Indo-Anglican Drama

 Indian drama in English lacks variety, originality and genuineness.

 Indian English drama does not have fecundity (faithfulness, richness, lushness,
richness) and excellence that we find in poetry and fiction in English.
 Michael Madhusudan Dutt translated his plays – Ratnavali, Sermista and Is This
Called Civilization? from Bengali into English.
 Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo and Harindranath Chattopadhyaya are the big
three of the Indian English drama.

I. Rabindranath Tagore

 Indo-Anglican drama starts from Rabindranath Tagore.

 He was influenced by Shakespeare, Ibsen and Maeterlink but he had deep interest
in dramatic tradition of India. His knowledge of Indian epics and cultural tradition
provided themes and plots for his plays.
 Being ultra-modern in his thoughts, he found Indian thoughts, customs are out-
dated and inhuman.
 The reformist zeal in him propelled (to push / drive someone or sth forward or in a
particular direction) him to write against evils of the modern society such as -
1. Casteism
2. Increasing Achism in families fanaticism (extremist) striking against tolerance
and pettiness and magnanimity
 Musical language symbolic representation and love of humanity are his tour de
force (a very skillful and successful effort or performance).
 Tagore drew on epics, Upanishads etc for the plots of his plays. His plays
possessed deep psychological insight into his characters particularly in female
psyche. Tagore borrowed from history and psychology of India. His characters are
archetypal and symbolic.
1. Sanyasi
2. The King and the Queen
3. Sacrifice
4. Malini
5. Natir Puja
6. Chandalika
7. The Cycle of Spring
8. Red Olanders
9. Mukta Dhara
10. Chitra
11. Gandhari’s Prayer
12. The King of the Dark Chamber
13. The Post Office

II. Sri Aurobindo

 He is a poet, dramatist, prose-writer, mystic – all in one.

 His plays are steeped into poetry and romance.
 He has been influenced by classical literature, Renaicssance writers, Milton, and
Sanskrit dramatists.
 His plays were written in Miltonic blank verse.

His works

1. The Witch of Lini: A Drama of the Woodlands

2. Achab and Esar
3. The Viziers of Bassora: A Dramatic Romance
4. Life Divine
5. Savitri
6. Perseus, the Deliverer
7. The Hero and the Nymph
8. Vasavdutta
9. Rodogune
10. Eric
11. Prince of Edur
 All his plays are five act plays in Elizabethan style.
 His three fragments are “The Maid in the Mill”, “The House of the Brut” and “The
Birth of Sin” have Elizabethan echoes. Aruobindo’s plays have been crippled by
profuse Elizabethan influence and lack originality and appeal.

III. Harendranath Chatopadhyay

His works

1. Five Plays- It reflects his social consciousness realism and ironical prose
2. The Parrot
3. The Widow
4. The Sentry’s Lantern - express predicament of the poor and a hope for
change
5. The Coffin
 He has written plays on saints such as Pundalik, Prahlad, Saku Bai, Mira Bai,
Jayadeva, Choka Mela, Tukaram, Eknath, Raidas etc. But these plays are not so
dramatically effective as his plays on social problems are.
 He has written some biological plays also. The most ambitious of them is
Siddhartha : Man of Peace

IV. T.P.Kalisam

His plays are written on Puranic Themes.

1. The Burden
2. Fulfilment
3. Karna – based on the story of Mahabharat
4. Keechak

V. Dhan Gopal Mukherji

He wrote verse dramas. His famous work is Layla-Majnu

VI. Bharati Sarabhai

His works
 1. The Well of the People – It talks about the evils of untouchability and caste
prejudices. A Brahmin woman builds a temple for Harijans.
2. Two Women

VII. A.S.P. Ayyar

His work

1. Slaves of Ideas and Other Plays

VIII. Lobo Prabhu

His work

1. Apes in the Parlour

IX. S.Fyzee-Rahamin

His work

1. Daughter of Ind

X. Suryadutt J.Bhatt

His work

1. The Trial Celestial

XI. G.V.Desani

His works

1. Holi – It is a poetic play

XII. Asif Currimbhoy

He wrote thirty plays on variety of themes like history, politics, economic problems
etc. His works

1. The Captives
2. Inquilab
3. The Refugee
4. The Miracle seed
5. The Tourist of Mella
6. The Dumb Dancer
7. The Doldrummers

XIII. Lakhan Devi

His works

1. Murder at the Prayer Meeting – It deals with the assassination of Mahatma

Gandhi.
2. Tiger Claw

XIV. Nissim Ezekiel

He has written several good plays. He is known for his poetic works

1. Nalini – It is a comedy
2. Marriae Poem – It is a tragic-comedy
3. The Sleep-Walkers – An Indo-American farce.

XV. Gurcharan Das

His works

1. Larins Saheb – It is a play in three acts. It deals with colonial India in 19 th

Century.
2. Mira – It presents Mira’s love of God.
3. Jakhoo Villa – It shows decadence (corruption) that overtakes a Hindu family.

XVI. Gieve Patel

His works

1. Princes – It deals with conflict over the possession of a child who becomes
invalid and dies.
2. Savaksa

XVII. Girish Karnad

His works

1. Tuglaq
2. Yuyati
3. Hayavadana
4. Nagamandala

XVIII. M.V.Rama Sharma

His works

1. Collected Plays – It consists of eleven plays published in one volume

2. Towards Marriage
3. Carnival
4. The Mahatma

XIX. Manohar Malgonkar

His works

1. Lines of Mars (1971)

2. Carnival
3. The Mahatma

XX. Ahmad Akhtar

His works

1. Anarkali
XXI. Arati Nagarwala

His works

1. The Bait

XXII. Masti Venkatesa Iyengar

His works

1. Kalidas

XXIII. S.N.Ghose

XXIV. Pratap Sharma

His works

1. A Tourch of Brightness
2. A Professor

XXV. Santha Ram Rau

 He adopted E.M.Fosters famous novel “A Passage to India” in a brilliant manner.

XXVI. Vijay Tendulkar

 He wrote plays with solical themes. His plays are poignantly satiric in tone.
 Mahesh Dattani

Early life and background

 Mahesh Dattani was born on 7 August 1958 in Bangalore.

 He went to Baldwin Boys High School and then went on to join St. Joseph's College
of Arts and Science at Bangalore.
 Dattani is a graduate in History, Economics and Political Science. He is a post-
graduate in Marketing and Advertising Management.
 After reading Edward Albee’s play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” in his early life,
Mahesh was interested in writing.
 He was influenced by Gujarati playwright Madhu Rye’s “Kumarni Agashi” and
developed interest in play writing.

Career

 Dattani is a versatile genius. He is an Indian director, actor, dancer, teacher,

playwright and writer.
 He is the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi award.
 His plays have been directed by eminent directors like Arvind Gaur, Alyque
Padamsee and Lillete Dubey.
 Mahesh Dattani began his career as a copywriter in an advertising firm.
 He joined Playpen Theatre Group for which he directed several plays on all kinds of
themes.
 In 1986, he wrote his first full-length play, “Where There’s a Will”, and since 1995,
he has been working as a full-time theatre professional. He has also worked with
his father in the family business.
 Dattani is also a film director. His debut film is “Mango Souffle”, adapted from one
of his plays. He also wrote and directed the movie “Morning Raaga”.
 Dattani teaches theatre courtes at Portland State University, Oregon, USA and
arranges workshops on dramatics.
 Dattani has acted in the several well-known plays and has won accolades (tribute,
honour) for his performances.
 Dattani has directed radio plays some of which have been aired on BBC radio as
well.
 He learnt western ballet dancing under Molly Andre and Bharath Natyam under
Chandrabhaga Deir and Krishna Rao.
 He performed Ranga Pravesh (Dance Debut Solo) at Guru Nanak Bhawan,
Bangalore, subsequently in temples.
 He has done screenplay writing at Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai.
 Dattani has held senior positions in theatre Groups.
 In 1987, he was Artistic Director and a Founder of Playpen
 In 1994, he was a senior Associate, National Institute of Advance studies,
Bangalore.
 In 1998, he founded Mahesh Studio.
 In 1999, he became a Senior Trustee, Sivabhava, a Charitable Trust
 In 2000, he held the position of Trustee – Voices, an organization supported by
Ford Foundation.
 He was honoured with Sahitaya Kala Parishad Awards in 1997 for best production
of Dance Like A Man, in 1998 for Bravely Fought the Queen, for Final Solutions and
Other Plays and in 2000 for best production Tara.
 Besides being a dramatic artist, Dattani is a sociologist of sorts. He studies social
problems which he presents in his plays. Therefore, his plays can be studied as
Problem Plays. His plays have been lustily applauded (highly praised, much-
admired, commended, celebrated) by the audiences everywhere, and have
brought rich returns in terms of money.
 Dattani being an artist thinks that money he gets from his plays had made him a
trader instead of an artist.

Dattani is internationally acclaimed playwright. His best known plays are:

1. Where There's a Will (1988)

2. Dance Like a Man (1989)
3. Tara (1990)
4. Bravely Fought the Queen (1991)
5. Final Solutions and Other Plays (1993) – It is a play about communal hatred.
The playwright has uncovered several aspects of the problem. There are, age
old traditions, beliefs, misbeliefs, prejudices etc. which are at the root of the
hatred. There is a long standing rancor in the minds of orthodox and
conservative Hindus that anything that has been even touched by Muslim
becomes untouchable.
6. On a Muggy Night in Mumbai (1998) – It is the first play in Anglo-Indian Drama
to present the theme of gay life, their love, partnership, trust and betrayal. It is
a very bold play which openly discusses gay life which is looked upon with
aversion. The characters discuss their gay love, rivalries, anger etc. openly and
deprecate (criticize, condemn) the heterosexual love.
7. Seven Circles Round The Fire (Radio play for BBC) (Seven Steps around the Fire)
(1998) – It exposes the wickedness of the people of the highest echelon (rank).
In his play, “Seven Steps Around Fire” he goes to expose the wickedness of the
Minister’s son, Subbu. Uma Rao, wife of the Chief Superintendent and daughter
of the Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University is a Postgraduate student of
Sociology. She is writing a thesis on the condition of the hijra (eunuch)
community. In her intercourse with Anarkali who is languishing (suffering) in jail
for having killed Kamla, another hijra, Uma Rao, of course, succeeds in
presenting the vulgarity rampant (uncontrolled) in the ostracized (disliked)
community as the hijras use filthy language for everyone in every breath. But
as she continues her effort to bail out Anarkali, she comes to discover that
Kamala was secretly married to Subbu, a minister’s son. The minister got the
young hijra burned to death and hastily arranged marriage of his son with
another girl. The play exposes the minister who commits a murder with
impunity. It also exposed the sub-version of democratic freedom of speech.
The play also throws light on the history and profession of the hijras. D
8. The Murder That Never Was (2000) – It is the first play in Anglo-Indian Drama to
present the theme of gay life – their love, partnership, trust and betrayal. It is a
very bold play which openly discusses gay life which is looked upon with
 aversion. The characters discuss their gay love, rivalries, anger etc. openly and
deprecate (criticize) the hetrosexual love.
9. 30 Days in September (2001)
10. Brief Candle (2009)
11. Where Did Leave My Purda (2012)
12. The Big Fat City (2012)
13. Filmography
14. Director
15. Mango Souffle
16. Morning Raga
17. Dance Like a Man
18. Ek Alag Mausam
19. Do the Needful – It is a radio play written for BBC. It is an unconventional
romantic comedy.

Awards

 Dance Like a Man has won the award for the Best Picture in English awarded by the
National Panorama in 1998
 Sahitya Academy award for his book of plays Final Solutions and Other Plays
 Sahitya Kala Parishad selected Final Solutions (1997), Tara (2000) and 30 days in
September (2007) as best productions of the year directed by Arvind Gaur.

Tara

 The play was first performed as “Twinkle Tara” at the Chowdiah Memorial Hall,
Bangalore, on October 23, 1990 by Dattani’s Playpen Performing Arts Group. It
was subsequently performed as “Tara” at Sophia Bhabha Hall by Theatre Group,
Bombay on November 9, 1991, and directed by Alyque Padamsee.
 Act I - Summary

The play opens with Chandan renamed as Dan sitting in his bedsitter (flat) in a suburb
of London. After the death of his sister and mother he has come to live in London.

He has become a writer of sorts, has written stories on British Raj, though his stories
have not been published so far. He has a desire to write a play on Tara, his twin
sister, who died six years ago.

Tara, he believes, was kind, gentle and strong but she could not get a fair deal. He
thinks that he has to look at the life of Tara from a distance to get an impartial view of
all the aspects of her personality.

A distance of a thousand miles from Bangalore to London is not enough to get a

correct view. He needs complete detachment to emerge from his personal prejudices.
He believes that one requires emotions to feel the truth behind the incidents
connected with Tara. He tries hard to begin writing but fails because he doesn’t get
the emotions and description without emotions is nothing but a meaningless jumble of
words.

When he succeeds in detaching himself from his subject matter, he feels that Tara is
‘lying deep inside him’. From that depth emerge Tara and Chandan before him.

The first incident that he recalls is of a squabble (quarrel) between Bharati and Patel.
Bharati wanted her daughter Tara to take milk though Tara had no desire to take it.
However, Tara wanted to know where her grandfather’s brass tumblers were. Patel
said that Bharati didn’t want to unpack, while Bharati said that she had no objection
to using them. Then Patel said that Bharati should not force Tara to drink milk if she
had no desire for it. He said that Tara and Chandan had made surprisingly good
progress and the doctor wanted to mention their case in a medical journal. But
Bharati observed that Tara has lost half a pound in a week and might lose a kilo in a
month if she did not take milk. Bharati did not want her children’s progress to be
mentioned in the medical journal since she feared that somebody would read the
report with malice and envy. But, when Tara said that she was not going to drink milk
any way. Bharati said that she would accept anything that Tara would say, because
Bharati was a doting (loving, affectionate, caring) mother.

In the second episode that comes to Dan’s mind, Patel asked Chandan to go with him
to his office and showed his reluctance to allow Tara to go with him. Patel had the Old
Victorian concept.

“Man for the field and woman for the hearth; (home, household) / Man for the sword
and for the needle she; / Man withal else the head, and women with the heart, / Man
to command and woman to obey; / All else confusion”

Tara took offence at Patel’s asking Chandan alone to go to the office. She said
sarcastically to Roopa;

“The men in the house were deciding on whether they were going to go hunting while
the women looked after the cave”.
The playwright wants to say that we are still primitive in our views on the role of
women in the society though we say from the top of the totem (icon, symbol) pole
that we are pragmatic and progressive. The fact of the matter is that women are
working shoulder to shoulder with men in all the fields of life, yet they are not treated
as equal partners of men. The old concept “Man to command and woman to obey”
has gone deep into male psyche.

Then Dan recollects that Tara was “kind, gentle, strong, her mother has given her
strength… but she never got a fair deal. Not even from Nature. Neither of us did.
May be God never wanted us to be separated, since they were, “meant to die and our
mortal remains preserved in formaldehyde (Formaldehyde may be best known for its
preservative and anti-bacterial properties. Formaldehyde-based chemistry is also
used to make a range of products in the building and construction, health care,
automotive, and personal care products sectors.) for future generations. But
Dr.Thakkar succeeded against hope in separating the twins. It was “a duel to death
between God and nature on one side and on the other – Amazing Dr.Thakkar”. In
order to show hw difficult work it was, the dramatis brings Dr.Thakkar himself on the
stage to explain that almost impossible task he had done. He explains that Simese
(closely, connected) twins are conjoined (touched). One is fifty thousand conceptions
(ideas) have this defect. Furthermore, only seven such cases were recorded in
medical history till then. And to add to the complexity of the case the twins were of
different sexes while in all other case the twins were of the same sex. It was a
miracle that the twins were separated successfully.

He further reminisces that Tara when she was only twelve liked an Irish Doctor so
much that she expressed her desire to marry him. Then she like Dr.Gokhale who she
found was ‘handsome in a ghati sort of way’. Mystified (confused) Chandan asked
Tara how she came to have such feelings at twelve and at sixteen. Tara avoided the
issue saying that women matured fast. In fact, a twelve year girl when she says can
marry a particular man she only expresses her strong liking for the man. Her being
infatuated is out of question.

The issue of maturity of girls reminds him of Tara’s appreciation of music in Brahm’s
first concerts. While listening Brahm’s music Tara said that Beethoven must have
been a passionate man. Chandan failed to understand that Tara was praising Brahm’s
tragic appeal which she felt was as strongly passionate as that of Beethoven.
Therefore, when Chandan said that she was listening ‘Brahms not Beethoven.
Brahm’s first concerts’ Tara tried to explain to him she had heard it more often than
not, yet she had always had the feeling that it was Beethoven. Yet Chandan failed to
take the cue (signal, sign). So Tara had to say in the end that he should ‘stay away
from poetry’ whenever he wished to be a writer. Tara meant to say that Chandan
lacked imagination to appreciate figurative expressions.

In their further tete-a-tete, Tara said that her mother treated her like a small girl,
instructed her all the time saying, “Yes, Tara”, “No Tara”, “Anything you say, Tara”
etc. Chandan also said that Tara was still a small girl – “You can’t take it, you’re still a
little girl with wild imagination.” But Tara retorted, “Women have an instinct for these
things. It’s innate! We are born with it. “She wanted to say that a girl matured faster
than a boy yet she retained childlike playfulness and imagination. She was trying to
let the world see special qualities of femininity which generally remained unnoticed.

Roopa, Prema and Nalini formed one group of girls, representing the class of women
who had neither culture nor good language. When they first met Tara they laughed at
her limping and said shamelessly that their day was made. All three of them were
ugly in looks as well as thoughts. Roopa went to Prema’s house with a programme to
have icecreams together and then to go to a film. But she came to know that Prema
was suffering from cold. Instead of showing sympathy with her best friend, Roopa
said that she would not call at her again lest should she also catch infection. As she
was a back-biter, Roopa told Prema and Nalini that she would not go to meet Tara’s
mother again because she said that Tara was ‘a freak of nature all right, but wait till
you see her mother! Oh God! I can’t tell you . . . lShe is really . . . wand tarah Oh! God!
I’ll never go there again.

Though Roopa was uncultured, she delighted the audience with her malapropisms.
Roopa came to know that Tara and Chandan had wooden legs and that both were
twins, but they didn’t resemble each other since they were born from two embryos.
To explain the point, Chandan said that they were not peas in a pod, but Roopa said,
“pat’s for ‘pods’ ‘wand tarah’ for ‘wendu tarah’, ‘oglers’ for ‘ogres’, ‘Bharthini’ for
‘Bharati’, ‘concoction’ for ‘decoction’ and knows no difference between ‘cracked
mirror’ and ‘mirror cracked’. This kind of humour was first introduced by Shakespeare
and later by Sheridan in his play “The Rivals”. But it is used to show the foolishness of
particular characters. As Roopa was also a nincompoop (stupid or silly person),
malapropisms put in her mouth fully reflected her character.

Dan further sees in his vision that Bharati proposed to give one of her kidneys to Tara,
but her husband, Patel said that she didn’t need to do that since he had found a donor
and money for it was left by her deceased father. But when Bharati still insisted on
giving her kidney, Patel came out to tell her plainly that he did not want her ‘to have
the satisfaction of doing it’ and said to her with the authority of a husband, “You’ll
have to obey me. It is my turn now… I’am going to arrange for a doctor to examine
you thoroughly … I mean a psychiatrist. . . I’ll call him right now.

He even slapped her when she refused to give in. The playwright wants to present a
family squabble (quarrel) between husband and wife on a non-issue. When there was
a donor as well as money to pay. There was no necessity for Bharati to give her
kidney to her daughter.

