Diseased and Disabled Women:

A Critical Analysis of the Degree of Marginality

in the Select Plays of Mahesh Dattant.
Prakash Bhadury

Abstract: Dattani's plays abound thematic variation, plot dynamics

and after all engrossed entertainment reflecting not only the issues of marginalised
sections like eunuchs, women, E&y,minority community but also certain issues
that apart from drawing our sympathies, it takes us to the presence of the
protagonists around us in everyday life who reverberate in our mind as modern
myth of suffering women. The situatedness of the protagonists, their struggle
for space, joys and sorrows, their account of life gives others of their likes the
strength to make life more meaningful. Two ofthe plays fall into special category:
Taro (1991) reflecting the condition of disability ofTara, crippled by birth and
Ek Al ag Maus am(2005) that shows the plight ofAparna, another married woman
fighting her double marginalisation of being a woman and her fatal disease of
HIV positive. The present paper investigates both the plays that deal with female
protagonists of the contemporary society who are pushed to extreme degree of
marginality,yethow they fight the blights asAlka did in the Brovely Fought the
Queen.
lntroduction: Dramatists of prominence in modern India have focused on
marginalised and suffering women of Indian society in vernacular literatures,
but Dattani, by taking up the fringe issues ofreal lndia at a time of 80s and 90s
when postcolonial debate gained momentum, has taken the position of Avant
guard dramatist reflecting the social dynamics of evolving nation. Urban milieu
and family units as his locus are brought on stage through technical devices
like the stage setting, use of tropes,light, sound, music, and shifting narrative

Rock Pebbles / Octaber - December 2014 / P.106

action between past and present to highlight 'conflict of conservation, root of
relationships, attraction and repulsion, love and hate, association and
dissociation, unity and diversity, fundamental and radical, ontological sense
and ideological essence, bodily identity and sexual security, generation gap and
sexual map of common people'(Konar 2012). Both the plays, Tara and Ek
Alag Mattsam, portrays marginality ofwomen on grounds of defect and disease
with psychological insight and with a distinct difference with other plays
inasmuch as the excruciating mental trauma in both the cases is caused by the
forces beyond the control ofhumanbeings or are caused by sheer ignorance as
Tara's very birth, being a Siamese twin, is a curse what she fights even afterher
death living behind her other half in the form of Dan andAparna is inconsolably
crushed to despair when she learns during her delivery of a baby in the hospital
that she has got the gift (?) of HfV positive from her husband and she cannot
mother the baby.

EkAlag Mausam (2005): This particular play deals with the harrowing
tale ofAparna's marginalisation due to patriarchal domination, incurring HIV
positive for no fault of hers, social apafu and loss of her baby. The root of her
tragedy surrounds her symptoms of HfV positive. Human Immunodeficiency
Mrus or the HIV positive causes AIDS which was first recognized in North
America in the early 1980s. HIV infection has become a worldwide epidemic
and the cause of it, a heatth media mentions: 'HIV may be transmitted through
unprotected heterosexual or homosexual, vaginal, anal, or oral sex... HIV can
also be passed on through prenatal infection,where mothers who have HIV are
at risk of giving the disease to the baby during birth. (The Facts on HIV/AIDS:
l ee6).

In the case ofApama) she received it from her husband and she was
totally ignorant of it until she faced the fateful moment in the nursing home
driving alone for her child's birth. The moments before is shown with the dramatic
technique of shuttling between the past and the present. Aparna steps into her
past talking to Paro who promised to be with her in her difficulty, especially
when she is dying. Paro, in her memory gets up and walks toward the bushes
repeatedly uttering, 'No, I want to be left alone when I go (CP II: 47 6)' heightens
her life's existential questions that are ensuing in the sequence of events at a
crucial time. Immediately after Paro's disappearance, the telephonic conversation
of the present from Rosalynd Cooper from central hospital gives an advance
cue thatAparnais going to face the toughest challenges of life alone.

