Mahesh Dattani's "Dance like a Man": The Clash of Hegemonic Masculinity in India with its

Other.
"Dance like a Man" is the play that made Mahesh Dattani famous. It was first performed in 1989,
September 22, in Bangalore. Though now in Mumbai, Dattani is by upbringing a Bangalorean and
the play is set therefore, quite naturally, in Bangalore. The "Gujju" reference in the play is also from
his background, if I read it correctly. But what interested me most in the play is the clash between the
father Amritlal Parekh (a freedom fighter cum social reformer who becomes rich by buying up
British bungalows when they leave and reseliing them)- who represents the older generation who
straddles pre-Independant India and early post- Independant India more than his son, and the son
Jairaj who wants to be a dancer. The clash is invertedly Freudian here of course, but stands for much
more in today's progressive and developing world, because it is a powerful and subtle study of what
it means to be a man, of masculinities and its attendant issues. To the detriment of other - and I do
not gainsay this point - equally important issues in the play, I shall deal only with this one to give my
paper focus, because of my interest in Otherness and in this clash Dattani deals with the Other in one
of its avatars that people have not looked at much, in my knowledge.

To "start at the very beginning" and in keeping with my maverick, and in some underground circles,
well known status as a rebel of a critic, I would like to state that the title while it obviously references
Shiva, the originator of the Tandav, also ambiguously nods at the hijra community in India, and
implicitly enfolds the tradition of men dancing not only Bharat Natyam but Kuchipudi or other such
art forms, dressed as women. These things would probably dawn on most Indians but I think the job
of a critic is not only to talk of obvious connections but unearth subtle ones and sometimes to forge
and make new connections that come from his own reading. Coming as I do from a very post-
modernist background in matters of literary criticism and theory, such leaps of thought foregrounding
reader first and text second, and authorial intention only last, are natural for me and I feel they need
no justifiication. Dattani's title reminded me also of a famous hymn by Sydney Carter written in
1967called "The Lord of the Dance" and Fritjof Capra's popular "Tao of Physics." Cut to the end
where Jairaj says to get the connect: "We are only human. we lacked the grace. We lacked the
brilliance. We lacked the magic to dance like God." (page 74/ 2006 Penguin ed.) The play starts with
an injunction to dance like/be a man and ends on a note of failure in that the man/men - and the
woman/women in question in the play are unable to dance LIKE Shiva or Carter's Jesus which is
what would make them/us really human or manly. Thus, the play is primarily tragic, dwelling on 'la
condition humaine' and realistically Ibsenian revealing what the "Pillars of (Human and Indian)
Society" are actually made of, but subtly so, seasoned and tempered by humour and the knowledge
that life goes on all the same despite its tragedies, so that the revelation is bearable and doesn't
destroy us, unlike the Shiv Tandav which saves and destroys at the same time.
Masculinity or masculinities are difficult to define but the definitions are based on the idea that they
are primarily only constructs, thus coming under the category of new gender studies, as opposed to
defintions of the male 'sex' which is based on the fact of having male genitalia, whatever species of
male animal you belong to. Thus masculinity needn't be only found in the domain of men anymore
than its negative coloration in the social world of stigma - effeminacy - (Amritlal: I've noticed... the
way he walks - page 39) need be traced or seen only in the domain of men. "In gender
studies, hegemonic masculinity refers to a culturally normative ideal of male behavior."
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemonic_masculinity) This will be the starting point of my
exploration. My hypotheis is that Amritlal Parekh is a signifier for hegemonic Indian masculinity.
This doesn not mean that this subjectiivty has no fissures in it but he does fall into what can be called
a much admired stereotype, looked up to as what one should be in many upper caste/class circles in
India.
What does an Indian, whether man or woman, for instance, look for in a man of the older generation?
Amritlal Parekh is a Hindu freedom fighter who is well educated in English too. He is a social
reformer. He is also a shrewd "Gujju" businessman in that he buys British bungalows cheap when the
Englishmen are leaving the country and sells them at a profit because the bungalows are in demand
among those who want to flaunt their new found status as the ruling class, and thus he becomes rich.
He represents upward social mobility from upper middle class bourgeois to upper class bourgeois, to
put it in Marxist terms. At the same time he is nationalist, traditional and slightly forward, liberal,
secular and progressive, in being the first in wearing a shawl and not formal British attire, in letting
his son Jairaj take up Bharat Natyam as a hobby, letting him marry outside his "community," and in
wanting to improve the "devdasis" like Ratna and others like them at one remove, while retaining the
casteist superiority of the us/them divide. A seemingly impressive mix, a figure in the public eye that
stands for success and the stamp of the strong-willed, self-made man in India, the kind of person
that Indian society expects its men to be, a man to be, notwithstanding or ignoring the fact that
advantageous or disadvantageous elements like sex and gender, class, religion, caste and geography
at birth are not choices here - even as the first and last of them are not choices anywhere else - but
something that one is born into.