Next Dan recollects the scene in which Bharati and Chandan were discussing about a
career for Tara. Bharati felt that Patel was more worried about Chandan’s career than
Tara’s. Chandan was of the view that Tara herself was not serious about her career,
“She’s just…playing it cool”. But Bharati believed that it was the duty of the parents
to prepare children for careers even if any child was not serious about it, more so
when it’s the case of a daughter. Bharati had to say plainly, “I wish your father to pay
more attention to Tara”. Bharati wanted that Tara must have her career and that
Tara should think about it. . Chandan tried to console Bharati with the suggestion that
his grandfather’s trust would give money to both of them, but Bharati was not so
much worried about Tara’s livelihood as about Tara’s position in the society.
She could well see that Chandan was too young to understand her view point.
Nevertheless she explained,

“The world will tolerate you. The world will accept you – but not her! Oh, the pain she
is going to feel when she sees herself at eighteen or twenty. Thirty is unthinkable.
And what about forty and fifty! Oh God!”

Bharati was of the view that a woman needed a career to get an honourable position
in the society. Bharati was aware that a girl was not safe in a social order in which
people resorted to female foeticide Roopa bluntly described the custom of killing their
infant daughters prevalent among Patels. She told, “the Patels in the old days were
unhappy with getting girl babies – you know dowry and things like that – so they used
to drown them in milk”. Even Bharati’s father, though he was not a Patel, had willed
his property to Chandan, not to Tara. Where there was so much of disregard for girls,
it was necessary for women to have a career for society security. Bharati had
therefore reason to be indulgent to her daughter and give her all her love and
affection to her daughter. She believed “Her love can make up for a lot”.

In the last episode described by Dan in Act I, also concerned with the discrimination
on the basis of gender. When Patel saw Chandan helping his mother in knitting, he
lost temper. He asked Bharati how she dared to employ Chandan in her household
chores. In his opinion, it was a sort for girls. He asked his wife, “But you can think of
turning him into a sissy (A man or boy who is considered feminine or behaves in a
feminine way. It can also refer to a fearful or cowardly person) – teaching him to knit”.
He asked his son Chandan to go with him to his office as he would not see him rotting
at home. But Chandan refused to take the rebuff. He said that he would not go either
to the office or to the college without Tara. There is so much of understanding and
love between Chandan and Tara that Erin Mee said, “Chandan and Tar are the two
sides of the same self rather than two separate entities and that Da, in trying to write
the story of his own childhood has to write Tara’s story. The lives of Tara and
Chandan are closely interwoven. Chandan could not bear Tara being neglected.

Patel’s love for Tara became a wedge beteen her and Patel, since patel thought that
she was loved by her mother and not by her father. This irritated Patel to such a
degree that he grabbed Tara to tell her that he loved her as much as he loved
Chandan. He held her so strongly that Tara slumped into his arms and fainted. Patel
had to rigt up to the hospital.

ACT II

Act II begins with memories of seventh prosthesis and kidney transplant in Tara’s
body within a month. Since the twins, Tara and Chandan had been operated upon so
many times surgery for them had become as common and ordinary thing as brushing
the teeth routinely every morning, yet it was traumatic to their mother, Bharati. She
was already a doting mother to Tara. Therefore the major surgical operations upon
Tara had distracted her beyond endurance. She had tried her best to give courage to
Tara before operation. She said to Tara, “After the operation, we will be happy
together.” He remembered that Tara was smiling and jovial within hours of a complex
surgery. But the parents were distraught with care and fear for the Tara’s health –
“Bharati Patel was too indisposed to give an interview. A distraught Mr.Patel
explained that this had a trying time for her,” because Tara had far too many
complications to be completely out of danger. But the strong will power of Tara gave
hope to her parents. Mr.Patel had the assurance, “The will to survive has proved to
work more miracles than the greatest of science.”

Operation on Tara was successful. When she came back home, Chandan and Roopa
greeted her with bouquets. Tara accepted the bouquets with enthusiasm as if she
had won Oscar and made a short speech to thank her parents, brother and friend,
Roopa without whose help, she said operation would never have been a success.
Bharati had fallen ill so seriously that she couldn’t come to say even ‘hello’ to her dear
daughter. Her father took care of her in her mother’s absence, gave her bag, and
advised her to go to her room to have a bath. Tar was so much touched with this
motherly gesture of her father that she exclaimed instantly, “My oh my! You sound
just like mummy! You men can imitate us so well if you want to. Pity we can’t return
the compliment”.

Roopa went to meet Prema to tell her according to her fault finding nature, “Can you
believe it, They haven’t told her about her mother yet. Well, they are telling her
now”. She failed to see that Tara’s mother was greatly distressed due to the major
and risky operations being done on Tara. She was in too delicate a state of health to
be told immediately about Tara. Instead of praising the family for taking precautions
for the health of Tara’s mother, she spoke disparagingly (critically, unfavourably).

When one recollects the past, one is likely to catch loose-ends instead of following the
thread of the story in a chronological order, because memories are jumbled up. As
Chandan was thinking about Tara’s kidney transplant operation, he remembered what
Dr.Thakkar had said about the very complicated operation he had done to separate
Chandan and Tara who were Siamese children, ‘conjoined from the breathbone down
through the pelvic area.’ Light is focused on Dr.Thakkar who tells in mother-of fact
language how the twins were separated and place on two separate operation tables,
etc. The twins had to walk on wooden legs.

Then he remembered that Tara put up a brave front after the operation. In order to
keep herself in high spirit, she asked Chandan to tell his jokes, no matter if she had
already heard them. She further said that she would eat anything that Ida would cook
and wouldn’t ask for mother who was too ill to come to see her. Nevertheless, she
said in thenext breath that she would rather stay with mother at the hospital. She
told her father that she wouldn’t go for physiotherapy if she wouldn’t have her mother
with her. Emotional ties between mother and daughter and brother and sister are
very strong. As Tara would not go to the college since she wasn’t sure when she
would have to stop going due to her ailments, she might have to drop halfway,
Chandan would not go to the college without Tara.

This discussion about going to the college led Mr.Patel to say clearly, “Chandan has to
join. I have plan for him. Your Proful (happy) uncle will help him get into a good
university in England. I know he can bet a scholarship on his own if he tries. With a
solid education you just can’t fail. Not to say that Chandan will have to work for a
living”. Thus Mr.Patel revealed that he wanted Chandan to go abroad for his higher
education to make a career for himself. In fact, he had no plans for Tara’s education
as Bharati had alleged. He was satisfied that Chandan’s grandfather had left all his
wealth, including a home in Bangalore to Chandan as his mother was the only child of
her father. Chandan felt disconcerted (confused) to know that nothing was left for
Tara. His father told him unabashedly, when Chandan asked him why nothing was left
for her, ”It was his money. He could do what he wanted with it.” On being questioned
about Tara, Mr.Patel got irritated. In his state of anger, he said to Tara and Chandan,
“Do me a favour. Both of you, Don’t ever go there (To the house in Bangalore). Just
lock it up. Or better still burn the whole place down.” Mr.Patel had no answer when he
was squarely asked about Tara’s career and settlement.

The playwright has made it amply clear that parents in Indian society has but little
regard for daughters and grand-daughters . Mr.Patel was worried about Chandan’s
education but evinced no interest in Tara’s education. Her maternal grandfather had
bequeathed his wealth to his grandson. Callousness of Indian society to girls is well
reflected in this part of the play.

After Mr.Patel left in a huff, Tara and Chandan took time to express their love for each
other. Tara said teasingly that Chandan did not want to go to the college without her
because he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to do anything on his own. Chandan could
see through her game – she wanted Chandan to go to the college even without her.
Tara still said, “Afraid of meeting new people. People who don’t know you. Who
won’t know how clever you are.” Then Tara remarked that he was not forward
enough to make new acquaintances. But Tara too had no friends. She was contented
that she knew Chandan – “You. Me. There is no difference.” Chandan said
affectionately, “The nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” And the siblings finally
agreed, “So we’ll start all over again in college” and went out together for a stroll.

Chandan so often recollected what Dr.Thakkar had said about the operation
performed to separate conjoined twins. Chandan and Tara. Dr.Thakkar had taken
special care when he was to cut two livers apart. He made six rehearsals with
dummies to make a perfect work of the operation.

In the next scene, Chandan is seen listening music. Roopa arrives with a video
cassette of Sophie’s choice. Roopa is some kind of a foolish girl, allows herself to be
treated slightingly. She offered on her own to give company to Chandan who was
listening music alone. Chandan said ironically, “Where would we without you?” When
she asked him why the film was titled, “Sophie’s choice”, he said, “It sounds better
than “Sophie had no choice” to make light of the question. Then Chandan wanted to
know her answer of the question whether she would have a boy or a girl posed by the
film itself. Roopa misunderstood the question as for a choice between a boy friend, of
a girl-friend. She was only fifteen and desired a boy-friend herself. When Chandan
put the question more explicitly whether she would like to send one of the two
children to the labour camp of Nazis, she said that she would rather drown the girl in
milk as Patel used to do than send her to Nazi’s labour camp.

Roopa asked Chandan if he ever had a girl-friend in Bangalore, with whom he

exchanged books and notes. Chandan again tried to laugh away the question saying
that there was one girl, Tara, from whom he could borrow books and notes. But she
went to ask pointedly that Tara was his sister, not a girl-friend. After this Chandan
soon engrossed in music, but Roopa slowly came close to him and lay down beside
him. He looked at her but she pretended to have been lost in music. Chandan put his
hand on her shoulder, and very awkwardly moved his hand almost on her breast. At
this moment, Roopa stood up and asked him to stay away from him. Tar entered at
this juncture. Roopa cries that Chandan wanted to rape her. But she became
ridiculous even in a serious mood when she said, ‘a raper’ for ‘a rapist’. In fact,
neither Roopa was seductive, nor Chandan was a rapist, but girls often seem making
advances unintentionally and boys get caught in the process. Chandan felt that she
had led him to do that. He said that all men were alike, wanting nothing but sex.
She again made herself a laughing when she said that she was not ‘combatible’ for
‘compatible’ (well-matched). Roopa’s malapropisms make the whole affair ridiculous.
But the playwright has a serious message to give. He wants to say to the girls to
behave decently and not to do anything which may give wrong signals to the boys.
Roopa was no means a seductress and Chandan was not a rapist but she comes too
close to be ignored. Her unconscious actions incited Chandan to act indecently.
Therefore, it is for the girls to remain at a decent distance from boys particularly when
they are alone with boys.

Inspite of strong exchange with Chandan, Roopa agreed to stay with Tara and
Chandan, proposed to play the cassette she had brought with her. Tara narrates the
story of her girl friend who had the tendency of bed-wetting. Tara exploited the
situation. She had her home work done by that friend obviously under the threat of
disclosing her secret. Tara said that she had narrated this story to tell Roopa that it
was good to know what hurt others. And as Roopa had the secret of wooden legs to
Tara and Chandan, Tara had come to know that Roopa had one tit smaller. The
mention of this secret annoyed Roopa so much that she hurled invectives at Tara and
Chandan. Tara threatened Roopa that she would divulge her secret to Prema and
Nalini. Thus came the final break. It was not good of Tara to exploit her Bangalore
friend and again to speak to Roopa about her tits even if she wanted revenge upon
her for called Chandan a rapist or speaking about their club-feet.

Then Chandan recollected that Tara spoke about devoting her life to the service of
poor and sick persons like Mother Teresa. She said that money being spent to keep
her alive was a waste, “Oh what a waste! A waste of money. Why spend 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.” These are noble thought. If anybody dedicated his /
her life to the care of poor and sick, one will not only make a name for oneself but will
also have the satisfaction of serving the humanity at large. She thought there were
great possibilities. She could be the founder of a philanthropic institution as Mother
Teresa had done. She rightly said, “That may give … purpose to my … existence.”
But soon she said that she should instead take of her mother after all charity begins at
home.

Tara’s statement that she would serve her mother instead of thousands of poor sick
persons raises the issue whether one should serve humanity at large or sick mother at
home. Chandan held the view that Tara should go beyond family ties, but Tara was
not Mother Teresa. She should not be expected to serve those ‘who don’t give me
(Tara) any feeling to begin with’. She was right to say that one should do what one is
impelled to do by his or her conscience.

But her questions, ‘why is it wrong for me to be without feeling? And ‘why are you
asking me to do something that nobody has done for me?’ reveal her spiritual
sickness. Feelings of pity and sympathy are the gifts of nature not only to men but to
animals also. Anybody that is devoid of these feelings is sick in mind and spirit. Her
second question reveals narrowness of mind. To think that nobody has done anything
for her is to deny what she had been imbibing form general store of knowledge that
society has built in thousands of years of evolution. There is none that done not draw
from society’s store of knowledge and culture. We should not withhold what little we
can do in return. Chandan was right to say that she should not be ‘selfish’. Tara’s
remark, “And we are more sensitive, more intelligent, more compassionate human
beings than creeps like you” is not compatible with her being unconcerned or
indifferent to sick and poor part of humanity, though this statement is true in respect
of women in general.

Chandan remembered the telephonic conversation he had with his father when he
was informed of the death of his mother. His father wanted him to return to India.
Tara died six years ago and then his mother had also died. He did not think there was
anybody left for whom he should return to India. He advised his father to come to
London instead of remaining alone in Bombay. But he said in no uncertain words that
he would not return to India in any case. He made it plain to his father – “Either you
come here or you live in Bombay all by yourself . . . Well, that’s too had! That’s just
too bad!”.

He remembered a discussion he had with Tara about the behaviour and conduct of
their father. Tara was of the opinion that her mother did not get sufficient attention
and care of Chandan and her father. Chandan did not go to the hospital to see his
mother frequently because hospital depressed him. Tara said that his father was
stopping her from visiting her mother obviously because he, as Tara believed, was
more inclined towards his son than his daughter and his wife. Tara believe, “He hates
me” and “I (Tara) hate him”. She had overheard the nurse while telling the
Receptionist in the hospital, “She had strict instructions from her father that I
shouldn’t on any account be allowed to see mum y on my own.” It then gave her the
impression that her father hated her. But Chandan tried to pacify her saying that his
father might have some reason for giving such instruction or his father might have the
fear that her visits could upset her mummy. Hearing this she burst out, “Oh, so it’s
me, is it? I am the one upsetting her. Your daddy is blameless.” She came to feel that
Chandan and her father had become a party against her, so it was foolish on her part
to complain against one member to another of the same party – “May be I am stupid.
I must be complaining to the allied party.” This insinuation enraged Chandan so much
that he refused bluntly to be of any help to her in this regard – “Don’t expect me to
take your side and quarrel on your behalf. I don’t think I should encourage you.” Still
Tara requested Chandan to help her in meeting her mother. She suggested to him to
pretend that he has getting another attack. But Chandan refused point blank saying
that Tara should not try to know the secret about her father if her father didn’t want
her to know it, and he hoped that her father himself would tell the secret if there was
any. The family spat continued on this issue until Tara and Chandan declared that
they would go together to meet their mother against the advice of their father.

Finally, Mr.Patel, father of Chandan and Tara felt obliged to divulge the secret. He
told them that the twins had three legs at the time of their birth. Reports said that
the twins had three legs at the time of their birth. Reports said that the third leg was
getting blood supply from the girl. It was the medical opinion that the leg belonged to
the girl, but Tara’s mother and her father had private talks with Dr.Thakkar to
persuade him to let the boy have the third leg. Bharati’s father was an influential
man. He got a plot of three acres for Dr.Thakkar as a bribe for falling in with him. The
third leg was given to Chandan but it could not serve him for more than two days. It
had to be amputated (removed).

This story gave a shock to Tara as well as Chandan. Tara thought that her mother’s
love for her was nothing but a façade. She remembered with contempt, “And she
called me her star.”

A new scene appears on the horizon of Chandan’s mind. He sees Dr.Thakkar on the
screen of his memory. Dr.Thakkar, he remembered had said proudly that India was
not far behind the world in medical science and hoped that it would soon be in the
vanguard (precursor) of scientific progress.

Chandan did not like a devil speaking scriptures. He could not approve to the
immortal act of removing girls’ leg to plant on the boy for money. Chandan was
disgusted so much that he desire this image of Thakkar to be erased from his
memory. He cried out, “Now go … just go away. (Breaks down). Get out of my mind,
you horrible creature! You are ugly and I don’t want ugly people in my memories.

After removing the image of Dr.Thakkar from his mind, he decided to draw on Tara to
do some positive work, “Like the amazing Dr.Thakkar, I must take something from
Tara”. He had so much of material concerning life of Tara which he decided to use as
a source for his work. He would ‘masticate them in mind and spit out result to the
world, in anger’ since the facts of Tara’s life had caused him trauma and anguish.

He failed in his attempt in the beginning as he could not type-write anything more
than the title of the play, but soon his perplexed brain took flight into the realm of
poesy. He could write a full play which he hoped would find its place in the cosmos
where it orbits would be determined by those around. . . Those who survive are those
who do not defy gravity of others’. He meant to say that the place of a piece of
literature is decided by its merit in comparison to that of others.

A literary work cannot stand independently just as a planet cannot stand without the
gravitational force of other planets. While thinking the merit of his play, he forgot
about Tara with whom he had shared the same womb. He remembered Tara the
heroine of his play but forgot Tara, his twin sister, born with him. He begged pardon
of Tara because Tara appeared in the play only as a character of the play, while Dan
became the central character of the play. It is he who is the narrator, and he
described all the incidents as seen and felt by him. Moreover, the play presents the
story of his sufferings.
Tara died six months ago and his mother is also dead. He is alive to suffer in his
mind. He has come to know that Tara was robbed of a leg for his sake. Then, Tara
died shocked when it was revealed that her mother’s love for her was a sham. His
mother was denied the opportunity to make a confession. It must have been tortuous
to die with her sins unconfessed. He is to live alone if his father chooses to live at
Bombay.

Character of Tara

Central Character

As the title of the play indicates, Tara is the central character of this play. As she is
already dead, her brother, Dan presents her character in retrospect. Tara and
Character were only two issues of Bharati and Patel. They were Siamese twins when
they were born. It was after a major and difficult operation that they were separated.
Though Dan says that he is presenting an objective account of Tara’s life and
character, but he recollects only those incidents which have struck (hit, collide with)
chords either of his sympathy or apathy (indifference, laziness).

Mother’s Pet

The first incident concerning Tata that Dan reminisces is about his mother’s love for
Tara. Bharati insisted on Tara to take milk though Tara was reluctant to take. She
said, “I won’t ! Stop showing it down my throat”. Mr. Patel could not see there was
any good reason for Bharati to insist on Tara to drink milk against her desire, but
Bharati argued that she wanted her daughter to put on more weight. She was worried
that she had lost half a pound in a week and feared that she might lose a kilo in one
month. In order to put her fear to rest, Mr.Patel informs her that the doctor was
surprised to note that Tara and Chandan had made progress beyond expectation and
he wanted to mention their case in a medical journal. Being an orthodox Indian
mother she objected against the publicity lest it should affect their health adversely
(badly, poorly, undesirably, negatively, unpleasantly, unfavourably, harmfully). Tara
was her beloved daughter.

Mother’s desire to give her kidney and career

Tara was to undergo another operation for kidney-transplant. Tara’s mother wanted to
give one of her kidneys to her daughter. Tara’s father had found a donor. Money was
not a problem to them as Bharati’s father had left lot of wealth. But Bharati wanted to
give a part of her body to her daughter. Tara was after all an apple of her eye (a
person or thing that someone loves very much). She quarrelled with her husband on
this issue. In order to bring him round (persuade someone to agree something) she
threatened to disclose some secret to her – “I will tell her”. This enraged Mr.Patel so
much that he had to slap her, yet Bharati looked at him ‘with some triumph’ indicating
that she had her way.