Her gynaecologist Dr. Sanyal wanted to meet her and her husband, but
he declines to accompany her. Severely hurt, she moves on alone to see the

Rock Pebbl es / October - December 2014 / P.107

dector. Already her blood samples were tested showing the result ofHfV positive
what prompted the doctors to call in her husband together. Cooper's vague
smile at her tensed her as she got the sense that she is going to lose the baby: 'It
just can't be! ... I haven't had a sexual relation with anyone but my husband, I
haven't had any blood transmission, I always make sure the doctor uses a
disposable syringe...No it can'tbe (CP Il:.478). The degree ofAparn's shock
renders her choked voice and the words come as stammering to justiff her
innocence. She was denied admission to the hospital on the grounds that it
would upset the nurses and other patients. This is another immediate shock she
receives of homophobia; instead she is referred toAIDS counseling centre by
fixing an appointment with Cooper. She rushes out for help from another centre
and Dr. Sanyal having understood her concern of saving the baby informs her:
'Don't be fool... No proper nursing home is going to touch you. And either your
baby or you will die soon' (p 480).

Shock aftershock bewilders her so much that she cannot board out
from the lift until someone helps her. She even could not speak to her mother in
telephone. Aparna questions her husband's contemptuous character: 'And how
...do you think you got it? How often... All those business trips! Those late
nights. How many women have you infected so far (482)?' Here, Dattani has
brought a commonality of thematic technique of giving a voice to the voiceless
the way Alka in Bravely Fought the Queen questioned her husband's cruelty,
his gay relationship and after all deceiving her. At a height of mental trauma
Aparna continues to holds on to the Indian ideal of a perfect wife and a mother,
for Suresh, her remorseless husband leaves the city stone heartedly leaving her
alone. Still she shows her concern for husband requesting him to stay for a
while. In every day news papers and electronic mediq we come across numerous
of such licentious behaviour by men and the resultant atrocities on women.
Dattani has made the character ofAparna and Suresh as cofllmon faces of those
media reports which seriously questions the male domination and female
exploitations. Again, Aparna stands the taste ofher emotional battle by showing
a renewed interest of living the life meaningfully. She contacts the Jeevan
Jyoti
Hospitalwhat she feels to be her new home with a ray of hope. An analogy of
Shavian drama with Dattani shows that Aparna is among those who do not
suffer any existential dilemma; rather she celebrates life force, all the possibilities
of life in the endless alternatives. The Life Force for George Bernard Shaw
contains the central idea that: 'Life is a vital force or impulse that strives to
attaingreater power of contemplation and self-realization. Creative Evolution
is the manner in which the Life Force strives to reach this perfect state of

Rock Pebbles / October'becember 2074 / P.IOB

contemplation as it continually creates something better and greater beyond the
life forms already developed' (Macintosh: Bernard Shaw).
In this play, Dattani while focusing on the worst degree of Aparna's
marginality has also shown a woman's fighting spirit, her quest for life with
some light of hope for her in the bleak landscape of patriarchal domination,
disease, and death. Aparna is such a character we keep meeting as one who
does not passively resign to fate but accepts the challenges of life squarely by
showing an urge to survive. She overcomes the wrong notion of social prejudices
like the implications of AIDS and helps others to face the challenges of life.
Life for her, is not despairing in misfortune, rather turning the misfortune to
bow down to an indomitable will power by being fearless.
Tira: Otherwise Abled girl: Invisible issues, for Dattani, galore in a
country like India with its diversified culture and vast expanses. Tara is the
name of the protagonist of the play who is born to twinkle with her talents as
human being, but the society marginalised her in series. She represents every
girl child who is discriminated as girls and as disabled. Her name is chosen as
a pun on the societal discrimination against girl child. Already the country is on
the alarming stage of declining male female ratio per thousand of population.
Tara unforfunately was born as twins with joint at the hips. Out of the three
legs of the twins, she had her both the legs functioning according to the reports
of Dr. Thakkar. I{*r mother had her complicity in the contemptuous act of
crippling her with her maternal grandfather when both of them consented to
give preference the boy child over her in the complex operation of separating
them from their condition of hugging each other.

