon and tries to
investigate has grown around itself thick and impenetrable walls of
incomprehensible myths and superstitions so that it may survive in its isolation.
Like Munswamy points out, it would be ‘simpler’ and more ‘honorouble’ for Uma
to study ‘mainstream’ crime. He menacingly informs Anarkali and her cellmates
about Uma’s background –“the daughter-in-law of the Deputy Commissioner and the
wife of our Superintendent”(235). Skillfully problematizing the components of
identity for a woman in a given patriarchal setup, Dattani pits against
Anarkali’s reaction whose own neutral ground has taught her to be wary of these
very components. She is immediately on her guard and inaccessible- spitting
venom and abuse, and in the process laying bare a number of unpalatable truths.
Then she changes tactics and decides to use operating power situation to her
own benefit by manipulating Uma to obtain her freedom, money (and even
cigarettes!).The conversations that Uma has with Anarkali reveal many of the
veiled truths that lie shrouded within the multiple layers of myths and
cultural beliefs and at the same time problematizing relationships within
accepted norms. While Suresh howls with derisive laughter at the idea of a
‘sisterhood’ of eunuchs, “They are all castrated degenerate men....” (238), Uma
actually offers her own sisterhood to Anarkali, who pounces upon the idea to
manipulate her way to freedom and also in turn exposes her: “You are the
daughter-in-law of the DCP and you ask me what you can do to save your
sister?(243).
Anarkali, the accused and Champa, the head hijra are
symbols of the ambiguous spaces they occupy in terms of their suspect
sexuality. By constraining and suppressing them, the outside world with its
oppressive discourse of normative heterosexual behaviour shapes the
subjectivity of these queer people, making them what they are. The result being
that these victims begin to see themselves as abnormal. As Champa remarks to
Uma: “...you see us also as society, no?”(254).These subjects are trapped
within the dominant discourse so that as Champa says: “We cannot speak...When
we want to speak nobody listens...” (259). Champa snickers at Uma’s reference
to her as ‘madam’, at the same time declaring that she was the mother/father of
Kamla, the beautiful eunuch who was burnt alive. Their voices fill up much of
the playing time without ever empowering them or arriving at any resolutions:
the plot only thickens as it were. Meanwhile it is the absent presence of the
dead Kamla that haunts the entire play. Dattani actually manages to portray a
sense of tenderness and romance between Subbu and Kamla through the narrative
of the eunuchs that arrives at the climax in the sensational suicide, of the
denoument (Chaudhuri 64-65).Paradoxically they appear on the occasions of
marriage and birth to entertain and bless whereas they themselves are deprived
of marriage and birth. Their isolation is marked by warmth and sisterly feeling.
Champa’s eagerness to save Anarkali from trial, her concern for Kamla in
preventing her to be abused by the gay son of the minister, her managerial
skill as the head hijra-all bear testimony to this. Dattani has a keen ear for
the crude accent, filthy words uttered by the hijras and in particular their
peculiar loud hand clap, making up those acts by which they are often
identified. Uninvited they come to bless the newlyweds at the minister’s place.
The minister asks the guards to throw them out. But on Uma’s request they are
allowed to sing and dance (Misra, 190-191).
The play ends in Subbu’s suicide using, strategically,
Suresh’s gun and the revelation by the hijras. Uma’s discoveries are however to
come to naught with the world simply resuming where it had left off, with the
subversives firmly pushed back to the margins and made invisible again. Uma,
wife and daughter /daughter-in-law of respectable society will go back to her
established world order with a telling comment: “They knew. Anarkali, Champa
and all the hijra people knew who was behind the killing of Kamla. They have no
voice. The case was hushed up and was not even reported in the newspapers.
Champa was right. The police made no arrests. Subbu’s suicide was written off
as an accident. The photograph was destroyed. So were the lives of two young
people...” (282). Dattani deftly combines two gender concerns in this play-the
woman as a lone fighter in multiple roles and yet empowered only
derivatively, using all possible means
to fulfill her ends, juxtaposed with the extremely marginalized, ‘invisible’
groups of eunuchs of undefined sexuality who she tries to make contact with
(Chaudhuri 66).
Thus, interrogation of the ex-centric identities in the
two plays discussed above shows how certain subjectivities are marginalized
within the heterosexual power structures and are trapped within its discourse,
how these identities are both free and unfree, trying to subvert pre-existing
gender norms. Whether it be an identity like a dancer subverting the construct
of the male stereotype or a hijra, the society does not accept them for what
they are and instead tries to alienate these identities as ex-centric through a
complex web of discourses. At a time when, even after the decriminalization of
homosexuality by the Delhi High Court’s 2009 verdict, the Indian government
continues to be reluctant to take a definite stand on the issue, fearing it
would go against the country’s cultural practices, a playwright like Dattani
deserves kudos, for his works claim a place for marginalized people onstage and
by extension in society. The plays of Mahesh Dattani can be seen as conversations between the
writer and his audience on models of reality, and their performance can be interpreted as
moments in subjectivization. Questions of gender, sexuality and identity are
put across and the unspoken is voiced, the unseen made visible. In initiating
an audience into redefining identity, Dattani provides the strictures within
which problematizations may be re-examined and better understood. He also seeks
to queer the debate on Indian middle-class morality, thereby challenging its
privileged status and stressing the interconnection between repression and
invisibility. The question for the audience is whether Dattani's plays can cue
them into experiences of resistance and encourage them to reinvent narratives
that may then function as personal histories.
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- Misra,Dr.Chittaranjan. “Gay Themes in Dattani’s Plays.” Indian Writing in English Tradition and Modernity. Ed. Amar Nath Prasad & Kanupriya.1st ed.New Delhi: Sarup & Sons,2006.
- Oommen,Susan(2001). “Inventing Narratives,Arousing Audiences:the Plays of Mahesh Dattani. ” New Theatre Quarterly 17(2001): 347-356.
- Purvis,Tony. “Sexualities”. An Oxford Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. Ed.Patricia Waugh. New Delhi: OUP, 2006.
- Saini, Alpa. “ The Construction of Contemporary Indian
Subjectivity in the Selected Plays of Vijay Tendulkar, Girish Karnad and Mahesh
Dattani”
- Saini, Alpa. “Negotiating the Ethical Crisis- A View of Contemporary Indian Drama”.9 Jan 2009.15Jan2012< http://www.ezinearticles.com>News and Society>Pure Opinion>
- Viviana, Viviana Comensoli; Jankowski, Theodora; and Reynolds, Bryan. “Subjectivity, Theory and Early Modern Drama.” Early Theatre.7.2 (2004).23Feb2012:87-119(paper). Article 5.
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Shyamolima Saikia works as an Assistant Professor
in English in the Centre for Juridical Studies, Dibrugarh University.
She is also working as an Academic Counsellor in the Directorate of Distance
Education,Dibrugarh
University. She has
presented papers in various national and international seminars.
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