In another scene Dan recollects a conversation Chandan had with his mother about
Tara’s career. Mother was of the view, “It’s time Tara decided what she wants to be.
Women have to do that as well these days. She must have a career.” Bharati wanted
more than anyone else that Tara must have a career for herself. She was critical of
her husband who she thought did not pay sufficient attention to Tara. She noticed
that her husband was ‘more worried about your (Chandan’s) career than hers’. She
snubbed (disregarded, dishonoured, ridiculed) Chandan also for insinuating (clever,
sly, cunning) even slightly that she should not have any worry regarding Tara’s career
since “Grandfather’s trust will leave us both money”? saying “But she must have
something to do! She cann’t be … aimless all her life. . .Yes, Chandan. The world will
tolerate you – but not her!” Since Tara was her beloved child, she did not want her to
be mouldy (rotten, decaying, decomposed)”. Tara being a beloved daughter, she
argued, should not remain without a career. She complained again that her husband
had lot of plans for Chandan, but none for his daughter. On being asked if she had
any plans for Tara’s career, she answered, “Yes, I plan for her happiness. I mean to
give her all the love and affection which I can give. It’s what she deserves. Love can
make up for a lot.” It is clear from this remark of Bharati that she might not have any
plans for her career, but she would give her love and care to her daughter to make
her happy otherwise.

The question of Tara’s career arose again all unbidden (unasked, uninvited). Mr.Patel
who was annoyed to see Chandan helping his mother in knitting, because he thought
that it was a job for girls, not for boys. He immediately said, “Chandan is going to
study further and he will go abroad for his higher studies.” Bharati was dismayed to
see that her husband had no such plan for Tara. When she raised the issue, Mr.Patel
said in defence that Bharati had never allowed him to make plans for Tara’s career.
He charged that she had given impression to Tara that she was the only one who
loved her, and appealed to her not to lead her to make a choice between father and
mother.

Tries to find friends for Tara

Bharati wanted to give moments joy and happiness to Tara. Therefore she wanted her
to have friends. She thought Roopa could be her friend. Therefore she coaxed
(persuaded, enticed) Roopa to make friends with Tara saying, “She … she must make
friends. Chandan is all right… he has his writing, but she,… He is different, he is sort
of self-contained, but Tara… she can be very good company and she has her talents.
She can be very witty and of course she is intelligent.” Yet she thought saying all this
was not sufficient. Therefore she asked Roopa, “First promise me that you will be her
friend.” She was satisfied after she had elicited promise from Roopa. Bharati could
not find any friends for herself, but she was out to find one for Tara.

Tara was loved by her brother, Chandan, as she was loved by her mother. Chandan
had in his mind to write a play on Tara – She was so special for him. Tara died six
years ago. Chandan must have been contemplating during this gestation period as to
how he should bring out the whole truth about her. He tried to write several times but
could not go beyond typewriting the title. His failure to proceed any further gave him
the impression that he had forgotten all about her, ‘even forgotten I had a twin sister’.
But after the process of recollection and contemplation, recrudescence came itself as
if he had touched a love wire. He then rightly said, “She was lying deep inside, out of
reach”. Tara appeared in his vision to tell him, “may be we still are. Like we’ve
always been inseparable. The way we started in life. Two lives and one body, in one
comfortable womb.” Tara and Chandan had been very close to each other.
Chandan always felt that he would not be able to do anything without having Tara with
him. Whenever Patel asked Chandan to go with him to his office, Chandan proposed
to take Tara with him. Chandan once said to his father plainly that he would not go to
his office alone. So he said, “We’ll both come with you”.

Then Chandan tries to reconstruct an image of Tara. He asked himself whether she
was merely ‘kind, gentle and strong’. She was mad strong by her mother though his
daddy had been a silent and angry man throughout. But he says Tara was not only
this. She was more than this. That is why he says, “This isn’t fair to Tara. She
deserves something better. She never got a fair deal. Not even from nature. Neither
of us did”. These ideas indicate that Chandan had a great regard for his deceased
sister.

Tara loved good persons

Tara was not merely ‘kind, gentle and strong’. She had besides a heart full of love.
She appreciated the doctors attending on her to the verge of loving them. She told
Chandan frankly, “Mind you, some of the doctors aren’t so painful to look at. This one
is called Dr.Gokhale. He is handsome in a ‘ghati’ sort of way. I love Maharashtrians!”
Chandan was surprised by this strange streak in her character. He asked her how it
was that she came to love a doctor at twelve. He remembers her exact words, “In
London you swore you were going to marry that Irish doctor, “What’s-his-name. And
we were only twelve then.” And again when she was sixteen she came to love a
doctor in Bombay. And explanation is simple – a child of twelve, when she says that
wants to marry a doctor, simply means to express her appreciation for the man
because a twelve year old girl can’t have infatuation for anybody. But then the
appreciation was definitely very deep and sincere. She told Chandan correctly and
humorously – “We women mature fast”. If Tara could feel love for the doctors, she
loved her brother also. Riminding Chandan of their separation at birth, she said that
they were still united in mind and spirit. She called him, “Bhaiya” in an exuberance
(enthusiasm, energy) of emotion and said that she wouldn’t be able to do anything
without him. She expressed her love for Chandan again when Chandan refused to go
to the college without Tara who was not able to go the college since she was to
undergo an operation for kidney transplant. Tara did not want that Chandan should
waste one year on her account. But finally she yielded saying, “It’s all the same. You
me. There is no difference.” She showed concern for Chandan’s health when both of
them went out for a stroll. She felt it was quite cold. Therefore she asked Chandan to
wear a muffler or take his bronchodilator (bebulizer, inhaler) to save himself from
infection. Tara loved her mummy also. She once declared like a small child with tears
in her eyes that she wanted nothing, not even her food, without her mummy – “Very
well, I don’t want to go to college. I don’t want to listen to your wisecracks (jokes,
jests). And I don’t want to eat dinner. All I want is to stay with mummy at the
hospital.” As she loved everybody, she got love of everybody at home. Once she said
to Chandan jocularly (funnily, playfully) – I’’d probably have a ball, that’s what I would
do. Having both mummy and daddy dancing around me. “Yes Tara! No, Tara!
Anything you say, Tara!” Her mummy and daddy were just doting (fond, loving,
devoted, affectionate, adoring, caring) parents dancing on her tune.

Free from Inferiority Complex

Tara did not harbour a sense of inferiority due to her wooden leg. When she met
Nalini and Prema, she found them grinning and whispering to their friend Roopa.
When Tara walked across the footpath, thinking that they were laughing at her
limping (to walk slowly and with difficulty because of having an injured or painful leg
or foot), gait (a manner of walking or moving on foot). She frankly showed it to them.
Saying it was the very best from Jaipur. She added on her own that her twin brother
Chandan, also had wooden leg. She even allowed Prem and Nalini to knock on it to
see for themselves that it was a wooden leg. Tara was that way a brave girl,
accepting what came her way. She showed her wooden leg unhesitatingly to her
chance acquaintances. Again, while talking to Roopa, she said that she didn’t mind at
all nor did she feel embarrassed if anybody noticed and referred to her wooden leg.
On the contrary, she asked Chandan also to show her his leg also. Disabled persons
generally do not want anybody should speak of their disability but Tara showed her
without any hesitation.

Mystifying in appreciation listening

Tara had a way of her own to express her feelings of appreciation which mystified
Chandan. Tara and Chandan were Brahms’ First Concerto. It was liked by Tara,
because it had Beethoven’s passion in it. Brahms’ music therefore reminded her of
Beethoven’s music. She said therefore, “Beethovan must have been a passionate
man”, giving impression to Chandan that she had mistaken Brahms for Beethovan.
He therefore, said pointedly that she was listening Brahms, not Beethoven, and that
she had listened several times. Tara admitted to have heard it and she knew that it
was Brahms, not Beethovens, yet she said, Ï always thought it was Beethoven”.
Chandan still failed to catch the hint. Therefore he repeated with greater emphasis.
“But this one is unmistakably Brahms. It has his quality of high tragedy and romance
of youth bursting forth in the world with all its claims. A spring like freshness … ”.
Tara then could say nothing more to clarify her point except that Chandan lacked
understanding of poetic expressions. She advised Chandan, “Do me a favour, when
you become a writer, stay away from poetry”.

Dissonance (disagreement, conflict) removed

There is nothing in the life of Tara which sounds dissonant. Everybody in the family
had nothing but love and care for her. But Roopa was the only person with whom she
had a tiff (quarrel). From beginning to the end she had been an undignified person.
Her behaviour and conduct with Chandan had horrified Tara, who couldn’t tolerate
Roopa’s allegations that Chandan was a rapist. In spite of incriminations (the act of
making someone appear guilty of a crime or fault, or the accusation that someone is
responsible for a misdeed) and recriminations (an angry statement accusing
somebody of something, especially in answer to a similar statement from him/her) of
serious nature, she condescended (humiliated) to stay with them. Then Tara narrated
the story of her classmate who wetted bed and told how she exploited her weakness
to get her homework done by her. Tara added it was useful to know one’s weakness,
and Roopa foolishly, supported her, forgetting that she also had her weakness. In
order to rid of her Tara spoke out, “So how does it feel having one tit smaller than the
other”. This enraged Roopa. She said that she had been coming to them because
Tara’s mother had bribed her to be Tara’s friend. Thus they parted company with an
exchange of expletives (curses). But her quarrel with Roopa does not tarnish Tara’s
image. One the contrary, she would have been held guilty of having company of a girl
like Roopa.

Chandan reminisced that Tara had humour and modernity in her outlook. He
recollected that his father once suggested that he should go to his office with him. He
did not want Tara should also go with Chandan. Tara was stunned to find that her
father was making gender distinction. In order to protest against her father’s view,
she said, “The men in the house were deciding on whether they were going to go
hunting while the women looked after the cave.” She said sarcastically that her father
was still primitive in his views. Like cave man, he wanted men to go hunting to find
wherewithal (ability) and women to remain at home to cook and wash. Tara wanted
to work with men in all the departments of life.

Thus we find that Tara was gifted with bravery, humour, intelligence and kindness.
She was loved by all and she loved all.

The Character of Chandan

A Story writer and a Dramatist

After the death of Tara and Bharati, Chandan has come to live in London, where he
has renamed himself as Dan in Indo-Anglican fashion. As the play begins, he is seen
trying to write a play on Tara but success eludes him day after day – “All I find
everyday without fail, is one type-written sheet with the title of the play, my name
and address and date. Nothing changes – except the date”.

It is not this that he has not written anything so far. He has written Randam Raj and
British Raj. But somehow he fails to make beginning of the play, “Twinkle Tara – a
play in two Acts”. One reason for his failure to write a play is that writing a play
according to him, is a far more difficult task than writing a poetry. He feels, “In
poetry, even the most turbulent (stormy, ragging) emotions can be recollected when
one is half asleep. But in drama! Ah! Even tranquillity has to be recalled with
emotion. Like touching a live wire”. These are the observations of a dramatist, who
tends to become partial to drama in opposition to poetry which by all accounts is the
purest art. Since Chandan thinks it difficult to reconstruct the emotions and express
them in dramatic form, he comes to believe that it is easier for a poet to re-live the
emotions. Had he been a poet, he might have felt how difficult it is to get,
‘spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’ in recollection of some experience held
long ago.

Objectivity – an essential quality

He believes that a true artist has to be objective and has to distance himself from the
incidents to achieve that end. He, therefore, says to himself – “Try distancing yourself
from that experience and writing about it. A mere description will be hopelessly
inadequate.” Chandan was directly involved in the incidents, but a subjective account
of the incidents would have been insipid defence of himself. The dramatist is right to
believe that an artist has to rise above self in order to get at the vital truths of life. An
artist has to be not sympathetic but empathetic to get the feel of the pain and
pleasure of others. Objectivity, therefore, is the hall-mark of true art.

Though Dan is sitting in a bedsitter in a seedy suburb of London, thousands of miles

away from his home in Bangalore, he has not been able to rise above his self, to be
objective in his perspective, to be empathetic with other persons. It is indeed a rare
spiritual feat. He drinks wine to charge himself, but nothing like this can help. He
makes deliberate attempts ‘to masticate my memories in my mind and to spit out the
result to the world in anger, but all such efforts prove futile. He admits, “My progress
so far has been zero.” He makes several attempts but success continues to elude
him.

Poetic moments dawn upon him

The problem with him is that he has forgotten everything of life he had lived in
Bangalore with his twin sister, mother and father. He had a strong desire to be in
England – ‘desperately wanted to be in my years in England’. When he has had his
desire fulfilled, has been in England for two years, he has forgotten everything of
India, including the Indian accent. He has learnt phoney English accent. He has
forgotten that he had a twin sister. But he feels as he wants to write a play on his
sister’s life, that she is lying deep inside him. Thus his desire to look at things from a
distance in order to get a full and objective view of incidents is fulfilled. In fact, the
poetic moments come on a poet all too suddenly, without any deliberate attempts.
Tara appears in his imagination.

Mother loved Tara

Then he remembers Tara reminding him that it is impossible for him to forget her
since they are inseparable, ‘two lives in one body in one comfortable womb’. Then his
father and mother, Mr.Patel and Bharati, come in his imagination. This scene tells
that his mother is partial to Tara, while his father had a strong inclination (feeling,
predisposition) towards him. Bharati wants her daughter to put on more weight
because her daughter has lost half a pound. When the Doctor says that he would
mention the case of her children in the medical journal for they have made progress
beyond expectation, she becomes apprehensive like Indian mothers lest somebody
should think ill of them or cast an evil eye on them due to jealousy. Mr.Patel has no
such fears. Chandan remembers such a scene because he has somewhere in his
mind that his mother loves Tara more than him.

Equality with men

Chandan has the impression that his father is more orthodox and reactionary than his
mother. Mr.Patel asked Chandan to go to his office, but he did not want Tara should
accompany him. Mr.Patel obviously wanted his son to make his career while the
daughter he thinks had no necessity of it. He holds the orthodox view that women
were to remain only housewives, doing household chores, such as cooking food,
washing clothes, sweeping and mopping. Dan recollects that Tara is more progressive
as she ridicules the male chauvinism, saying, “The men in the house were deciding on
whether they were going hunting while the women looked after the cave.” She
naturally wanted to say that men still are in the primitive stage when women were to
stay in the cave while men went hunting. Chandan being a modern man, holds that
women are to work shoulder to shoulder with men, and to treat them inferior to men
is a denial of women’s capabilities.

Father’s anxiety for mother’s health

Dan remembers that his father was worried about the health of his wife. Patel rings
up to Mr.Narayan to enquire after him. During his conversation he told Mr.Narayan
that he was worried about his wife’s health – “She needs help. I am not sure – may be
some kind of therapy . . . or counselling … whether I am prepared for the worst”.
Chandan speaks approvingly of his father’s worries about his mother.

Tara’s maturity

Chandan discovered maturity in twelve year old Tara. He remembered that Tara had
sworn that she was willing to marry the doctor that was giving her treatment when
she was only 12 and again when she was 16. He fails to understand how a 12 years
old girl couldn’t have infatuation for anybody. He remembers that Tara who had
greater sensibility, had to explain to him, “We women mature fast.” It is, in a way,
Dan’s compliment to womanhood.

Dan remembers that Tara again had revealed better sense and understand in
appreciating Brahms’ First Concert. While listening Brahms’ music, she said,
“Beethoven must have been a passionate man.” Chandan could not make out why
Tara was appreciating Beethoven while listening Brahms though she had listened this
music several times. Her remark, “But I always thought it was Beethoven” confused
him further. When he persisted, “But this one is unmistakably Brahms. It has the
quality of high tragedy and romance – of youth bursting forth in the world with all its
claims. A spring like freshness . . . ”, Tara said to snub (insult) him that he should stay
away from poetry when he wished to be a writer, implying that he didn’t have sense
enough to appreciate metaphorical language. Tara simply wanted to say that
Brahms’ music reminded her of Beethoven. In remembering this dialogue Chandan
has paid tribute to Tara’s use of figurative language and appreciation of Brahms’
music.

A compliment of human ingenuity (cleverness)

As Chandan starts thinking of a conversation between his father and Narayan, he feels
that he has deviated from the main track. He was to write about Tara, not anybody
else. He says regretfully, “The mind wanders too much. Unnecessary details,
irrelevant characters which do not figure anywhere.” He concentrates on Tara. He
recollects that “Tara was kind, gentle strong, her mother had given her strength”. As
he thinks about mother, he comes to think about his father but he again checks
himself from making a deviation to return to Tara. He remembers that Tara
‘deserves something better. She never got a fair deal. Not even from nature. Neither
of us did’. He now thinks about their birth. But Dr.Thakkar balked (recoiled,
hesitated) nature’s plant. But even God does not always get what he wants. Conflict
is the crux (root, bottom) of life. A duel to the death between God and nature on one
side and on the other – the amazing Dr.Thakkar. Thus Chandan begins the play with
the birth of Tara. He pays tribute to human ingenuity
How life began

Chandan brings Dr.Thakkar on the scene, saying by way of introduction that he was
surgeon-in-chief to a most unique and complex surgery, the first of its kind in India. It
was a difficult case because separating the Siamese twins, conjoined from chest
downward was no easy matter. Then this surgery was still more difficult because the
twins were of different sexes. It was ‘very, very rare’. Dr.Thakkar further explained
when he appeared again in Chandan’s memory-lane, that he had to make a very
careful study of the case before conducting the surgery. He had a conference with
the Resident doctors at the Victoria Hospital. He studied test reports, X-rays, scan
results from Bangalore. It was two weeks of exhaustive work. Nevertheless, he had
warned the parents of the odd against survival. Luckily, the twins did not share any
vital organ, as there were two hearts and two livers. However, the pelvic region and
extent of conjoinment had posed some serious problems. Dr.Thakkar’s account of the
surgery comes to Chandan’s mind because Chandan believed that Tara lived a life of
difficulties and uncertainties right from the beginning of her life. At the same time he
appreciates the marvels of medieval scenes.

A daughter’s role in a family

One aspect of Tara’s personality that comes before him is that she was an epitome of
love. Chandan remembers that Tara had once said to him, “What would I do without
you.” She prized her relation with her brother so much. Chandan could say nothing in
reply except that she must ‘stop saying such things’. Who has the answer to such an
effusion (expression, declaration) of love? Tara, then, said that she wanted to have a
ball with her mother and daddy dancing around with he band playing “Yes Tara! No,
Tara!” “Anything you say, Tara!” to tell her brother that she was the apple of her
parents’ eyes. This description of her parents’ love for her was so fanciful that she felt
it was too much for a ‘big girl’ that she had become yet she accepted it from her
mother without demur (protest, object). Chandan thought that she was coddled
(babied, pampered) her mother. So in his opinion she was ‘still a little girl with a wild
imagination’, which she said a natural quality of women – ‘We are born with it’. This
episode reflects how deeply Chandan was loved by Tara and she was in turn loved by
all of them. She was, in fact, cynosure (a person or thing that is the centre of
attention or admiration) of the family. Chandan expresses his belief that a daughter is
an epitome of love.

Tara’s Boldness

Chandan recollects with approbation (consent, approval) how Tara was bold and frank
and matter-of-fact. She chanced to meet Nalini and Prema, who lived in the building
opposite to her house. She showed her wooden leg to them and told them that her
brother also had a wooden leg. Roopa who was also introduced to her with the other
two girls came to pay a visit to her. Tara said candidly that she did not feel hurt or
embarrassed when Roopa said that she did not want to make a mention of her having
a wooden leg lest she should feel hurt. She rather showed to Roopa her brother’s
wooden leg also.