It is against this rock-like figure that the father is that has the sanction of an entire unthinking society
and nation behind it as to how it is an exemplary example of what masculinityand manliness is, that
Jairaj, the son, tries or has to assert himself to self-actualize his character. It is an age old battle, with
no mother in between to mellow it in this play. Jairaj gives it his all, actually, fighting against
insuperable odds, or so we come to understand in the play. To be honest the only figure who
impressed me in the play is Jairaj. However my sympathies also go out partly to Ratna, his wife,
whose horrific compromise, with its resultant gruesome comeuppance, can be understood better only
if one realizes the background she is from.
Jairaj is the Other. He is more of an idealist as opposed to his father who is more of a realist. His
masculinity does not feel threatened by wanting to take up dance as a career, having an inter-caste
marriage, that too to someone from a 'devdasi' background, growing his hair to improve his abhinaya,
learning kuchipudi where one has to dress as a woman, or having a guru whom his father dislikes for
his long hair and suspects may be bisexual or gay. Instead of seeing him as more radical than himself
and extending or expanding the boundaries of an Indian's freedoms his father sees him as effeminate,
not grown up, not virile enough to be proud of and financially foolish. His wife too sees him the
same way, to a lesser extent, shown by her putting him through the humiliation of dancing in a
woman's outfit to army men later, a very different thing from doing kuchipudi in woman's dress out
of one's own choice. At many a step, Jairaj is misunderstood, as in when he leaves the house in pride
and rebellion with Ratna and comes back because Ratna's uncle was a lech and because a dancer
can't find any kind of a job in India despite the spiritual and religious connotations of dance in India,
and as in when he is not understood in his love for his son Shanker to the point where all decisions
are taken by Ratna and Amritlal regarding him. His biggest mistake - one I hope to look at more
carefully later - is his not understanding properly the us/them divide caused by different upbringings
of class/caste which causes in a way their son Shanker's death, though Ratna is more responsible for
it.

Jairaj is a potential might- have- been aesthetic and spiritual fulcrum gone to seed. He reminds one of
Shiva in his urge to dance, but he is not the god of destruction, he is partly destructive only by having
been made helpless and emasculated mentally by his father's overberaring nature and in another even
more critical way by his father's evil scheming with Ratna to stop him from doing the only thing he
loves, namely dancing. He has no objection to his guru having long hair like Jesus had, recognizing
easily the difference between art and life and the innate spirituality in the genuine artist's profession
and dedication to his art.

