M
A English IV Semester
Paper
II
Indian
Writing in English II
Unit
IV
Detailed Study of Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions
Mahesh
Dattani is a well-known English playwright, actor and director of India. He is
the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi award for
Final Solutions in 1998.The theme of the play Final Solutions is to highlight human weaknesses, selfishness,
avarice and opportunism. Woven into the play are the issues of class and
communities and the clashes between traditional and modern life style and value
systems. The problem of minorities is not confined to only Hindus and Muslims,
it eats the peace of any minority community among the majority.
"Final Solutions" has a powerful
contemporary resonance and it addresses as issue of utmost concern to our
society, i.e. the issue of communalism. The play presents different shades of
the communalist attitude prevalent among Hindus and Muslims in its attempt to
underline the stereotypes and clichés influencing the collective sensibility of
one community against another. What distinguishes this work from other plays
written on the subject is that it is neither sentimental in its appeal nor
simplified in its approach.
It
advances the objective candour of a social scientist while presenting a mosaic
of diverse attitudes towards religious identity that often plunges the country
into inhuman strife. Yet the issue is not moralised, as the demons of communal
hatred are located not out in the street but deep within us.
The
play moves from the partition to the present day communal riots. It probes into
the religious bigotry by examining the attitudes of three generations of a
middle-class Gujarati business family, Hardika, the grandmother, is obsessed
with her father's murder during the partition turmoil and the betrayal by a
Muslim friend, Zarine. Her son, Ramnik Gandhi, is haunted by the knowledge his
fortunes were founded on a shop of Zarine's father, which was burnt down by his
kinsmen.
Hardika's
daughter-in-law, Aruna, lives by the strict code of the Hindu Samskar and the
granddaughter, Smita, cannot allow herself a relationship with a Muslim boy.
The pulls and counter-pulls of the family are exposed when two Muslim boys,
Babban and Javed, seek shelter in their house on being chased by a baying Hindu
mob.
Babban
is a moderate while Javed is an aggressive youth. After a nightlong exchange of
judgements and retorts between the characters, tolerance and forgetfulness
emerge as the only possible solution of the crisis. Thus, the play becomes a timely
reminder of the conflicts raging not only in India but in other parts of the
world.
Mahesh
Dattani's 'Final Solutions' is that
rare look at a socio-political problem that defies all final solutions….Arvind
Gaur's competent direction… intense, topical and artistically mounted, Asmita's
'Final Solutions' brought back memories of Habib Tanvir's rendition of 'Jis
Lahore nahi Dekhya' and Saeed Mirza's 'Naseem.
'Final Solutions' touches us, and the bitter realities of our lives so
closely that it becomes a difficult play to handle for the Indian Director. The
past begins to determine the outlook of the present and thus the earlier
contradictions re-emerge.
Although,
no concrete solutions are provided in the play to the problem of communalism
but it raises questions on secularism and pseudo secularism. It forces us to
look at ourselves in relation to the attitudes that persist in the society. Final
Solutions has taken the issues of the majority communities in different
contexts and situations. It talks of the problems of cultural hegemony, how
Hindus had to suffer at the hands of Muslim majority like the characters of
Hardika/Daksha in Hussainabad. And how Muslims like Javed suffer in the setup
of the majority Hindu community. This all resulted in communal riots and
culminated in disruption of the normal social life, and thus hampered the
progress of the nation.
Since
it is an experiment in time and space and relates to memory, it is a play,
which involves a lot of introspection on the part of the characters in the play
and thus induces similar introspection in the viewers. It is an attempt to
experiment with the chorus. It has been used in a style, which is called
'realistic stylisation'. The chorus represents the conflicts of the characters.
Thus the chorus in a sense is the psycho-physical representation of the
characters and also provides the audience with the visual images of the
characters' conflicts.
There
is no stereotyped use of the characterisation of the chorus because communalism
has no face, it is an attitude and thus it becomes an image of the characters.
The sets and properties used in the play are simple. This has been done to
accentuate the internal conflicts and the subtext of the play. Theatre for
'Asmita' is a method of reflection, understanding and debating the contemporary
socio-political issues through the process of the play and hope the play will
also have a lasting impact on the audience.
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