Sense of Humour
But Chandan had a rare sense of humour. He could not help remembering Roopa’s
malapropisms. She said, ‘pot’ for ‘pod’. “Wandh Tarah” for Wandu Tarah”,
‘forehanded” for forarmed”, “Bartheeni” for “Barati”. Chandan remembered that he
and Tara had a hearty laugh at the expense of Roopa. Tara said to ridicule Roopa,
“Two peas in a pot” and Chandan joined her in laughter. Roopa committed blunders
like saying “forehanded””in place of “forearmed”, yet she said that Prema and Nalini
were not so good at English. Tara and Chandan laughed at the foolishness of Roopa.
She had no idea how “mirror cracked” was different from “Cracked mirror” and
“concoction” from “decoction”, she was silly enough to say, “A concoction is
something you have when you get hit on the head”. She thus showed her
misunderstanding about “concoction” and also about “contusion”. She was another
Malaprop of Sheridan. Chandan had this scene imprinted on his mind because he had
the rare occations to enjoy himself with Roopa’s malapropisms and also with her
boasting of her good English.

Necessity for a career for girls

Dan sees in his mind that his mother was anxious about Tara’s career. There was a
discussion between Chandan and his mother, Bharati about it. Bharati said plainly,
“He (Patel) is more worried about your career than hers… Bharati held the view it was
time. Tara had decided ‘what she wanted to be. Women have to do that as well
these days. She must have a career.” Though Chandan did not contradict or oppose
the idea but he spoke not in so definite terms. He said, evasively (ambiguously), “She
can do whatever she wants. Grandfather’s trust will leave us both money, isn’t it?” to
imply that Tara would have enough money, and wouldn’t have to worry about her
career, Bharati was not satisfied with Chandan’s half-hearted endorsement
(authorisation). Therefore Bharati had to say with greater force, “The World will
tolerate you. The world will accept you-but not her! Oh, the pain she is going to feel
when she sees herself at eighteen or twenty … Your father has lot of plans for you”.
She feared that Tara would be neglected and that Bharati would not allow to happen.
She therefore decides, “I plan for her happiness. I mean to give all the love and
affection which I give. It’s what she … deserves. Love can make up for a lot.”
Chandan’s lukewarm (warm) attitude and his father’s seemingly indifference on this
issue caused worry to Bharati.

Gender discrimination

Mr.Patel was angry when he saw Chandan helping his mother in unravelling the
knitting sicne he thought that it was a girl’s job, not boy’s in any case. He asked his
wife rudely, “How dare you do this to him?... turning him a sissy – teaching him knit!”
and he told Chandan rather curtly, “I am disappointed in you. From now on you are
coming to the office with me until your college starts.” Chandan rather curtly (briefly),
“I am disappointed in you. From now on you are coming to the office with me. I can’t
see you rotting at home … you will come to the office with me until your college
home… You will come to see that his father was anxious to take him to the office to
save him from being effeminate (like a woman).

But Chandan thought he would not be effeminate merely by helping his mother in
unravelling the knitting. The question that puzzled him was whether life is divided
into male and female departments. Chandan declared that he would not go to the
college without Tara, and would miss a year if Tara was going for surgery. Chandan
wanted to make it clear, “that there was no difference between him and Tara. Both of
them would go together. This point is further elaborated in a discussion between Tara
and Chandan. Chandan rubbished (criticised) Tara’s insinuation (suggestion) that he
was scared of facing people alone. However he admitted, “Not everyone has your
(Tara’s) strength! Both of them agreed that there was no difference between him and
her, Chandan endorsed whole-heartedly, “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to
me”. Thus they clinched the issue. There should be no discrimination between boys
and girls.

Mother’s making allegations against fathers

Dan believes that a doting mother unconsciously inserts a wedge between father and
children, more particularly between father and daughters by giving them impression
that father does not love them or not so much as she does. Chandan recollected that
her mother coddled (babied, pampered) Tara, gave her impression time and again
that she alone would plan Tara’s life and her love for Tara would ‘make up for a lot’.
Patel felt the pinch so much that he quarrelled with his wife on this issue. He told
Bharati, “You want her to believe you are the only one who loves her.” He further
alleged that she did not allow him to speak of his affection to Tara under the threat of
disclosing some secret. He implored her “Don’t make her choose between us, for
God’s sake! You are ruining her life because you are sick. I want to help you, Bharati,
please allow me to help you.”

He wanted his wife to make friends with the neighbours to keep herself cheerful, but
she had not cared to do it though two months had passed since they came to Mumbai.
Bharati had not found a friend for herself, but she had tried her best to find a friend
for Tara. She had, for instance, requested Roopa, to be a friend of Tara, saying “She
can be very good company and she her talents. She can be very witty and of course.
She is intelligent.” She rejected all persuasion of Patel to change her attitude. She
had tarnished (dull, discoloured) the image of the father so much that Patel had to say
openly what she had done to him. – “Oh! How deviously clever you are ! I’m the liar
and I’m the one who is feeding them with lies when they are at an impressionable
age? I am the violent one and you are the victim of my wrath. You don’t go out
because I don’t let you. . . You 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”.
Then he grabbed Tara to tell her, “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”. And as he was going to say something about what her mother had put
in her mind, Tara slumped like a rag doll in her father’s arms. Then the behaviours of
Bharati and Patel brought out in full the difference between mother and father.
Bharati was rooted to the spot and began to sole while Patel carried Bharati to the
kitchen, gave her sugar and rang up to the hospital. Thus Chandan held the view that
father was like a father while mother acted like a mother. Incriminating (the act or
process of making someone seem guilty, especially of a crime) and reincriminating
creates bitterness unnecessarily.

Faith in will-power and efficacy (effectiveness) of family support

Tara underwent her seventh prosthesis (A prosthesis is an artificial replacement body
part) and a kidney transplant in the same month. She was Chandan recollects, with
admiration smiling within hours of the complex surgery. She said jokingly, “Surgery
for us is like brushing our teeth.” Chandan reminisced that Tara made recovery very
fast since her mother, father and brother gave her full support – “her source of
strength was her mother, and of course, her brother and father”. Chandan obviously
held the view that an ailing person needed psychological support of the family as well
as his / her will power to fight against the disease. Therefore he remarks, “The will to
survive has proved to work more miracles than the greatest of science.” Nevertheless,
it was a credit to the general good nature of Tara that she held the bouquet given to
her on her coming home from hospital as an Oscar Trophy won by her and made a
speech befitting that occasion. She said, “Thank you good people. First of all, I would
like to thank my agent. And those wonderful people, my mum, and dad. And my
wonderful brother without whose glorious presence this operation would never have
been made.

Girls should keep distance from boys

Scenes continued to change in the mind of Chandan. He remembers that Roopa had
accused him of trying to rape her. Roopa found that Chandan was alone, yet she liked
to stay to give him company. Then she expressed her desire to have a boy friend. –
It’s bad enough studying in an all girls’ school. I would definitely want a boy-friend.”
Then, when Chandan said in answer to one of her questions that Tara was her girl-
friend with whom he exchanged class-notes, Roopa said that Tara was his sister, not a
girl-friend. Then, she came to know that Tara had gone to the hospital for
physiotherapy. She slowly went closer to him, pretending as lot in the music that
Chandan was listening. She was now so close to Chandan that he could not ignore
her any more and his hand on her shoulder, and put it almost on her breast. This
startled her so much that she stood up immediately, saying ‘stay away from me, you
horrible thing!” Chandan said in defence “You were leading me on all the time.” She
called him rapist and all that. Though the gravity of the situation was lost in laughter
because she said ‘raper’ instead of ‘rapist’. But Chandan holds the view, perhaps
correctly, that a girl should keep distance from a boy when they are alone, and should
not give impression in anyway that she wants to be close to him.

Chandan remembers that Tara was burning to meet her mother at the hospital and
that too in private but her father had given strict instructions to the nurse not to allow
Tara to meet her mother. She got annoyed when Chandan said in defence of his
father that he might have so instructed the hospital staff lest her presence should
upset her mother. Tara thought that she was desisted (stopped) from meeting her
mother lest she should tell something about her father. She was exasperated
(maddened, frustrated) by Chandan’s defence of his father, so she said to him. “You
don’t care about me, you don’t care about mummy, you don’t even want to see her.
As far as you are concerned, she is already dead.” Tara was later astounded
(astonished, surprised) when her father told her that her mother had instructed the
doctor to let the boy have the third leg when he was to separate the twins even
though the leg was getting blood from the girl. The boy had two legs only for two
days. It didn’t take much time to realize that they had made a grave mistake. This
narration broke Tara’s heart; she was dazed. She said, “And she called me her star!”
His father told him that he had disallowed Tara and Chandan to meet their mother
because he did not want her to make a confession of her guilt before her death.

Chandan does not make any comment, but it was unchristian on the part of Mr.Patel
to disallow his wife an opportunity to confess her guilt before her death. Leaving his
old father in Mumbai, Chandan has settled in England. His tone of conversation with
his father is rather curt. He told him, “Tara has been dead for six years and now that
mummy has gone as well, there is nothing left for me to come back to … yes, may be
I’m hurting you deliberately, I don’t know why, but I can’t help the way I feel … either
you come her or you live in Bombay all by yourself… Well, that’s too bad!” The
reason for his speaking so bluntly to his father could be that his father had been a bit
too harsh to his mother. Chandan has stored only those incidents in his memory
which had revealed his character, his strong likes and dislikes.

Character of Bharati

Bharati is the premium mobile of the play, yet she remains an undertint – she dies
unconfessed and unsung. Dan holds that Tara did not get what she deserved, but he
fails to realize that Bharati had suffered as much as Tara, if not more, and that Bharati
deserves to be put on a higher pedestal.

An affectionate mother

As the play opens, we find Bharati talking with her husband, Patel, regarding health of
her children. She wanted that Tara should drink milk, though her husband advised
her not to insist on Tara to take milk if she did not want to drink. Tara also was
unwilling to take milk. Bharati wanted that Tara should put on more weight though
the doctor had found that her children were making unexpectedly good progress and
wanted to mention their case in a medical journal. Bharati rejected the idea lest her
children should become objects of envy of the readers of the medical journal. Though
Bharati’s stand is orthodox and absurd, but the concern of a worried mother is more
than clear. She was worried because her daughter had lost half a pound in one week,
and if this trend continued she feared she would lose a kilo in a month. Therefore she
said, “If I don’t force her to eat, how will she gain weight? She will keep getting
thinner till she is shrivelled and she is only skin and bones.” Bharati stood as a
mother, no matter if she was unscientific or even absurd.

Tara was the apple of her eyes because she had to undergo operations several times
and Bharati had the impression that she was being neglected by her husband.
Therefore she took special care of Tara. Her husband said that she was not mindful of
her health and had not found a friend for herself though more than two months had
passed since they came to Bombay. Bharati, of course had not found a friend for
herself but she had made all out efforts often to find a friend for her daughter. Roopa
who lived in a building opposite to her house had started coming to her house. She
persuaded, even bribed, Roopa to become Tara’s friend. Roopa told her that her
mother did not allow her to watch only one movie on Sunday afternoon. Bharati
allowed her to come to her house to see movies anytime to entice her to become
Tara’s friend. She almost implored (begged) her, “Just by my Tara’s friend,” and
wanted a tacit (unspoken, implied) promise from Roopa to be Tara’s friend. When
Roopa did not make a promise, she said to save her face, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to
force anything on you.” Later, Roopa revealed in a fit of anger that Bharati kept on
giving gifts to her to ensure that she remained Tara’s friend. Roopa said to Tara, “I
only come here because your mother asked me to. No, she didn’t ask me, she bribed
me to be your best friend. Yes, your loony (crazy) mother used to give me things.
Charlie bottles, lipstics, magazines.” Her going to such an extent to find a friend for
Tara show how much an affectionate and careful mother she was, and how anxious
she was to find a friend for daughter.

A campaigner against female foeticide

Bharati knew that there was an inherent aversion among Patels against girls as Roopa
disclosed, “The Patels in the old days were unhappy with girl babies – you know dowry
and things like that – so they used to drown them in milk. . . so when people asked
about how the baby died, they could say that she choked while drinking her milk.”
Bharati luckily was not a Patel. She was from Bangalore, not from Gujarat. Naturally
she must have the suspicion lurking (waiting, loitering) in her mind that Patel had no
love for his daughter Tara. She declared openly in answer to Chandan’s query
whether she had any plan for Tara, “Yes, I plan for her happiness. I mean to give her
all the love and affection which I can give. It’s what she deserves. Love can make up
for a lot.” This unilateral (autonomous, independent) declaration irritated Patel
because Bharati doting (fond, loving) on her daughter, her caressing (embracing)
pampering her daughter had given the impression to Tara that her father did not love
her so much. Tara herself had told Roopa that her mother loved her, and had often
said her eyes twinkled when she smiled. In answer to Roopa’s query Tara said that
her father did not spoil her with such affectionate remarks. She said to Chandan also
at one stage, “Daddy wants you to be big and sturdy (robust, strong)”. Obviously, her
father, she thought, did not think so much about her. This thinking had become a
wedge between father and daughter.

Patel took offence at such remarks of Bharati. Patel of course did not pamper his
children, but at the same time he did not show hatred for or even indifference to his
daughter. Patel, therefore, chided (scolde, rebuked) Bharati, “You are turning them
against the whole world. . . you want her to believe you are the only one who loves
her ! . . . you said you love will make up for a lot. You know she loves you. You are
sure of that. Don’t make her choose between us”. Patel believed that Bharati had
turned his children against him and had insinuated (suggested, implied) knowingly or
unknowingly that Patel was a liar, a wife-beater, and child-abuser’, and that she was
the victim of his violence. These insinuations must not have been made since it was
an allegation made by Patel without being supported by any evidences. But children
somehow carry such impressions when fathers are cold or rough. Tara had given
hints that she had got her strength from her mother.

A family spat (fight, quarrel)

These incriminations (the act or process of making someone seem guilty, especially of
a crimeand recriminations (an angry statement accusing somebody of something,
especially in answer to a similar statement from him/her.) have created a serious
social problem. Mothers very often lavish love on their children while fathers being
busy generally in money-making activities appear indifferent or when they try to
infuse a sense of discipline and responsibility in their children they appear strict,
sometime fearfully strict. Naturally children fail to see the love of fathers. Such
conditions go to create a chasm between father and children. This discussion made
Patel so angry that he took hold of Tara to tell her that he loved her. He was forced to
say plainly to Tara, “please believe me when I say that I love you very much and I
have never in my life loved you less or more than I have loved your brother… But your
mother would like you to believe that it is not true.” Tara failed to stand this quarrel
between her parents and lost consciousness. Patel asked Bharati to bring sugar, but
she remained sitting, crying “my Tara is dying”, Patel had to take Tara to the kitchen
and ring up to the hospital. This situation makes clear what is the difference between
the love of a mother and that of a father. Yet the gap remains.

Emancipation of Women

Bharati wanted that Tara should have a career so that she might take a place of pride
in the society, but Patel did not show any interest in Tara’s career. In the early stages
of play, Patel asked Chandan to go to the office with him. Tara took offence at this
attitude of her father and said satirically, “The men in the house are deciding on
whether they were going to go hunting while the women looked after the cave.” She
said with derision that her father belonged to the primitive age when men lived in
caves and hunted animals for their food. She obviously wanted that her father should
offer similar opportunities to her as well. To the chagrin (humiliation, irritation) of
Patel, Chandan also said that he should instead take Tara with him to his office.
Patel’s image got a beating when he again said that Chandan should go with him but
Chandan said to rectify him, “We’ll both come with you.” On another, occasion also,
Patel says that Chandan would go to England for higher education, as he had
arranged with his brother Playful to get him admitted to some good university with a
scholarship. He knew that Chandan would not fail to earn his living if he had good
education, thought his maternal grandfather had left all his wealth to him since his
mother was his only child. This further goes to show that Patel had made
arrangement for Chandan’s education and career. He said with satisfaction that
Chandan would not have any financial problem since a good education would enable
him to earn his livelihood and he would have wealth of his grandfather in addition.
But he did not think in this way about Tara. Maternal grandfather had also willed his
property to Chandan and left nothing for Tara.

Bharati therefore carried the impression that her husband did not care for Tara’s
career, which she thought was necessary for a woman to get an honourable place in
the society. Talking with Chandan, she told him, “He (Patel) is more worried about
your career than hers (Tara’s). Chandan consoled her saying that his father lover
Tara as much as he loved him. He just did not show his affection. Then she argued
that his father was more worried about his career because Tara was playing cool, not
showing interest in having a career. Bharati, therefore, wanted Tara to decide for
herself what she wanted to be. She held that it was necessary not for Tara alone but
for all women to find careers for themselves as she said “Women have to do that as
well these days.” It is an accepted truth that career for women is necessary for their
emancipation. They can live honourably in the society if they are economically
independent. A woman that depends on her husband or any other person is a
parasite of sorts. But she becomes a companion of her husband when she contributes
to the family kitty (fund). Bharati was conscious of it so much that she thought that a
woman had no place in the society without financial independence.

She said to Chandan, “The world will tolerate you, but not her! Oh, the pain she is
going to feel when she sees herself at 18 or 20. Thirty is unthinkable. And what
about forty and fifty! Oh God!” Bharati desperately (greatly, badly) wanted her
daughter to choose a career since his maternal Grandfather has left a trust, which
would give money to both of them. But Bharati was not worried so much about Tara’s
livelihood as about her position in the society. There is the implicit idea that women
can get equal status with men when they have a career and economic independent.

A Wronged (offended) Wife

A turn came in the life of Bharati when it was decided that Tara was to undergo
another operation for kidney transplant. Bharati offered to donate her kidney, but
Patel said that he had found a donor and money was not a problem. When Bharati
still insisted on donating her kidney, Patel said in an unsavoury (nasty, unpleasant)
language, “I don’t want you to have the satisfaction of doing it”, and even slapped her
when she threatened to give out his secret. It is true that Patel was worried about his
wife’s health, but his language and action were not compatible with his concern for his
wife’s health.

Even if we overlook Patel’s minor acts of violence, we certainly cannot close our eyes
to the other wrongs that he had done to his wife. He told his children that his wife
and her father together asked the Doctor to give the third leg that the twins had at
the time of their birth to Chandan, though that leg was getting blood supply from
Tara. These instructions were given to the doctor against medical ethics because, “A
scan showed that a major part of the blood supply to the third leg was provided by the
girl… The chances were slightly better that the leg would survive … on the girls.”

But the MLA father of Bharati used his political influence to help the doctor acquire
three acres of prime land. It was a bribe that he had given to the doctor to do the
unethical act of transferring the third leg to Chandan. But Chandan could have two
legs only for two days. It had to be amputated (removed). This story of unethical act
and cruelty to the girl is told by Patel when Bharati is lying in the hospital, unable to
defend herself. The purpose of his telling this story was only to wean away the
children from their loving mother since they had revolted against their father who had
disallowed them to visit their mother. The story had instant effect on Tara who said
ironically, “And she called me her star!” thinking that her mother’s love for her was
merely a pretension which it was not. Bharati murmured during her illness, “Tara !
my beautiful little girl. Look at her smile! Smile, Tara. Smile again for me! Oh! See
how her eyes twinkle. You are my most beautiful baby!” These words, uttered by her
in a state of delirium shows that she had deep and genuine love for her daughter.
Patel had done an outrage on his wife by turning children against their loving mother.

Again Patel had committed an act of cruelty or rather tyranny by disallowing his
children to meet their mother who was lying in the hospital. He had instructed the
hospital staff not to allow Tara to meet her mother on her own, though children were
eager to meet her. They quarrelled with their father on this issue. They declared,
“We’ll both go” in defiance of their father order. During their arguments, Patel said, I
don’t want to give her the satisfaction of confessing.” It is unchristian to withhold an
ailing person from making a confession of her sins, if she had committed any. This is
also possible that he had withheld children from meeting their mother lest she should
tell them about his own sins. On an earlier occasion Bharati had been desisted
(stopped) from telling his secret to the children. He said to Bharati sternly (strictly),
“You would not dare tell them. Not you. Please don’t! Not Yet!” It is clear then that
he too has something to hide. Thus we find that Bharati has been wronged by her
own husband.

In the final count, Bharati remains a loving mother and crusader (champion,
supporter) for women’s emancipation.