One can define the Other primarily as not I. But the other is also protean, incliuding I's opposite, the
pre-, the post-, the binary opposite, the contra- etc. As a 'not I' it is an indistinguishable threatening
presence of an absence and that is why those who love power want to quantify and qualify it.
Amritlal Parekh is a typical example. While not totally and entirely a villain, he has villainous
tendencies known to himself, that can be summed up by our describing his as a manipulative
character. This is what power does and how it corrupts. He has thus more insight into Ratna's
character which he quantifies and qualitatively assesses - knowing it is a danger to allow it to be an
"unknown" factor - than his son Jairaj and uses this insight to get what he wants, the end result of
which is the opposite of what he wants, as his son becomes a drunkard, useless and a character who
could have been great but now only gets our (the reader's and audience's) sympathy. Though Amritlal
doesn't get the desired end result, he doesn't realize his follly. This is another part of the tragic note
that pervades the book. Life only perpetuates mistakes and follies through generations of wrong
beliefs and power wielding, brokering and mongering and those who try to break the pattern end up
being crucified like Christ or Jairaj, which explicates why I brought in the Carter hymn in the
beginning. Jairaj is closer to being a crucified Jesus, a man, a "real" dancer and philosophical artist
extraoridnaire, and a Shiva than we imagine at first reading!

Let me quote one or two particluarly interesting Amritlal dialogues, interesting to me from the
ideological and from the political points of view.
Regarding his son becoming a dancer: "Why must you dance? It doesn't give you any income. Is it
because of your wife?" (page 37) This is ironic considering freedom fighting also doesn't bring in any
income. And the slur on manhood - hen-pecked husband - is always there, as usual.
Regarding his son's inter -caste marriage: "And for that I repent." (page 37). Fortunately Ratna never
overhears this one.
Regarding power: " Gaining independance was part of our goal. And someone has to be in charge."
This is power talking, alright. Frigtening in its unperturbed certainty that it is "born" to rule.
Jairaj (immediately before): "You didn't fight to gain independance. You fought for power in your
hands."
Dattani is very incisive here and immediately after too when father and son fight over what to do
with the "certain unwanted and ugly practices" that mar India's glory, like temple prostitution.
How does Amritlal's ideology work out in practice?
To Ratna, on Jairaj wanting to improve his abhinaya and learn kuchipudi: "Tell him that if he grows
his hair even an inch longer, I will shave his head and throw him on the road." (page 40)
On the phone, regarding Ratna's devdasi guru: "Could you send a doctor to see her...Please give her
five hundred rupees on my behalf."
Ratna: "That was very generous of you."
Amritlal: "That was in compensation of depriving her of her only student." ( all on page 46)
The corruption of power's certainty that leads a man, ostenisbly a freedom fighter and soical
reformer, into opressing his family, women, and someone from a lower caste/class shows the grim
truth Jairaj understands. Nothing much had changed with political independance in India.

Another point worth pondering on is the one insight Amritlal has that his son doesn't.
Amritlal: (to Ratna)" I have seen the world. I can recognize a clever woman when I see one." (page
49) This is the biggest insult he could have paid Ratna. Ratna may have comprehended it or not, but
there is an implied tone being used here that I have often heard in heated conversations on caste
reservation where an upper caste person will say as if it is the final word on the subject - 'no use
giving them benefits, when they come up they will only become more corrupt.' Amritlal knows the
oldest secret on earth, that a person from an oppressed background new to a higher strata of society
can easily be persuaded to do wrong by someone from the higher echelons by judiciously using that
person's fear of being sent back to the lower strata he or she came from. This is the stick. The carrot
is simultaneously offering advancement too, to an even higher level of society. He offers both to
Ratna, fear and bribe - in making it clear he holds the purse and telling her that if she makes Jairaj
grow up or stop dancing he will reward her by advancing her career. Naturally, Ratna succumbs to
the violation of principles she has not yet had time to form strongly, not having had years of
education, unlike her so called "betters" in society, not that their education has automatically or
necessarily made them nobler.
He understands her character. Jairaj does not, though he loves her greatly initially.
This is seen in his conversation, on Shanker.
Jairaj: "You wouldn't know. An old trick handed down from one generation of ayahs to the next. I
know. I was raised up by one."
Ratna (grimly): Opium.
Jairaj: "...Don't worry. They always give just the right amount."
Ratna: (panicky) She too?
...The music culminates in a scream which comes... (signalling Shanker's death by overdose, of
opium administered night after night, giving nightmares to Ratna even many years thence.) (pages 71
and 72)
Jairaj has never really understood the full horror of what it means to be "lower" caste - the
'knowledge' or lack of it that comes with it and the attendant dangers, as witnessed by his smug
narrative on the spurious use of opium which he is sure Ratna does not know about. For him Ratna is
not an other but the ayah is, he has forgotten so totally where she came from, whereas Amritlal is
clearly aware of her otherness, of the us/them gap or divide between the two camps which cannot be
easily bridged.
The text escapes Dattani's hand a bit here in making Ratna out to be villainous too, although it is all a
question of degrees, but that is justiifable in post modernism that a text sometimes betrays its author
wholesome attempt at politically correct considerations.