Character of Patel

Introduction

Patel is the father of Tara and Chandan but for certain reasons he fails to get love and
confidence of the members of his family. His wife Bharati and daughter Tara do not
say a good word about him. His son Chandan, of course, defends him at one stage
but he also speaks curtly (briefly) to him in the end.

Isolated in the family

Dan sees in his imagination that Bharati and Patel had hardly agreed on any point. In
the first episode, he remembers, that Bharati wanted Tara to drink milk. She wanted
that Tara should put on more weight because she had lost half a pound in one week
and feared that she might lose a kilo in one month. Tara had no desire to take milk.
Patel suggested that Bharati should not insist on Tara to take milk at the instant
because the doctor had found that Tara and Chandan had made surprisingly good
progress and he had a mind to mention their case in medical journal. Bharati
objected to their case being mentioned in a medical journal lest the readers should
grow envious of them. Bharati like an Indian mother, harboured fears and doubts in
her mind though her fears were unscientific and unfounded. But Tara sided with her
mother, as she agreed to do what her mother wanted. Patel had to eat an humble
pie. Then he had an unpleasant discussion with Bharati when he said that Bharati did
not want to unpack the brass tumblers which were gifted by her father. Bharati
contradicted him saying why she wouldn’t use them to make him non-pulsed.

Against Tara’s Career

Patel seemed to be against women trying to make a career. He asked Chandan to go

to the office with him. He was first contradicted by Chandan who said that he could
take Tara instead as she would ‘make a great business woman’. But when Patel again
insisted that Chandan should go with him, Tara took offence at it. She said to Roopa,
“The men in the house were deciding on whether they were going to go hunting while
women looked after the cave.” Tara said ironically that Patel was still a primitive
holding the view that women should stay within the four walls for the house to do the
household chores – “Mad for the field, women for the hearth.”

This attitude of Patel became a point of dispute between Patel and his wife. Bharati
had come to believe that Patel did not care as much for Tara’s education and career
as he did for Chandan’s. Therefore she said to Chandan, “I wish your father would
pay more attention to Tara.” When Chandan said in defence of his father that he did
not like to show his affection and Tara should decide what she wanted to do; “She
must have a career”. Chandan could not understand the full import of Bharati’s
remark. Therefore he said Tara, “Can do whatever she wants”, because he said,
“Grandfather’s trust will leave us both money.” He did not see any necessity for Tara
to work for a career as their grandfather had left sufficient money for them. Then
Bharati took the occasion to tell him that women should have their careers to get an
honourable place for themselves in the society. He told Chandan in no ambiguous
words, “The world will tolerate you. . . but not her. Oh, the pain she is going to feel
when she sees herself at 18 or 20. Thirty is unthinkable. And what about 40 and 50!
Oh God!”. Bharati wanted that Tara should have career but Patel always spoke only
about Chandan’s education and career. Therefore it became an issue between them.
On another occasion, Patel said that Chandan had to join the college even if Tara
didn’t. He further added that Tara’s uncle Praful would help Chandan get into a good
university in England and would get him a scholarship also. He was so careful about
Chandan’s future that he said, “with a solid education you just can’t fail. Your
grandfather has left all his wealth to you”. So he had made sure that Chandan would
be well off, but he again did not say a word about Tara’s career. This attitude made
Bharati aske him, “And Tara?” Bharati was worried only about Tara’s career while
Patel was worried about Chandan’s.

Apathy (indifference) with Tara

It will be too much to say that Patel had no love for Tara, but his indifference to Tara’s
career gave impression to Bharati and to Tara also to some extent that he didn’t love
Tara so much as he loved Chandan. This impression was strengthened with the
general disinclination (unwillingness) among Patels for having a daughter. Roopa
revealed that Patels drowned their girl babies in milk to say to the neighbours that
child died while drinking milk. Naturallhy, this Patel was looked upon this suspicion.
This also caused squabbles (quarrels) between husband and wife. Since Bharati had
the impression that Patel did not love Tara, she lavished her love on Tara and make
up for general apathy.

Further, Bharati had seen that the society in general favoured a male child more than
a girl child. Her own father had left his legacy to Chandan, not to Tara. When
Chandan asked Patel why his grandfather did not bequeath (leave, give, donate) his
property to Tara, he got the answer that it was his property and he gave it to whom
he wished to. It clearly meant that Tara had none to support her. This was a further
reason for Bharati to give an all out support to her daughter. She told Chandan
plainly, “Yes, I plan for her happiness. I mean to give her and affection which I can
give. It’s what she deserves. Love can make up a lot”.

Bharati’s love antagonize Patel

Bharati showered her love on Tara. She fondled her, caressed her, petted (fondled,
caressed) her, while Patel made no show of his love. This widened gap between Patel
and Bharati. Patel felt that Bharati had alienated him from his children. He said to
Bharati, “You want her to believe you are the only one who loves her. . . you said your
love will make up for the lot.” It often happens that doting (fond) mothers turn
children against their fathers. Patel said that Bharati had given impression to his
children that he was a liar a wife beater, a child abuser and that she was the victim of
his violence. Patel therefore rightly exhorted his wife, “Don’t make her choose
between us, for God’s sake! You’re ruining her life because you are sick. I want to
help you, Bharati, please allow me to help you.” As the discussion took a serious turn,
Patel grabbled Tara to tell her that he loved her very much. He tried to remove the
misunderstanding from her mind that he loved Chandan more than her. He said to
her, “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.” And as he was
going to say that her mother had filled her mind with falsehood, Tara slumped (fell)
into Patel’s arms. The situation became so grave that Bharati cried that Tara was
dying but Patel took her to kitchen to put sugar in her mouth and rang up to the
hospital. This act of Patel’s indicated his position. While Bharati simply cried, he did
his best to help Tara regain consciousness.

A caring husband

Patel’s image had been tarnished though he was a good father and caring husband.
He knew that Bharati had not been keeping well. He was therefore under great
stress, as he told Dr.Narayan, “I don’t look well because I’m not. . . Frankly I’m
worried about her. . . she needs help. I’m not so sure – may be some kind of therapy .
. . or counselling . . . I don’t know whether I am prepared for the worst”. His wife’s
condition had become a thing fo serious concern for him. He wanted to get his wife
examined thoroughly by the physicians as well as psychiatrist.

As Tara was to undergo an operation kidney transplant Bharati offered to give her
kidney to her daughter. Tests had showed that she could do it. But Patel did not want
her to do it, since he had found a donor and he said money was not problem since
Bharati’s father had left a big amount of money. But when Bharati insisted on giving
her kidney to her daughter, Patel made efforts to convince her that her health did not
permit her to do it. He explained to her that she had lost control over herself – “Have
you looked at yourself recently? Look at the way you behave, the way you react to …
” He meant to say that she was not behaving normally. When all his efforts to bring
her round failed, he slapped her.

Spirit of Vengeance

But Patel in spite of being a caring husband made some unsavoury (unpleasant,
nasty) gestures. When Bharati insisted on giving one of her kidneys to express her
love for Tara, Patel minced (crushed) not his words to tell her, “I do not want you to
have the satisfaction of doing it.” Of course, there were reasons for him to dissuade
his wife from giving her kidney to her daughter, but denying her the satisfaction
smacks vengeance’ a desire which was perhaps lying in his sub-conscious. He had
the bitterness for being alienated from his children.

Injustice to his wife

Patel was unjust to his wife again when he instructed the hospital staff not to allow his
daughter to meet her mother. Tara was angry with her father for being cruel to her
and her mother. Tara suspected that her father did not want her to meet her mother
lest her mother should give out some secret of his. It is true that they had something
to hide from their children. During an earlier discussion Bharati had threatened to
give out the secret, but Patel who looked defeated requested her not to tell the secret
to the children. He urged, “You cann’t tell them. For their sake don’t. If at all they
must know, it will be from me.”

Patel made another equally hard remark a little later. While refraining the children
from meeting their mother, he said that he did not want to give opportunity to his wife
to make a confession. This was an unchristian act. It is inhuman to let somebody die
with the heaviness of a guilt in her heart. He plainly said, “I don’t want to give her the
satisfaction of confessing”. His adamant attitude forced Tara and Chandan to revolt
against his autocratic behaviour. Both of them declared instantly, “we’ll both go” in
defiance of his authority.

Patel looked helpless. He then narrated the story that Bharati and her father had
asked the doctor to do the unethical act of giving the third leg to the boy though it
was getting blood supply from the girl. He said that Bharati’s father was an M.L.A.
and was influential enough to become the Chief Minister. Only his death came in the
way. At the time of his birth of Tara and Chandan, it was found that twins had three
legs. The third leg was to go to the girl since it was getting blood mainly from the girl.
But Bharti’s father got three acres of prime land in the heart of the city from the state
for the doctor to do the unethical act of giving the third leg to the boy, though the boy
could not retain the third leg for more than two days. Patel narrated this story to
wean away the revolting children from their mother and reaped the reward instantly.
Tara said in utter dejection, “And she called me her star!” Tis act of Patel was foul and
unfair. He narrated this story when Bharati was not in a position to defend herself.
This story had maligned (criticised) a mother’s love.

In fact Bharati had a genuinely sincere love for Tara. She had fought all along for
Tara’s career, and had a strong desire to give a part of hers to her daughter. Even
when she was lying in hospital insane, she cried, acting as if she had an infant in her
arms, “Tara my beautiful little girl. Look at her smile! Smile, Tara. Smile again for
me! Oh ! see how her eyes twinkle. You are my most beautiful baby!” A mother that
speaks of her love in a state of delirium cannot be false and pretentious. It was
unworthy of a father to narrate such a story, even if it was true, to prejudice children
against their mother.

Retribution (revenge)

His intention in maligning the love of a mother was perhaps to win the love of his
children. But the dramatist has taken special care to see the Patel does not go scot
free (without suffering any punishment or injury.) His wife died, his daughter died, and
his son left him for good to let him languish (suffer) for love and sympathy in his old
age. Though Chandan said in the end that he would not hold Patel responsible for
anything, yet his concluding words speak for themselves. He told Patel, “Tara has
been dead for six years, and now mummy has gone as well, there’s nothing left for
me to come back to … yes, many be I am hurting you deliberately. I don’t know why,
but I can’t help the way I feel… Either you came here or live in Mumbai all by
yourself… well, that’s too bad! That’s just too bad!” His words, “I can’t help the way I
feel” and “I am hurting you deliberately (intentionally)” show that he didn’t have any
tender feelings for his bereaved (widowed, grieving) father retribution (revenge) has
come in the end of the tragedy.

Character of Roopa

Indiscretion

She chose to stay with him even after levelling a serious charge of attempting rape on
her.

What is the plot of Mahesh Dattani's play Tara?

Mahesh Dattani’s two-act play “Tara” tells the story of two conjoined twins, a
boy, Chandan, and a girl, Tara, who are surgically separated in an unequal manner
intended to favour the boy. The surgical procedure that separated Chandan and Tara
was so preferential to Chandan, in fact, that Tara is unable to survive and
disadvantaged in every way growing up, eventually passes away. Chandan racked
with guilt over Tara’s disadvantaged life and early death, moves from his native
country of India to England, where he attempts to begin life anew, repressing
memories of his personal history and changing his name to the Westernized moniker
“Dan.”

Dattani’s play is intended to portray the struggle of an ancient Eastern

civilization attempting to conform to modern, Western values, and failing. The
historically subordinate role of women in Indian society and India’s ambitions of
emerging as a major global power commensurate with its one-billion-plus population
and level of technological advancement. Cultural traditions that place far lower value
on female life than on that of a male, as well as the caste system that has condemned
hundreds of millions of Hindu Indians to lives of destitution while the upper classes
continue to prosper, have sewn divisions in Indian society that may take generations
to eliminate. During one important exchange between Chandan and his mother,
Bharati, who was complicit with the decision to sacrifice Tara’s happiness and life in
deference to the boy, tells Chandan with reference to Tara:

“Let her grow up. Yes, Chandan, the world will tolerate you. The world will accept
you – but not her!”

Chandan’s guilt over Tara is second only to that of Bharati – a mother who has
knowingly sacrificed her daughter because of cultural inhibitions against placing the
value of female life on the same level as that of males. “Tara” is a tragedy. In many
cases, twins have been known to possess an emotional connection that transcends
that of other siblings. For the surgically-separated twins in “Tara,” that emotional
bond similarly exists, but is forcibly separated by Bharati and her father, Patel. As
Chandan notes,

“The way we started in life. Two lives and one body in one comfortable womb. Till we
were forced out – and separated.”
Mahesh Dattani’s Tara: a Voice of Voiceless

The Indian English Drama has given voice to the unvoiced section of our society.
It is a medium to reflect the mean, ugly and unhappy aspects of life. Drama is
considered to be the most effective and powerful genre in the world literature. The
birth of Indian drama emphasizes that it is an integral part of our society and culture.
Krishna Mohan Banerjee presented the first light of drama in India in 1813 in “The
Persecuted”. However, the real journey of Indian drama started in 1871 with the
emergence of Michel Madhusudan Dutt’s “Is this Called Civilization”. Earlier the
themes of drama were concentrated on the religious convictions, philosophical
approaches and the political changes of the country. Later on there came the issues
related to contemporary politics, social and economic problems, art, human life etc.
The modern Indian drama concentrates on the several current issues and the real life
problems. Some of the modern drama writers include Badal Sircar, Mahesh Dattani
and Manjula Padmanabhan etc. The topic of discussion here is Mahesh Dattani’s
“Tara”(1990). About Dattani’s wrting style, R.K.Dhawan says, “Very recently Indian
English Drama has shot into prominence. Younger writers like Mahesh Dattani and
Manjula Padmanabhan, have infused new life into this branch of writing”.(24)

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.
Here I have selected Dattani’s play “Tara” for the study of gender discrimination in
our society. “Tara” is not just the story of the protagonist of the play, but it is the
story of every girl child born in Indian family whether urban or rural. “Tara” is an
enthralling play that questions the role of a society that treats the children of the
same womb in two different ways. Tara is a girl who wants to twinkle and shine, just
like her name. It is a play about two children, joined together at the hip. Out of them,
one is a boy and the other is a girl, they can be separated only surgically. This surgery
means the death of either of the two. The partiality and injustice starts here. It proves
true that a woman herself is the worst enemy of other women. The mother prefers the
male child and thus strengthens the chain of injustice. The first thought behind
selecting the male child is, he will carry forward the family name, and on the contrary,
the word girl is a synonym for “dowry”. The situation becomes worse, if the girl is
physically challenged or there is any physical or mental deformity in her, then the
dowry too will not work out. She will remain unmarried and bring defame to family. It
is a bitter example of child abuse prevalent in the Indian society. Every girl child born
in an Indian family suffers from some kind of exploitation and if there is a boy child in
the family, the mistreatment is very much visible as consciously or unconsciously all
the privileges are offered to the son. Dattani as a playwright breaks the unity of place,
time and action in the very beginning of the play. After the soliloquy of Dan, when he
is shown in London at the lightening speed, then he appears in Mumbai from present
to past. Here, he is able to disregard the unities by the help of lighting along with the
music effects. Dattani very cleverly uses the lights to highlight the action wherever he
wants, at any level without any breaks for change of scene. It is the use of lights and
music, which gives the play the feeling of unity of action. Music is so well used that it
creates and enhances the mood of characters. Fade music for past and flash backs
and different music when Tara is hurt or fight between Bharti and her husband or
when the secret is revealed. Dattani very successfully uses all the resources of
theatre. Like most of his plays, here also Dattani forces the present to confront the
past-a past that is dark, hidden, and shameful. Dattani seems to suggest that unless
we as individuals, families, and communities frankly tackle our past, and sweep off
the skeletons in our cupboards, we will not be able to exorcise the ghosts of the past
either in the present or in the future.

“Tara” is a play in two acts.It opens in London. The scene is that, Chandan, (Dan) now
a playwright is remembering his childhood days spent with his sister Tara. He is trying
to write a story about his own childhood but he has to write Tara’s story. As Tara and
Chandan are the two sides of the same self, rather than two separate entities. The
play revolves around these two Siemese twins. The operation at the time of birth to
separate them, leaves Tara crippled for life whereas Chandan is privileged one. Now
he wants to turn his anguish into drama by writing about his sister’s childhood. Even
after their unfair and manipulated division, which is done against the law of nature,
they are emotionally united. They share the same agony, which Dan tries to delineate
by writing autobiographical drama, though a futile attempt:

Dan: Give me a moment and the pain will subside. Then I can function again.[pause,
more controlled now] Yes. The material is there. But the craft is yet to come. Like the
amazing Dr. Thakkar, I must take something from Tara and give it myself. Make
capital of my trauma, my anguish, and make it my tragedy. …. Slowly, as if in a
trance, picks up the typed sheets and starts tearing them as he speaks). My progress
so far, I must admit, has been zero …. (379)

Throughout the play, she bears some kind of grudge against the society. She seems
to have some kind of hatred towards the outside world. Her world is compressed, it
consists of her parents and her brother whom she is very close to. Besides exposing
the typical Indian mindset and preference of a boy child to a girl child, the drama
looks at the triumphs and failures of an Indian family, comprising of father (Patel),
mother (Bharati) and two children ( Chandan and Tara). Tara is a lively girl, who does
not get enough opportunities as his brother gets, eventually wastes away, and dies.
Chandan escapes from the reality and settles in London; there he changes his name
to ‘Dan’. Dattani has presented the bizarre reality of women playing a secondary role
to man. In this play, the idea of female infanticide is presented. This filthy practice is
still present in some places of India. The drama also suggests Patel’s hegemonic
patriarchy, when he insists that proper division should be made in the gender roles.
Tara, symbolizes the modern society, which claims to be liberal and advanced but
Infact it has a cripple mentality. It is a society, where mothers are educated today,
and women are considered ‘Devis’ like ‘Durga’, ‘Kali’, ‘Saraswati’etc. Still there are
differences between male and female child. All the promises of equality between male
and female, equal opportunities to women in all the fields are false. Mahesh Dattani
reveals in one of his interviews with “Lakshmi Subramanyam”, “I see Tara as a play
about the male self and female self. The male self is being preferred in all cultures.
The play is about the separation of self and the resultant angst”. [134].. Whereas the
famous theatre director “Erin Mee” writes in the note of the play that:

Tara centres 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] . …Woven
into the play are issues of class and community , and the clash between traditional
and modern lifestyles and values. [319].

Tara’s parents are educated even then they had made such discrimination. Bharati’s
father can also be considered responsible for this mishap. Nevertheless, the question
arises here is, if Bharati had been influenced by her father’s decision then why didn’t
Patel come forward and stand against that? He was the father of both the children and
he should be strong enough to fight the discrimination. The relationship of Bharati and
Tara becomes weaker on the discovery of truth. Although she loves Tara a lot, but her
subjugation to the expectations of society and her preference for her son, makes her
compassion for Tara weak. When Chandan enquires, whether she has any plans for
Tara, she says, “Yes! I have plans for her happiness. I mean to give her all love and
affection, which I can give. It’s what she deserves.”( 9). Bharati is quite fearful about
the future of her daughter; “It’s all right while she is young. It is 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! …….when she sees
herself at eighteen or twenty, thirty is unthinkable and what about forty and fifty! Oh
God! (349). To shed her burden of guilt and to assert her moral superiority over her
husband, she shows extra maternal love and concern towards her daughter. She also
tries to expand her love by the act of donating her kidney to Tara, which ultimately
turns futile. Dattani establishes that mother and daughter relationship proves
secondary to the orders of patriarchy. Mr.Patel, Tara’s father is an emblem of male
chauvinism. He holds the absolute position in decision making about the family.
Bharati has to follow his wish. She is a pathetic victim of patriarchy. She exceptionally
cares for Tara, to overcome her own guilt. Tara represents the subaltern and the
subjugated. She does not have any choice, she has to accept whatever is given to her.
The suffering of Tara and Chandan is a symbolic validation to the perception that the
elegance of the relationship exists not in their separateness but in their moving in a
coordination or interdependence. Erin Mee says , “Dattani sees Tara as a play about
the gendered self, about coming to terms with the feminine side of oneself in a world
that always favours what is ‘male’, but many people in India see it as a play about the
girl child.” (320) P-atel’s attitude is always negative. He blames his wife and father- in-
law for the damage done earlier, but his position cannot be denied. He gives greater
chances to Chandan, plans for his education and future career, but nothing for Tara.
She is a victim of collective social system. Her father is not much different from her
mother. She had favoured Chandan at the time of operation and then onwards their
father has been preferring Chandan. When it is about education or other facilities, he
only thinks of his son. Patel makes Bharati responsible for everything and gets an
escape from his responsibilities. He says, “…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: 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? (352).

Dr. Thakkar stands on the highest level throughout the play. He operates the two
Simese twins, but he has done an unfair and unequal operation under the pressure of
Bharati’s father. He was a wealthy man and very soon supposed to become Chief
Minister. Dr. Thakkar collaborates with them and gives the male child better chances
physically-the second leg to Chandan. Dr. Thakkar, the god-like, ‘life giver’ is aware
that the third leg would adhere better to the female half, and yet becomes party to
the decision. Dan tries to define his other half, the spirited Tara, “She never got a fair
deal. Not even from nature. Neither of us did. May be God never wanted us separated.
Destiny desires strange things-----But even God does not always get what he wants.
Conflict is the crux of life.” (330). The question remains, why was then Tara denied
the privilege of the good leg. Why? Is it only because she was a girl? Dattani aptly
shows that in this society it is a curse to be a girl. In this country so much partiality
and differentiation is there for women. However, a rich heritage we have and women
are otherwise placed on the high pedestals. Dr. Thakkar disproved his godly
profession and let himself bribed by Bharati`s father and became a co-conspirator in
the bizarre act of severing the leg. He should have endorsed his profession by
disapproving 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. But Tara`s maternal grandfather had also cheated her. He was in
politics and came very close to becoming the Chief Minister. Dattani cleverly tears off
the mask from the faces of Indian politicians. On the one side they promise for women
security, education for girls and prevention of female feticide, and in their own family
they are partial enough. When it comes to a male grandson, Bharati’s father at once
chooses life for Chandan. Even he leaves all his property to Chandan and not a single
penny for Tara. 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. (360)

When Tara comes to know that it was her mother who made such a decision, which
she trusted most, she cannot bear this truth and the shock takes away her life. She is
not dead, but she is killed by the society. Nevertheless, Tara could have made her
boldness, her strength and fight the society to engrave a place of her own. Even
though she is more intelligent, sharp and witty and would have performed much
better than the male child would, if only she had been given a chance. She is not
deterred by the injustice done to her, but she thinks that, “I will spend the rest of my
life feeding and clothing those. ----starving naked millions everywhere. 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.” (370). She is
discouraged from the very first day of her life. She was bubbly and energetic girl who
had all the qualities of a normal girl. If her parents had given her moral support, she
might have shone like a star as her name signifies. Her life was considered to be a
burden on this earth. This made her lose interest in life altogether. Further, she
refuses to go to physiotherapy or fill forms for college. It is noteworthy that
discrimination with Tara continues, even after her death. Chandan, who was always
interested in writing a story, makes the story, he writes, his own tragedy. Dan
apologises to Tara for doing this, “Forgive me, Tara .Forgive me for making it my
tragedy.” (380).

Mahesh Dattani has very deftly revealed the theme of gender discrimination in this
play. The social norms, economic standards and cultural factors have been
responsible for the injustice against the girl child. All these factors combine to create
the social system in which the girl child has to live and die. Tara is killed by this social
system, which controls the minds and actions of the people. The trauma of coming to
know the role her mother had played in her life, and the discrimination becomes too
much for her. Tara`s potentiality was sacrificed at the altar of gender. Identity crisis
becomes a chain with which a female is bound when the question of choice between
male and female comes up. If we think, why is she killed? The answer is crystal clear
that Tara is not wanted, because she is a girl. In our society, “Girls” are not wanted.
For a moment, if we imagine that Tara’s mother had preferred her at the time of
operation instead of Chandan. Would she have forgiven? No, Never! Because she also
is a Woman. Here women are not made to think or decide but are made to submit to
the wishes of man. This man can be a father, husband, brother or son, who ever he is;
at the end, they have an identity. But a mother, a wife, a sister and a daughter at last
turn out to be only “women, submitting to their wills and losing their own identity.”
 GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN "TARA"
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Tara is a play, written by Mahesh Dattani. This play is awarded by SahityaKala

Parishad Award for best production in a year 2000. The play was first performed as
Twinkle Tara by playpen at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Bangalore on23 October 1990.
The play shows how importance of male child affects the life andgrowth of female
child in the society. It undertakes the theme of discrimination against women in
general as well as Patel family in particular. The theme of gender description that
stands of women in prejudice, bias and discrimination. The male dominated society
has a deep rooted bias towards the female child.This bias is the result of socio-
economic sources in the society as dowry as large amount of money and gold to be
given to the family of the bridegroom frightened the parents so much that they
preferred killing female child in some pretext rather than allow her to live.

Tara presents the story of a Siamese twins (siblings) connected with each other down
the chest and require an efficient surgical operation. The problem is psychological one
in which the mother and her father‟s decision plays a vital role. The twins take birth
with three legs and the biologicalcondition makes it clear that third leg should be
allowed to be a part of the femalechild. But the mother and her father favour the male
child Chandan and decide todonate two legs to the boy. This decision forms the focal
point of the play. The play opens with Chandan (Tara‟s brother) who is trying to write
the story about hissister Tara as Twinkle Tara. Den is reminded of his past and feels
extremely painin admitting the injustice.

She never got a fair deal. Not even from nature. Neither of us did. May be
Godnever wanted us to be separated. Destiny desires strange things. (P-330).

Above mentioned lines presents the tragedy of Tara because of her

physical problem. Both Tara nand Chandan conjoined and even God never wanted
their separation. Den writes a story here of his sister and shares his views with the
audience. In the play, Dr. Thakkar‟s role is ambiguous. He became unethical for the
sake of material gain. Dr. Thakkar is mainly responsible for Tara

‟s life a tragic one. Society believes the role of Doctor as a live giver and compared
with God.But here a role of a doctor is suspicious. Dan writes a story of his sister and
askedone question to Dr. Thakker.

Dan: Three months? Was the surgery really necessary?Dr. Thakkar: Yes, absolutely.
Surgery was their only chance of survival. You
see,they were twins, conjoined from the chest down (P-331).

Here Dan collects detailed note for his story. He meets Dr.Thakker and gets
information about early life. Since Dr. Thakker is also involvedin this operation. Role of
three persons is important in this surgery and tragedy.

Bharati, Bharati‟s father and Dr. Thakker. These three are responsible for the tragedy
of Tara. All three have decided that two legs would be given to Chandan.After taking
decision, Bharati realized her mistake. Late in her life she suffers froma some of guilt
but it is too late. She wants to confess for her guilt. She is ready toalone for her and
she is ready to give her kidney to Tara. But Mr. Patel stops her from doing because he
already know that Bhrati is responsible for Tara ‟s tragedy.

It shows discrimination against girl child in the society. Because of artificial leg of Tara
and Chandan nobody wants to keep relation with them. So they are alonefrom the
society, friends and they always feel strange because of their artificiallegs.There are
six characters in the play. Bharati is a loving mother of Tara.

Tara is a central character in the play Chandan is a brother of Tara Chandan changes
hisname to Dan. Patel is a father of both Chandan and Tara. Roopa is a friend of Tara.
Dr. Thakkar is a family doctor of Patel family. The highest level is given toDr. Thakkar
who had carried out the surgical separation of the twins. He remainsseated
throughout the play. Mahesh Dattani frequently takes as his subject the complicated
dynamics of the modern urban family. His characters struggle for some kind of
freedom and happiness under the weight of tradition, cultural constructions of gender,
and repressed desire. Dattani sees Tara as a play about thegendered self, about
coming to terms with the feminine side of oneself in a world that always favours what
is „male‟, but many people in India see it as a play about the girl child. Dattani
focuses on the family as a microcosm of society in order todramatize the ways we are
socialized to accept certain gendered roles and to give preference to what is „male‟.

The play opens with Dan (the older Chandan) typing furiously. He informs us soon
that he is attempting to write a play, which is like “touching a bare livewire” (323). It
is his memories that torment him and running away to London hasn‟t helped matters
in anyway. Trying to be a writer, with a manuscript of shortstories that hasn‟t excited
English publishers who want “sati, dowry deaths or childmarriages” (324), he is
determined to write out the play about his twin sister, Tara.The opening speech is
interesting for the way Dattani positions Dan, and byextension himself, as an Indian
English writer one who doesn‟t write to the dictates of the western market but who is
of relatively no interest to Indian criticsor audiences- ” And back home, of course, Indo
– Anglian literature isn‟t worthtoilet paper.” (324) But none of this is of import, says
Dan when you finally decide to deal in truth, his freakishness and his twin sister whom
he had almost erased from his memory though “She was lying deep inside, out of
reach…” (324). The young Chandan and Tara walk in here with Tara declaring that
they have” always

been inseparable. The way we started in life. Two lives and one body, in one
comfortable womb. Till we were forced out…. And separated”. (325) This is thefirst of
the clues that Dattani perhaps wanted the play to be read at a different level,as one
about the feminity in men, the other side of the gender that we all carrywithin us.
When asked to about Tara, Dattani has said that “it‟s a play about the self, about the
man and the woman in self, but a lot of people think of it as a play about the girl
child”. The plot according to him, is about Siamese twins who have“undergone
surgical separation”, and “the play deals with their emotionalseparation when they
come to know they were born with three legs.” While it can be read in terms of
gender, it really is a play, he says, “about the male denying the female, and how the
cultural construct of gender favour the male…. so….. it has todo with coming to terms
with one‟s own self in terms of the feminine in the self”.

We shall look at this thematic in a little more detail later, however the play does goon
immediately to show us the family of four in conflictual action, the tension between
husband and wife being played out at the earliest opportunity.Mahesh Dattani shows
life of common people in India. Family constructionin India is different. Dattani shows
power of male dominant in the Indian society.

Here in India, importance of male and female is different. Women‟s place is in

thekitchen and home affairs and men‟s place is in the outside world. It means men
isfree to do whatever he like. But women can‟t do any thing w

ithout permission of her husband. It means, Dattani shows discrimination of gender

and construction of society. Gender discrimination is when people of either gender are
treated unfairly within society because of their gender Dattani‟s themes reflect and
comment on theordinary and everyday conflicts of so many urban people who may be
living intransitional periods of history, caught between the firm under tow of tradition
andsocial values and the pull of modernity and globalization. In Tara,, there is a
clear divide between the twins Chandan and Tara and the „girl next door‟, Roopa.
While Roopa plays a crucial role in the play, part of the power equation between her
andthe twins is immediately established by the language they all speak, and the
subtle but crucial differences between Chandan and Tara on the one hand and Roopa
on the other “Tara” is a play about girl child. It talks about feminism and
gender construction in Indian society. Throughout the world gender discrimination and
stereotyping limit the full development and participation of girls and young womenas
well as boys and young men. Until all girls receive the same opportunities astheir
male counterparts, their fundamental human rights are denied and theconditions for
sustainable development are unfulfilled. It is vital for the future thatgirls and young
women grow up to become leaders in their families andcommunities, and increasingly
in the workplace and in society. However it isrecognized that in most societies, the
opportunities for boys and girls are not equal.Here are some areas of empowerment
that are needed for women and girls to makesure that they can take responsibility for
all matters affecting their lives, and canwork with men on an equal basis.The Patels
are a strange family, a highly conflicted one. The husband andwife are separated by
some dark secret, with the wife almost always close to hysteria and the two children‟s
are not able to understand their parents. Actually the inter caste, inter region
marriage is shown to have been fraught from the very beginning, with Patel
being disowned by his parents. This family has been set upon the breakdown of
another, where it is established that families are about rulesand hierarchies, about
power and obedience, rewards and retribution. If Patel had to leave his family to
establish his own, his wife had the support of her father, “avery influential person”.
(338). Thus, in the inexorable logic of Indian Family life,Bharati‟s Father would be the
most powerful person in the life of the Patel family.It is Tara ‟s observation that the
“men in the house were deciding on whether theywere going to go hunting while the
women looked after the cave” that sound convincing. It is quite obvious that Patel
wants his son, Chandan, to grow up to be a man „However, Chandan is the artistic
one, interested in music and writing. Mr. Patel is a different from others. Mr. Patel is
more interested in Chandan for survival.
Tara is more intelligent, talented and clever than Chandan. Here Mr.Patel fears that
Bharati is close to a mental breakdown. Bharati has already been argues, he says
enigmatically that it is her turn to listen to him now. They threateneach other that
they will reveal all to the children. Whatever it is that they have toreveal, we are not
yet privy to it.However, we see that Bharati is worried sick about Tara‟s future as
awoman with disability and tells Chandan that the world would tolerate and
accepthim, but not her. In a cross conversation outside, Roopa reveals to Tara that
the Patel‟s in the olden days would drawn their baby daughters in milk. The cross
conversations also stress how much attention the father pays to the son, and howlittle
to the daughter. Patel comes in to see Chandan helping his mother with knitting and
loses his cool, accusing Bharati of turning Chandan “into a sissy – teaching him to
knit!” (351). He has instant plans for his son, but not for hisdaughter, even as he says
that this is so because Bharati wouldn‟t allow him to make any plans for Tara. This, he
adds, is because Bharati wants Tara “to believe that you are the only one who loves
her I‟ (352)

Tara, witness to the whole rowabout who loves her more than the other, falls into a
faint at the end of the act.

Act I shows Mr. Patel wanted to prove that he loves Tara very much. But Bharati
wouldn‟t allow him to say anything.

Patel. But your mother would like you to believe that it‟s not true. I love you (looks at
Bharati) we both do.Mother of Tara is totally against to Mr. Patel‟s statement that he
loves Tara very much. But Tara never doubted it. The whole act shows common life
style of common people in India society remains the same, there is no change in
traditionor social rules. They are rigid. Level of education in India is higher in
bothgenders. But because of some old belief about male child, a girl has to suffer. In
India, there is a one saying that, male child is a lamp of society‟, so because of this
old belief a woman has to suffer. Male and Female both are equal important insociety.
But in society they are different. All freedom is given to the male child and all rules
are in favour of male but for female, rules are different and freedom is notgiven by
the society. So here in the society, they are not equal.

Tara addresses questions of gender in many ways, though not necessarily through
hackneyed stereotypes of „bias against the girl child‟, although that is the generally
accepted interpretation of the play in India. Dattani‟s deep thinking about gender
issuesleads to the emergence of the idea of the twin side to one‟s self quite literally
embodied in one body and the separation that follows. Mahesh Dattani‟s Tara seems
to stage a large part of our nation particularly our attitude to gender.

The play sets forth for us the deep conflicts that we have learnt to live with, all our ide
ntity markers being obstacle courses in our realization of ourselves language,religion,
caste, culture, class and gender.Act II begins with Bharati demonstrating her affection
for Tara and tellingher that she will be alright now that Bharati is donating her kidney
to her daughter Tara. We cut to Dan who is looking at a scrapbook given to him by his
father as
a parting gift, which contains reports about them and interviews. The difficulty of the
original operation performed on the three month old twins is enunciated by
Dr.Thakkar. The next movement is the return of Tara from the hospital along with
her father. The mother has finally had her nervous breakdown. We come to know also
that Bharati‟s father has left all his money to Chandan. His house will go to boththe
twins but Patel advices them to “burn the whole place down”. (360) In a close
conversation, where they share their vulnerabilities, Chandan and Tara realize
thatthere is no difference between them, that when

Tara laughingly calls him a bastard, Chandan can reply, “Vulgar Girl! Calling yo

urself names! (361). In a scene with Roopa, who wants to see Sophie‟s choice, Dattani
allows Chandan to bring in the horrific choice between sexes that people may be
forced to make – “What would you do if you had to choose between a boy and a
Girl?” (364) as we know, Sophie chose her boy, but comic misunderstanding between
Roopa and Chandan ensures that this answer isn‟t articulated. Dattani does not want
us to forget that the play is not simply about gender but about our notions
of normality and disability as well It seems clear that Tara resents her life, and
feelsdeeply for her mother – even saying that Chandan and her dad are „creeps‟. It
turns out that Patel has left instructions at the hospital that Tara isn‟t to meet Bharati
by herself. Patel then opens the long secret, that the twins had had three legs and
thatthe blood supply to the third leg was from the girl, and therefore had a
greater chance of survival on Tara. But Bharati‟s father was a wealthy and powerful
politician and he and Bharati instructed Dr. Thakkar to “risk giving both legs to
the boy” (378), and the doctor agreed since he wanted to start a large nursing home
in Bangalore. The leg lasted on Chandan for two days. This revelation shocks Tara,
who now realizes that the protestations of Bharati‟s love for her had a different
motivation than a bonding between women. Further, now that his sister and
mother are dead, and the revelation shared with all and various, Dan agrees that he
has taken his sister‟s life and made it his tragedy but then what is there to
choose between them? After all, we are intended to live our plans that are not in our c
ontrol, “like other objects in a cosmos, whose orbits are determined by those around.
Moving in a forced harmony”. As Dan Adds, “Those who survive are those who do not
defy the gravity of others.” Tara has suffered as has Chandan.How can he pretend
that nothing has happened that was not destined? The playends with his asking for
her forgiveness, and the two siblings holding each other ina tight hug, together once
again, and whole, complete.Thus, we see that while the major theme of the play is still
gender discrimination, the action of the play shows that we look at the family
conflicts,about the motivations of characters, and the impact they have on each
other.

Bharati‟s strong love for Tara and her concern for future, her empathy andsympathy
for her and her desire to donate her kidney to Tara even when there is façade. What is
the morality that the Patel family has practised? And how are theythere fore each
other? There is always a power structure within families, and alsostruggles for power.
The parent‟s fight with their children is normal behaviour! In this particular case,
Bharati has to construct her maternal love for Tara not just asan act of wrong but also
to assert her moral superiority over her husband, to carveout her space, with in the
family. Thus maternal love becomes an instrument, not anatural state of being, or
even an end in itself. It is a weapon against Patel and theexpression of a desire to
compensate Tara. Thus, you cannot take the family as asite for love and caring and
protection. Every relationship is a site for conflict. It can be called a conflict for control
and power. However, what the “forcedharmony” (379) of family life can do and does
is to put in danger quietly and completely all chances for individual growth and
fulfillment. We have also seenthat the play is about notions of normality. Everybody
yearns for a normal life, yetno one is normal. The importance of the life of twins are
discussed in the playRoopa is one of the character in the play. She is the comic
character, normal andoffensive comic and offensive in her very normality. Dattani
creates opportunitiesfor the audiences to laugh at her, giving her an uncertain control
over languages, both English and Kannada. Her linguistic disability is “normal”, as are
her sexualcuriosity and her confusions and fears. The pointed exchange about
Beethoven andBrahms in the play is to alert us to our own erasure of memories
– Beethoven wasdeaf when he created his major musical compositions, and he was
also a greatinfluence on Brahms.

Tara identifies with Beethoven, which she has just beentaunted by the normal girls
outside the house. She says that Beethoven must have been a passionate
man but when told that she has been listening to Brahm‟s first concern to, she wants
the record turned off. However, soon she wants it played real loud, because
“Beethoven was never as good as this” (335), and declares her desireto lead a life
which is not constricted by other‟s perception of her disability.