To end with I want to deal with the two most pathetic or sad moments in the play, according to me,
that again dwell on the theme of masculinities, one where Jairaj narrates his going somewhere to
dance as a woman - a far cry from the young hopeful man who wanted to grow his hair long to
improve his abhinaya and dress as a woman to learn kuchipudi - and the other where he talks of his
desire as to what Shanker should grow up into.
Jairaj : "There's nothing crude about it. I danced the same item. For the army... The money was good.
(Italics mine)Your mother was scared and they wanted only a woman. So I wore your mother's
costume.... and whatever else was necessary to make me look like a woman and danced...They
loved it." (page 60) One cannot help feeling anger at Amritlal and Ratna here, at what they have
made Jairaj into.
Finally, on Shanker's future - the name is of course a synonym for Shiva ( this side note is for
occidental illumination)
Jairaj (drunk) : "... when he grows up, I'll teach him how to dance - the dance of Shiva. The dance of
a man. And when he is ready, I wil bring him to his grandfather and make him dance on his head -
the tandava. (Strikes the Nataraja pose and hops about wildly) The lord of dance, beating his drum
and trampling on the demon. (Loses his balance and crashes. Ratna enters and helps him to his feet.)
How is our little lord of dance?"
The use of foreshadowing and the Oedipal nature of the dialogue plus what happens later, connected
to the title, make these of course the climactic lines of uttermost pathos in the play, retrospectively. It
prefigures not only personal tragedy, but perhaps a nation's tragedy.
Mahesh Dattani makes the names also significant. Jairaj remains victorious in his ruins, in the
'feminine' sensibility and sensitivity of his character. Those who even only lean towards spirituality
in its real sense are often considered feminine. Amritlal is ironic as is Ratna - the gem that couldn't
become one. In short, as a fine study on two types of masculinities, of which I prefer Jairaj's kind
unabashedly as I feel certain Dattani does too, this play is peerless and despite its Shavian and to a
lesser extent Wildean humour that kept me breaking out into chuckles throughout due to a very fine
handling of HME, it is dark and tragic, full of pathos and sadness and irony and reminds me of the
best of Ibsen, Pinter, Schaffer and Osborne in its psychological analysis of human character. There is
of course much more to be said, but I prefer to limit my paper to these salient aspects on
masculinities and otherness and not go into the satiric side of it on waning standards in Bharat
Natyam and on how artistic careers are fixed in collusion with corrupt Ministers and the press etc.
Dattani's national and interantional fame is heartening in that, unlike Latha's in the play, it is based
on actual merit.

Dattani's play, unknown to himself probably, has a startling archetypal Biblical pattern, retelling the
story of God (Amritlal) as Lacanian father and Satan - (name of- the- law/ tempter) and Ratna as Eve
with Dance as the symbol for both the tree of life and of knowledge of good and evil, ambition as the
apple, and Jairaj as the least culpable of the lot, with Shanker as an Abel killed by the Cain of the
fallen Ratna's opportunism. No messiah is born in the play to crush the head of the serpent, the next
generation's scion being enamoured of "jalebi," (page74) not dance , and in this bleakly humorous
ending his play is not Indian but Grecian.

The End.

Bibliography:Dattani, Mahesh; Dance like a Man, Penguin 2006, Indian edition.