Concept of normality and ability stunt the growth of each and everyone insociety.
However, we can only react in a particularly senseless manner to physicaldisability
and this creates cracks and breaks in families leading to great stress and breakdown
of what is meant to be primary support structure for all of us. Musicand Beethoven
should alert us to the other thematic that runs through the play not just how we
treat the disabled, but how we view them and ourselves our ideas of beauty, the
personal aesthetic.

Tara ‟s outburst to Roopa that she would “sooner beone eyed, one armed and one
legged than an imbecile…. With uneven tits” (369)

should be read from this perspective. Ni the aesthetic they develop, the twinsreject
the ugliness outside them, retreating into the world of the English language, and
western music. Hence, Dan‟s final statement to Dr. Thakkar asking him toleave his
memory: “Get out of my mind, you horrible creature! You are ugly and Idon‟t want
ugly people in my memories!” (379).

Tara can thus be read in different ways but ultimately Dattani‟s view seemsto be how
the “forced harmony” of our lives is so tens with changeable and so close to worry
that the surfacing of even one memory can tilt the balancecompletely change our
paths into that of collision and self explosion. The familyholds us together but usually
at great cost. There can be no sense of tragedy here,only that of identity of our every
day life. Such moments can only be earned beyond the level of everyday life, beyond
language, beyond time in the silence of the hug that ends the play, the feminine and
the masculine of the twinned self meeting and merging on an even footing. Whole
play shows patriarchal power andcommon life style of Indian society. Because of
quarrel between husband andwife, child has to suffer a lot. A play shows importance
of male – child in Indiansociety. Generally, we all know about culture and tradition of
India. Multireligions are there in India. And male dominant society in India. So it is
naturalthat man is in centre, and importance, are given to male in India. „

Tara‟ shows condition of women in India. Dattani is intelligent writer to show different
aspectsof the society. Chandan is a brother of Tara. More importance is given
to Chandan because he is a boy. Mr. Patel‟s roleis strange in some way. He stops Tara
to meet Bharati. Her own mother. Dr. Thakkar‟s role is also suspicious in the play.

As we know that role of doctor is like God. But here Dr. Thakkar is not behavingreal
like a doctor. He takes bribe for operation. Operation is risky even if he givesmore
importance to Chandan. Two legs are given to Chandan as plan but it is not survive
well to Chandan. It leads tragedy in Patel‟s family.

Tara‟s life is difficult at every moment in the family. It can be called a critical situation
in Tara. Tara was produced in Mumbai and Delhi, where it received rave reviews.To
sum up, Tara is a play in which life of Indian middle class familiesshown. This is a
story of conjoined twins. Common problems in the Family arediscussed. As Dattani
discusses it that men is in centre in India. Construction of gender is not the same in
Indian society. As we all know that, problems are therein all family. But some
problems are not natural it is created by person itself. Mr Patel is a strange character.
He hates Tara in some ways because of his own rigid belief that woman
is not as important as man. Female problems are discussed inthe play. We can say
that importance of male child is shown by Dattani in the play, and common life of
Indian society are presented.This is thus a play about the injustice done in the name
of construction of gender identities. It presents gender discrimination many times. All
incidentsshows gender bias.
 Socio-Psychological Analysis of Gender in “Tara”
Siddharth G. Desai Mr.Devarshi Mehta
“Tara”, is a play by Mahesh Dattani. This play is a family tragedy in which the
members of the family are torn apart in pieces. Mr. Patel, Bharati, Chandan (Dan) and
Tara, these four people involves us in their life and realize us what kind of intolerable
pain they are enduring. “Tara”, this is a stage play in two acts. Mahesh Dattani is one
of the original writers in Indian English in Writing. He is a writer as well as a director
also. In this play, he has talked about common people.

In his plays, Dattani takes on what he calls the ‘invisible issues of Indian
society’. “Tara” centers on the emotional separates that grows between two conjoined
twins following the discovery that their mother and grandfather to favor the boy
(Chandan) over the girl (Tara). 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 as Dan and attempts to repress the
guilt he feels over his sister’s death by living without a personal history. Dattani’s
plays are to be not to be read but to be performed as “Twinkle Tara” at the Chowdiah
Memorial Hall, Banglore, on 23rd October 1990, by playpen performing Arts Group.

(-From A Note on The Play)

There is a difference between sex and gender. Sex is related to biological term,
where as gender, it is given to you by society. Dattani has depicted the perspectives
of the gender of the character in this play. Right from the beginner we can see the
difference between male and female. Like, in one of the scenes, where Bharati has
finished her puja and Patel is getting ready to go to work. These are stereotypical
gender roles in own Indian society and Dattani makes full use of them.

Now, here, we can observe Dattani’s use of those stereotypical roles of man
and woman. This thing also shows the gender perspective of the Indian society.
Another example, in which we can see this Indian Gender perspective. When Tara
explains to Roopa about the conversation between father and son, she says that,

“The men in the house were deciding on whether they were going to hunting while
the women looked after the caves.”

Now, here, we can see explicitly the Indian Gender Perspective that man’s
work for taking care of his family, where as women have to work only in the house.
Her work is to look after her house, husband and children. This is her world. She can’t
break this rule.

This is how the gender perspective is described by Mahesh Dattani in the

above quotation. The above mentioned words are the proof of our Indian society that
this is the situation of male and female in Indian society and both have to work in
their boundaries. Both have to follow this situation. There is another example in which
we can see this gender perspective of male-dominance. When Mr. Patel says to
Chandan,

Mr. Patel: “I was just thinking… It may be a good idea for you to come to
the office with me.”
 So, here, we can see that these above words of Mr. Patel represent the male-
dominance of Indian society. Mr. Patel says to join the office to Chandan, not to Tara.
Mr. Patel very well knows that what is good or bad for Chandan and Tara. “it may be
good for you…” this shows that coming office is good thing for Chandan and when
Chandan says that he and Tara, both will come to the office. At that time, Mr. Patel
completely denies for he completely denies for that. For Chandan, it is a good thing to
come to office, not for Tara. For Tara, the good thing is to work at home or help her
mother. This is how, here, this gender image reflects male-dominance.

And another thing that Mr. Patel always thinks about future plans for Chandan.
He never thinks Tara’s future. Also, we can see the difference between the two
genders. In our Indian family, people always think about boy’s future, first, because
people give more significance to boy than girl. A girl has to learn how to cook/ how to
look after house? How to behave with other? All these things a girl must learn
otherwise people criticize her and her family.

If we talk about a boy, he has to follow his father. He should become a support
of his father. He has to learn, how to make his business progressive. How to deal in
such situations in the case of business? All these things, a boy must learn. This is how
our Indian society believes in case of boy and girl. These are the parameters in which
a boy and a girl have to believe according to their parameters. And this thing, we can
see clearly in the case of Chandan and Tara.

Another example in which we can see the disappeared female gender identity.
Dan talks with himself, he utters…

“What is Tara?”

These words question where is Tara’s identity? Her disappeared identity shows
her helplessness. The responsible thing for this is male-dominant society. She is the
victim of the patriarchal society. In a way, Chandan is responsible for that.

Because during the operation Bharati and her father favored boy and told the
doctor to save the boy. This shows the cruel identity of the Indian society. At that
time, Bharati and her father think about a boy, because, perhaps, they thought that
boy can bold the heritage of his father and can be helpful to his father in his business.
So, a boy is better than a girl. Like Tara, Bharati is also victimized by the male-
dominant society. Because she did as her father said while operation.

After operation, when she knows the condition of Tara, at that time she realizes
her mistake but it is tool late to repent on it. She can’t apologize for her mistake to
Mr. Patel because she does not consult in critical situation. So, Mr. Patel never
forgives Bharati.

Now, she shows her strong feelings towards Tara but all in vain. She dotes Tara
but she is prevented by Mr. Patel. In the beginning of the play, Bharati convinces to
drink milk to Tara. At that time, we can understand that it is her love for Tara but
when we come to know the secret, we can’t believe that she had told to save the boy.
In both cases, at the time of operation and when she loves Tara, Bharati is forced or
pressured to do the thing. In a way, she is victimized by the patriarchal society.
 In this family drama, Mr. Patel, Bharati, Chandan and Tara, all these four
characters try to live in their world and that is why they are talking about future plans.
This mechanism requires to revive, which is worse than death. Bharati bribes Roopa
because Tara would not feel that she has no friends. By doing this, Bharati tries to
correct her mistake. Moreover, she has stopped socializing, because she can not
endure when people ask about Tara. In a way, she is running away from reality.

When Chandan come across the reality that he is responsible for Tara’s death
(tragedy). He cannot tolerate more and then he goes to London. He changes his name
as “Dan”. In a way, he also, like Bharati, escapes from reality They both are escapists.
On the other side, Mr. Patel has to face the society because of Bharati’s mistake. He
endures the society’s harshness silently. At a moment, Mr.Patel erupts on Bharati. He
says…

“When have you allowed me to consult for Tara?”

This sows her love for Tara and Mr. Patel takes Bharati’s love to Tara as Bharati
is pretending. She spoils his children’s future; this kind of accusation is accused on
Bharati by Mr. Patel. This is how Dattani has the psychological conflict between
characters. Roopa represents society. She has a habit of discussing about people and
spreading rumors. She is very bad at English; she talks in a double way. When Tara
says her about criticism on her leg by Roopa, at that time, Roopa says…

Roopa:-“oh that! I’m sorry. I hope you didn’t mind.”

The above words represent Roopa’s true identity. First, she insults Tara about
her leg and then she shows her sympathy towards Tara’s situation. She is like a
chameleon. She keeps changing her colors in dialogues according to situations
towards people.

Tara is a very strong girl. She is emotionally strong than Chandan. Life has
taught a lot of things to Tara. She often makes witty remarks in the play, like when
Roopa is warning her to stay away from Prema and Nalini, at that time she says…

Tara: “That’s okay. I can handle them.”

The above words of Tara show us her courage. She is more mature than those
girls. She has seen all the colors of life. In a way, Dattani has shown Tara physically
challenged, but mentally strong.

In a nut-shell, Mahesh Dattani has presented an analysis of gender identity in an

unbelievable way in “Tara”. Tara and Chandan are separated physically, not
emotionally. Dattani has depicted the views of Indian society regarding boy and girl
(male and female) in “Tara”.
What is the summary of mahesh dattanis play tara?

Answered by The Community

Tara is a story of a girl who wants to twinkle and shine, just like her name. Dattani
using the themes like gender identity, discrimination, middle-class life, revelation etc.
He through these themes has beautifully shown the agony of a girl in typical Indian
society. Also, in this play we can see him experimenting with the stage.
Right from the beginning we can see the difference between male and female. Like, in
scene where Bharti has finished her pooja, and Patel is getting ready to go to work.
These are stereotypical gender roles and Dattani makes full use of them. Another
example is when Tara explains to Roopa about the conversation between father and
son, "The men in the house were deciding on whether they were going to go hunting
while the women looked after the cave".
Another, theme is revelation where Tara comes to know that it was not her father but
mother who discriminated between herself and her brother right from the age of 3
months when Bharti, her mother insisted on giving the third leg to her brother which
rather suited her more.
Dattani as a playwright breaks the unity of place, time and action in the very
beginning of the play. After the soliloquy of Dan where he is shown in London at the
lightening speed he appears in Mumbai from present to past. Here, he is able to
disregard the unities by the help of lighting alongwith the music effects.
When the play begins a spot picks When the play begins a spot picks up Dan and faint
music is played when he is imagining the past and for past spot lights is up the stage
level to highlight Tara and Chandan who walks in. Then the lights cross fade to the
Patel's living room and the action moves there. Again, when Dr. Thakkar is introduced
to us, the light picks him up while Dan fades into darkness. But, Dr. Thakkar's
interviewer is Dan who continues to speak from his level. Dattani very cleverly uses
the lights to highlight the action wherever he wants at any level without any breaks
for change of scene. It is this that gives the play the feeling of unity of action. Music is
so well used that it creates and enhance the mood of characters. Fade music for past-
flash backs and different music when Tara is hurt or fight between Bharti and her
husband or when the secret is revealed.

"Socio-Psychological Analysis Of Gender Identity In Tara” - Mahesh Dattani

Student’s name: Mahesh B. Dholiya

‘Tara’ a tragic play, based on family relationship and gender discrimination that
is totally disheveled and shattered because of Siamese twins Chandan and Tara who
are to be considered as a scapegoat for Bharti and Mr. Patel, parents of two
children. Tara, a family drama insinuates socio-psychological problems regarding
genders among family members. This will be gradually gleamed in later discussion in
this essay. Deeming Tara as a socio-psychological play of Indian family is very
effective and symbolic. Tara, a character is leaving her place among her family
members gradually because of gender differences. Why did not she get two legs
during the operation? Why did her mother favor the boy? Why did not Bharti favor
Tara? These are the crux of the play.
 Sex and gender should be differentiated before going ahead. Sex is a biological
term while gender is decided by social gospels and dogmas. Woman should behave
like this and that, keep limit in her behavior. The social psychological bonds
in ‘Tara’ lie at the zenith of the discussion and argument. On one hand if we think for
a while that all family members are suffering from gender discrimination, naturally,
psychology of the characters is to be blamed.

Patel family is like a shapeless pile and a husk without a seed in a sense that
there is no soul in it. Because behind each and every action. Conversation and
reaction play a very Vitol role. Sometime over-emotional minds turn out to be ado and
quarrel but do not bring any result. Conversation of Mr. Patel to his wife Bharti
sometime bewilders us. For example, Mr. Patel fights with her,

“Yes, call me lire, a wife beater, a child abuse, it’s what

you want to be! And you, you want them to believe you

love them very much.

Bharti blames him and in return to that Mr. Patel says that he does not love their
children enough as she does. They are measuring their intensity of love to their son
and daughter. It suggests the Hollowness of human relationship. They always suspect
to each other. So their marriage itself is a doubt on the name of relationship. Even
throughout the play they converse but with lack of communication. They cannot
express their love to one another because the birth of two children is an ultimate
reason for their favor. Dattani essays to depict human tendency of accusation or
Blame-assigning-mechanism according to natural psychology when one is at fault or
blamed.

Socially speaking, ‘Tara’ is not a story of the protagonist Tara, a feisty girl, but it is the
story of every girl child born in Indian family whether urban or rural. How Tara is given
injustice by not providing one let and how she suffers because family does not want a
girl because they want someone to carry forward the inheritance.

Soliloquy of Chandan during writing a play in ‘Tara’ is a best instance of studying the
play with psychological point of view and its social reasons. The first time of the play
is articulated by Chandan and he speaks,

“In poetry, even the most turbulent emotion

can be recollected when one is half asleep.”

Here by ‘turbulent emotion’ Mahesh Dattani means that Chandan’s very disturbed and
disrupted emotion that could not mollify Tara’s memory from his mind. That’s why he
tries to bemoan his dismay and repugnance by writing a play. He compares drama
and poetry. This may be unbelievable that comparison is nothing but a comparison
between him and his sister Tara.

On second hand the word ‘Nothing’ refers to main thematic concern ‘Nothingness’ of
relationship among male and female characters. Throughout the play ‘Tara’ suffers a
lot even no one harasses or teases her but by conversation between parents. Tara is
given chance to perform. It suggests that girls have fewer roles in family and society.
Even people talk with them is quite enough but not conversing with women is full of
pain. Tara is much discussed in play but through quarrel and abusive words of Patel
and Bharti.

Now, family problems, Tara’s death and her father’s rage because of some extent
society’s perspective looking at Patel family are referred to the problem regarding
proper place among male-dominated societies. With gender perspective, what Tara,
Chandan, Patel and Bharti think and behave in particular way is more important. Tara
has no say in the matter of her. Chandan is not blamed because he does nothing in
quarrel. Bharti cries loudly and to give more voice to his argument, she speaks loudly.
She cannot win the matter of her. She cannot win the matter. She entreats before her
husband. She made only one mistake when she gave birth to Tara and Chandan by
favoring Chandan. Mr. Patel always wants his children to live in society and discuss
people and know the day-to-day affairs. He is not conservative but very frank and
talkative in a sense he does not live in family but in society. Bharti’s dialogues are so
long that symbolizes those women who cannot justify their argument. They keep
speaking. It suggests that women are not to be focused on. Society does not give
even little respect and honors to them. Roopa’s language is frequently abusive,
satirical and absurd. She stands for society. She is like a chameleon that keeps
changing her colors means she speaks bad before Tara and Chandan against her
friends Prema and Nalini. At the same time, before her friends, she speaks negative
against Tara and Chandan. Sometime her dialogues do not make any sense. By the
way of illustrations,

“Yes. I love their cough syrup!

“What a waste of milk!

These lines denote that people sometime discuss futile matters and pass the
comments and time. They are always interested in other’s matters. Now, Tara’s
language is much quipped, sarcastic, symbolic, full of innuendo, reflective and tragic.
Her dialogues are mostly short and it connotes those girls of India who are it mentally
suppressed by other people not to speak so much. It indicates that girls are just toys
that do not speak anything and just entertain others.

What is the role of women in family and society? What is their responsibility in family,
just to prepare tea for morning, ironing, bringing water when their husbands come
from office and remaining submissive them. Bharti’s was a different case. She is all
but only she favors a boy, even being a woman. The reason for that is also genuine.
She is forced to decide whether she should save girl or boy. Her father had also a wish
to go for boy. Even Chandan and Tara would have been rescued if one leg had been
given to Tara and one artificial leg to Chandan. But people are blind by their taboos
and customs.

Moreover, Tara, throughout the play keeps watching and observing other characters.
She learns from Chandan, Bharti and Mr. Patel’s dialogues. She knows something that
cannot be taught. She transcends the reality. She lives in the world. She discusses
people. That shows that offspring learn something from their parents, brother and
friends. Gradually girls imitate their mother. A very example is, they make dolls out of
cloths and play among themselves in the court-yard and make toy keeping relieve on
the bed. By doing all such things they are psychologically programmed that girls have
to work and rest for boys. This process symbolizes society itself. Mr. Patel’s home
stands for that. Bharti is suppressed by Patel’s vitriolic nature. Somewhere Bharti is
also an escapist. She summons Roopa to make her Tara’s friend as a company so that
Tara does not feel secluded. Not only that but she behaves with her delicately when
Tara is in critical condition. Because in first act and particularly its end in which
parents were quarrelling on who love much whom! See the irony of life in second act
when Bharti wanted her to remember that and Tara replies,

“I will.”

It indicates Tara is going to be more and more tragic. One will remember that climax
of the drama, Bharti is ready to give her own kidney because she loves very much and
then Tara’s reply is very much sarcastic and mordant, ironical and so much symbolic
that becomes everyone’s sentence,

“Because you love me so much.”

Does Bharti love her much? Is the question and answer in disguise? Where was her
love when she gave birth to conjoined children? This makes Tara mentally broken and
conquered. She is so much fragile and natural that is easily affected by emotions.
Tara’s real tragedy lies in that scene. She is not found in her family even she is a
character of the play like a film ‘Tare Jami Par’, ’Eva’ in ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’,
‘Nora’ in ‘A Doll’s House’. Though Tara is separated not from her brother physically
and emotionally but also separated from family itself. Even Tara is much named,
discussed, blamed, secluded, hurt and what not.

Bharti is like Willy Loman, always imagines, remains in imagination, and forgets the
reality. She has her own imaginary world. She know very well that Tara will not live
long time then even she thinks about her future. Now generally speaking, ‘Tara’ is all
about the difference between the role of man and woman in family and society.
Patel’s ego always hurts when Bharti argues with her. Tara’s ego is repressed and
forced to remain passive. Chandan’s ego is naturally normal but at the end of the play
he is so abnormal when he writes a playTwinkle Tara. Roopa’s mind is somewhat
jealous that she cannot see happiness of others. She becomes a barrier to the family
members of Mr. Patel.

Posted 15th March 2011 by Mahesh Dholiya

Galaxy Discrimination of Class and Gender: Mahesh Dattani’s Tara

Vivekanand Jha

Mahesh Dattani is a name that guided weakling and sickling Indian English Drama on
the path of reliability, steadfastness and distinct identity. Besides prolific and
prominent Indian playwright writing in English, Mahesh Dattani is also well known as a
stage director, screen writer and film maker with numerous scripts and productions to
his credit. His plays have been anthologized in single volume called Collected Plays by
Penguin. Most of his plays have been translated and performed in other regional
languages of India and have been incorporated in the syllabus of several Indian and
foreign universities and schools. He made his maiden mark in filmdom with the film
“Mango Souffle” and it was displayed in numerous international filmfestivals and
pronounced best motion picture at the Barcelona Film Festival 2003. His film “Morning
Raga” remained cynosure of the Cairo Film Festival in December 2004 and it
registered the award for best artistic contribution. More importantly its script has been
archived by The Academy of Motion Pictures, USA and it was accepted by Oscar
Academy for nomination of the award. He has worked in partnership with various
international theatre companies and his recent achievements are stage adaptation of
Paolo Coelho‘s bestseller classic, The Alchemist and composing of the script of Brief
Candle, directed by Lillete Dubey. In an attempt to bridge the gap between the East
and the West he was recently also engaged in a multicultural project, called
Reorientations, a workshop that lasted for a three week period at the Shanghai
Dramatic Arts Centre in China. This occupied an English director Michael Walling along
with English actors, one Indian dancer, two actors from Sweden and four Chinese
actors. There is variety and versatility in the creative caliber of Dattani and he showed
his mettle in all three: stage, radio and screen plays. The list of Stage Plays to his
credit are: Where There’s a Will(1988), Dance Like a Man(1989), Tara(1990), Bravely
Fought the Queen(1991), Final Solutions(1992-93), On a Muggy Night in Mumbai
( 1998) and Thirty Days in September(2001). The number of Radio Plays that have
accrued into his account are: Do the Needful(1997), Seven Steps Around the
Fire(1998), The Swami and Winston(2000), A Tale of a Mother Feeding Her
Child(2000), Clearing the Rubble(2000) and Uma and the Fairy Queen(2003). The last
but not least is the demand of time that he fulfilled through his three consecutive
screen plays of high repute and recognition: Mango Souffl(2002), Morning Raga(2004)
and Ek Alag Mausam(2005). Successes became darlings for Mahesh Dattani after he
turned the first playwright writing in English to receive the central Sahitya Akademi
Award for his collection Final Solutions and Other Plays in 1998. This highest award for
a literary work in the country opened a new door for debate, analysis and critical
appraisal of dramas in the spectrum of Indian English Literature. Mahesh Dattani
speaks after receiving Sahitya Akademi Award: Well, I think this has been really the
kind of endorsement that Indian English Theatre in the country has been looking for
because up till now it seems as if it belonged to a fringe section of society and that it
was seen as not quite theatre, not quite art, that it was more of a kind of theatre club
kind of thing. And perhaps justifiably so. I am not saying that its not entirely
unwarranted that feeling and opinion. But I think since so much has actually
happened and there has been a www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International
Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 1 January 2012
Galaxy serious attempt to, you know, have a kind of movement in this direction.
Because there are enough English speaking people and there are enough people who
want to do theatre, and right in the language, so this has been a kind of endorsement
of that effort.1 Fathoming the literary and creative magnanimity of Dattani various
magazines and newspapers shower all the available admiration for him. The New York
Times calls his works powerful and disturbing, the Wasafiri Literary Magazine quotes
him a playwright of world stature and the International Herald Tribune deems him one
of India's most serious and well known playwrights writing on contemporary Indian
themes. Gauging the magnanimity and comprehensiveness of Dattani’s works veteran
critic makes concluding and viable remarks: Contemporary in tone and spirit, alive to
the pressures of the present, and eminently stageworthy, Dattani’s plays squarely
give the lie to the popular notion that Indian English drama is at best only a hothouse
plant.2 The peculiarity of Dattani lies in the fact that despite not being the student or
scholar of art and literature his performance is par excellence in the arena of stage
and screen craft. It is his cultural, traditional and native attachment that compelled
him to turn towards stagecraft. Dattani is basically from Gujarat and Bangalore was
haunting place for some of the Gujarati theatre groups. Dattani used to visit these
theatres along with the family members and thereof he dreamt of dramas and
gradually developed knack of theatrical performance. Though the plays he watched in
his early days were in Gujarati and Kannada languages but he preferred to write on
his own in English to render his local feelings the colours of comprehensive and
universal significance. Very soon his dream translated into reality and he became a
representative dramatist, luminous beacon and torch bearer for Indian English Drama.
Though written in English he uses Indian words copiously and his plays carry the
sense and sensibility of Hindi, Gujarati and Kannada. He acknowledges the influence
and inspiration of playwright Madhu Rye, Vijay Tendulkar, Sakharam Binder and
Alyque Padmasee in shaping and chiseling his dramatic career. Dattani responds to
the question what makes him write plays, in the following words: I participated in the
usual school plays and skits but I always yearned to direct performances. I realized
that there must be a script for a performance. That's why I started writing - not very
serious stuff though, initially. I watched a play whenever I could. Every time there was
a group from Bombay or Ahmadabad staging a play in Bangalore, it became a
community event that we would all attend. I remember a play I saw as a child at
Ravindra Kalakshetra that fascinated me. It used the "play within the play" concept
that I'd never seen before and a dramatic finale that took place in the auditorium. The
teasing tone, the costume and make-up, the lights -- were all bright and loud yet I was
utterly captivated. I later learnt that it was Madhu Rye's Koi Pun Ek Phool Nu Naam
Bolo (Tell me the name of a flower). He is a sensational playwright. I got the chance to
see his other plays, especially Kumarni Agashe (Kumar's Terrace), also in Hindi as
Neela Kamra, in Bombay. Then the Bangalore Little Theatre was formed and I became
seriously involved in acting, directing and writing plays. I learnt much from Vijay
Padaki in the early years. I started my own theatre studio after a few years.3 Dattani
had an opportunity to be commissioned to write the play A Tale of a Mother Feeding
Her Child for BBC Radio on the eve of six-hundred anniversary of Geoffrey Chaucer.
He is www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal
ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 2 January 2012 Galaxy touchstone of versatility and
apart from play-writing he tried his hands in many others creative and art activities.
He has not only written the plays but also starred effectively in some distinguished
plays and won honour for his radiant and excellent performance. While responding to
the questions whether there occurs a conflict between the actor Dattani and director
Dattani, he explains in following terms: The actor, the playwright and the director are
all complimentary to each other in a production. It is like gardening; where a whole is
made of many parts. So many conditions determine a garden’s lushness, its beauty. I
write for an actor in the true sense of the word and not to ponder to vanity actors.
There is no theatre without an actor or an audience. Everything is geared towards
‘rasa’ which is why I always direct the first production of any play I write. That enables
me to put in more stage instructions which go on to become a kind of blue print for
other directors. That way, there is no conflict.4 There is inseparable relation between
the play and the audience. Every setting, action and characterization in the drama is
performed keeping in mind the audience and viewers of the play as every act has to
be played live and in as it is manner. Drama is different from film and TV shows which
can be altered even after act is finished. So as a playwright Dattani has peerless
power to transform his script into living and natural performance. Besides a veteran
playwright Dattani is the master of stagecraft and he deems the stage ability more
important and instrumental in the success of drama rather than relying on only its
themes. Dattani acknowledges this fact in an interview: Audience need to make the
effort. Unlike TV or cinema where the viewer doesn’t have to contribute, theatre is
collective experience. In fact, at a moment of truth, you will find how people who
don’t know each other join in from all corners of the darkened hall to applaud and
declare their appreciation of that important moment. And that’s when you know a
play works.5 The themes of his plays bear the testimonial of varying tone,
temperament and treatment. Dattani expanded his range and canvass of creativity
from stage Plays to radio and screen Plays. He has an ability to amalgamate the
traditional beliefs with ultramodern disposition and conviction. His plays are heavily
charged with socio-political, emotional, physiological and psychological issues. The
theme of family covers the large chunk of plays wherein its members are found to be
struggling and wrestling with one another. The best example of such play is Tara
which circles around the grave and traditional issues of gender biasing. The son and
daughter delivered from same womb are preferentially treated by no less than
parents themselves in the intoxication of superstition and ancestral beliefs and the
daughter is sacrificed for the short term benefit of the son. The play is contextual and
relevant in the light of the burgeoning incidents of foeticide and widening gap in the
sex ratio of male and female child. On the question of what gave him the idea for the
play, Tara, Mahesh Dattani: Well, basically, it began with, you know, reading an article
in a medical journal about Siamese Twins being separated, and, of course, they were
invariably of the same sex and there was this thing about a fused leg and which had
the qualities of both left and right so there had to be some careful consideration as to
which twin was supplying the blood to the leg and the journal went into the detail
because obviously it was a very unique operation and separation. Although that
www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN
2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 3 January 2012 Galaxy was the inspiration but I think by
then having written Dance Like a Man, I was prepared to take on the gender issue
head on, and I think that was a powerful metaphor. Again, you know, the play is
misread and, you know, people tend to focus on the medical details but that’s really
not what the play is about. It’s a metaphor either for being born equal as male and
female and sharing so much more and with the surgical separation comes a cultural
distinction and prejudices as well, but on another level, it could also deal with the
individual having the male and female self and half the female self is, whether your
gender is male or female, is definitely given the lower priority.6 To look son and
daughter with biased and discriminating eyes has been traditional and age old custom
in India and it has been tagged with rites and rituals of life. Parents think their
daughter of alien home as one day she would be married and would be of her
husband. They have superstitious and mythical belief of being ultimately emancipated
at the hands of their son. This fact pertaining to illusion of life is optimally exploited by
Dattani in this play. The whole drama is circling round one dark secret and its
revelation. The twin: Tara and Chandan successfully operated and separated by Dr.
Thakkar. The twin had three legs between them and the third leg was supplied by
Tara’s blood system. The probability of the leg’s survival was greater with Tara. But
Bharati and her influential father were hand in glove to undertake the risk of
supplying the third leg to Chandan. In the pursuit of procuring this malicious design
the doctor was bribed with a plot of land in Bangalore by Bharati’s powerful and
political father. Patel couldn’t object muscularly enough and he also ultimately
became accomplice of this nasty conspiracy. The leg that had survived only for two
days with Chandan could have been accompanied Tara’s forever. Tara is devastated
by this revelation that has been ultimately done by Patel himself. Further elucidating
the context of gender discrimination in the drama Dattani speaks in an interview:
Well, I think it is the revelation in the end about, you know, Tara’s love for her mother
which uptil then was unquestionable. She suspected her father for having done
something, you know, was in someway, but she had no idea what it was, but her love,
her mother’s love was unquestioned and she did not question that, so when she
comes to know of the truth of what we, I mean, we only have the father’s version. We
don’t know whether that is the real truth or no. again, but it does sort of break her
away like a shooting star from the mother, and I think with that she-that’s tragedy,
she dies. We don’t know how she dies, but we know that’s the end of Tara, and I think
that’s somehow all the attitudes towards Tara and the relationship between her
mother, her father and her brother, which we see through the play. In hindsight you
could see where it was coloured or where it was blinkered or where it was being
compensated for.7 Dattani has non-conformist and avant-garde advance towards
theatre. He based his script on the contemporary and appealing reality of the world.
He fought relentless war for the aggrieved, marginalized and underprivileged sections
of society like HIV positive, eunuchs, and physically challenged. Besides these facts he
remains bold and brave enough to incorporate taboo themes in the cultured, ethnic
and traditional country like India. Such nature of Dattani is bolstered by the inclusion
of volatile and radical themes of gay, lesbian and sexual abuse of the child in his
dramas. Dattani’s plays are his exploration and experimentation with stagecraft.
Homosexuality, gender identity, revelation and the pressure of the past, family as a
battlefield and the hollowness of middle class life in urban India, Hindu-Muslim
hostility and catching up in the www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International
Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 4 January 2012
Galaxy current of capitalism are some of the major themes that he dwells upon in his
plays. As far as the play Tara is concerned, the two kinds of discriminations have been
dealt in the drama. One is class discrimination and other is gender biasing but Dattani
deems the gender issues more prominent and grave than the problems of class.
Dattani presents his own views in this regard in a conversation: Because I think that’s
the most visible form of discrimination in our country. Well, you could say that class is
the most visible form, but in a way it is such, so ingrained the class system, that
sometimes it remains unquestioned. You know you can order your servants about
nobody questions you. You know weapon to fight discrimination against her. If Rupa is
going to stare at her when she walks across the road, when she limps across the
roads. As she, you know, examines her artificial leg, and knocks on it and what not.
Tara is going to pull her cards and say that, you know I speak English better than you
do and hence you are inferior to me. It’s such a you know, ridiculous system we have,
but then that’s the only weapon she has against Rupa, so in a way, she is buying a
social perception of what is superior and what is inferior, the same way as Rupa is
doing to her.8 Bharati realizes her committing of sin and stigmatizing motherhood by
doing injustice with her daughter. Consequently she suffered nervous breakdown and
metamorphosis. She abruptly cultivated disproportionate compassion for Tara in an
effort to seek salvation from unforgivable sin. She exhibited pretentious sympathy and
empathy towards Tara and did all attempts to bring ill repute for Patel in the eyes of
her daughter. How can males be well wishers of females once women’s enemies are
only women? Females are discriminated not only biologically but also culturally. The
biological difference has been more or less created by Nature but cultural difference is
solely manipulated by patriarchal society. Women and girls are trained to remain
confined to kitchen and courtyard. Such an aura and atmosphere is created for them
so that they could do nothing other than quenching the carnal thirst of their husbands
and nursing their age old in-laws, elders, husbands, children and youngers. For
Dattani biological differences is bearable for time being but cultural differences are
totally fabricated and can be curtailed, contained and averted: Absolutely, yes,
because it is an artificial difference in that sense, you know, biologically there are
polarities between the genders, you know, which is meant to seek the union of one
another, but the cultural polarities are artificial, and actually the boundaries hinder
the natural unions of male and female whether its body-to-body or within oneself.9
The character of Rupa has been deliberately inducted into play by Dattani to
counterpoise the burgeoning seriousness and morose mood of the drama. The
humour of Dattani is exhibited through the characterization of Rupa and she remains
an object of ridicule the moment she brings any term on her tongue. She is both
linguistically, rationally and intellectually weak and deficient. Like Chandan and Tara
she is though not suffered from disability but she is offensive and comic. She has been
purposefully bestowed with hesitant command over both English and Kannada. Thus it
provides awesome opportunity for spectators, audiences and readers to laugh at her
and thereby they enjoy a kind of diversion amid glum, grisly and gruesome story of
Chandan and Tara. The characterization of Rupa is essentially and admirably felt in
the light of the fact that how a society looks up at a family undergoing deep distress
and depression. She exploits and www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International
Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 5 January 2012
Galaxy laughs at the compulsion of Bharati to please her daughter, Tara as
compensatory measure for her committed sin against her daughter. During
denouement of the drama, Rupa is found to be playing taunts at the deploring and
pathetic plight of Patel’s family and calling them, “We don’t want freaks”. Dattani
presents contrast between the life of Rupa and Tara in an interview: Right, well, we
got to, there are several scenes in the play which deal with her furies and how she
fights her battles when she talks about how she blackmailed her classmate into doing
her homework for her and even very much earlier on when she shows up Rupa for her
malapropism, her lack of usage of certain idioms and you get to know very earlier on
that she is sort of fighting for superior position and then when finally she confronts
Rupa and say how does it feel having one tit smaller than the other and let me see
how it feels, you know, when other people stare at you. You know, the way they stare
at my leg and how would you feel, you won’t be able to come out of your house and
what not. So those are the places where we get some insight into Tara’s inner life and
her anger basically. And you know, you, you, you know the idea is so easy to
sympathise because sympathy is another way of polarizing as well. You sympathise
with someone, and you are saying they are not me you know, No I am in a different
location, you know, I am the superior and I am the one to sympathise. So stay there
and I will sympathise with you.10 The childhood and Indian name of Dan is Chandan.
Dan is both the narrator and character of the drama and spectators watch the drama
from the points of view of Dan so it is called Dan’s play. He is deemed as the
Sutradhar of the play. All the actions and characterizations pertaining to drama are
portrayed through revelation made by Dan and most of the actions in the drama are
resulting from the flash back of Patel’s family six years earlier. The play, Tara opens
with Dan who remains busy in typing the text pertaining to his lifelong experience.
Dan is undergoing mental pain and conflict caused by reverberation of some tragic
incidents of the past. Dan and Tara had shared one body which is popularly and
scientifically known as Siamese twins and in the terms of Dan they were like “two
lives and one body, in one comfortable womb”. He lives in London to keep sufficient
distance between his bruised past and present. The case of play within the play is
witnessed as Dan is writing a script of a drama known as “Twinkle Tara” which has
comprehensive connotation as Tara is protagonist of the drama under discussion and
also the literal meaning of the twinkling star. The play suddenly takes the shape of
flashback and action suddenly moves towards Mumbai where Dan and Tara had
passed their childhood lives. The scene of traditional, patriarchal and paradigmatic
Indian family is observed wherein Bharati, the mother of Tara and Dan just finishes
her worship and Patel, the father of the twin, is getting ready to join his duty. Both
Bharati and Patel seems to be in the milieu of making Chandan a writer and Tara, as
usual, strong, healthy and beautiful to be a belle bride of the future. Bharati and Patel
belongs to two different states, Karnataka and Gujarat respectively and they were not
in good terms and always shown to be quarreling with each other owing to cultural
gap and dominance and intervention of Bharati’s father between the relationship of
Bharati and Patel. Dr. Thakkar is bribed by Bharati’s father to operate the Siamese
Twin according to his wish and thus he earns notoriety to the name and fame of
doctor who is deemed as next to www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International
Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 6 January 2012
Galaxy godliness for healing the wounds and pains of the aggrieved and diseased.
Father-in-law of Patel has played a villainous role in this play and he is responsible for
the imbroglios, gender biasing and class discrimination encountered by Patel’s family.
It is he who bribes Dr. Thakkar to carry out surgery in favour of Chandan. He is of
belief that male should always be given golden and great opportunity and his
penchant for male-chauvinism remains unabated when he left his in Bangalore for
both Tara and Chandan but money for only grandson, Chandan. Dattani aptly
demonstrates that how the interventions of in-laws into the family affairs destroy its
smooth functioning, harmony and cordial atmosphere. Bharati’s father is responsible
for bringing bitterness between her and husband, Patel. Though it is another thing
Patel should not have remained mute onlooker to the discrimination perpetuated on
Tara by Bharati and her father. He is further an accomplice in the malicious acts of
gender biasing when he chalks out plans for the better education and career of
Chandan. Dattani further elucidates gender biasing in the light of the character and
protagonist, Tara in the play: Well, that’s a little difficult because you do have various
forms of theme. So, you know, in one sense gender prejudice against feminine gender
is a strong thing but you also have the class differences coming and, of course, all
these prejudices are interrelated because ultimately it is about power, the patriarchal
system, it’s to, you know, to acquire and appropriate power, you know, for-for you
know, what I call what Dan says in the end to live in the forced harmony. It’s forced
because it’s not equal but at the same time there is a harmonious existence because
as long as, you know, your status and you continue to play and stay within your
station, then there is harmony. But there is also discontent and that’s why needs the
kind of ferment, which Tara is able to bring about but it still is a tragedy.11 The
themes of gender discrimination are all dominant in the drama, Tara. The issue of
cultural discrimination with women has been elaborately and comprehensively dealt
by Dattani in the play wherein female is subjugated and underestimated by
patriarchal society and she remain only a care taker for household utensils, , children,
husband, other domestic requirements and tasks of fatigue. Thus Dattani’s drama
showcases the stark reality of the life and warrants the attention of the world towards
the pressing needs of the time.