The gravity of the pain of Tara can be understood by the news flash of
longest surviving Siamese twin that comes through Dan's monologue. Tara's
grandfather crippled her by his absolutely reproachable decision of giving the
limb of Tara to Dan, and he left allhis money in the name of Dan. Tara's leg as
a gift to him is a revelation from Thakkar and the price is the burden of guilt
ridden angst. The tragic life of both the twins unfold as Dan in wants freedom
from his memory as that pains him constantly like that bare live wire, yet it is
difficult to shun away! The voice over of Dan makes his ennui clear on the
tragedy ofmarginalizationof disabled women as he realises we are all, 'moving
in a forced harmony (CP: 329)'. Dattani positions Dan in his category to defiz
the gravity of others what makes Dan shrink into begging apology to Tara, for
he himself belongs to the legacy of male dominance, in his case indirectly though.

The knowledge of the blighted past continued to be a constant source

of agony for Tara. She developed some kind of aversion to the world outside

Rock Pebbl es / October - December 2014 / P.1O9

 her family for being ill-treated through sympathetic gauze
or questioning of
why and how ofher tragedy. Thus, twinkle Tara lost all her glitters
and shrunk
into a narrow world of solitude in home. Her mother, being
a woman, understood
her trauma and hence, requested Roopa to be her best
friend, only to let her
purge the burden of emotion.

Physically challenge dTaraof the real life has for the first time found
a
place in mainstream theatre or the reel life through the craftsmanship
ofDattani,
or else, girls of her likes seldom survive, at least for a few years
of life to leave
some traces behind, that she was born, as she is not to carry the
family name
forward. It is only the privilege given to a boy, in Indian society. When in
Indian
scenario, a beautiful, educated and professional girl has to weigh her
with
curency notes and jewellery as dowry in marriage, Tara has no chance of
marriage even with double the dowry of her body weight. She would
be a burden
for herself, for the family and the society. Otherwise, the genesis of Tara or
twinkle star is from the races ofmothers and goddesses, a race that is worshipped
in the form of Kali or Durga or hundreds of such names and forms, yet
we turn
out as hypocrites with loathsome difference in our preaching and practicing.
Dattani as a humanist points out that all the girls or women are born as
autonomous being, yet she is made to be subservient to men. Her identity
is
through a man as Lalitha's identity in the Bravely Fought the
eueenis through
her husban d. Tata is just not crippled physically; her independent
self or ego is
crippled by the dominant male conscience to be reduced into an object of pity
only to be perished to stabili ze thatego. Dattani echoes the concern of Beauvoir
who felt in a similar way of woman's inessentiality under the dominance of a
situational compulsion as: '.. . humanity is male and man defines woman not in
herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being...
And she is simply what man decrees; thus she is called .the sex,, by which is
meant that she appears essentially to the male as a sexual being... He is the
Subject, he is the Absolute - she is the other' (Beauvo ir 1949: The Second
Sex).

conclusion: Daffani's stage setting, plot structure, indigenous English

and the sequence of events are so designed as to create a flux of images that
stire the insight of a reader or audience to the disturbing reality of the
contemporary society. Reality of a worse degree of marginaliosation is so
objectively presented that the characters shown on stage is exactly the ones we
encounter every day. Both the plays provide us apeep into modern Indian society
which claims to be shinning and advancing into a developed nation against the
backdrop of male chauvinism and social discrimination. Women have been

Rock Pebbles / October - December ZOl4 / p.llo

 Disease
subjugated more by cultural differences than any biological differences.
We
and disability are more of a male construct than any natural phenomena.
continue to iguore the trauma of a girl or woman being meted out discriminatory
treatment as if they have no value and importaflce;they are not only freaks,
but
been in
also aburden on family and society. Dattani shows how insane we have
recognizing the hidden potentialities of such disabled people and offering them
a bare minimum dignity deserved for human beings. Thus, he exhorts us
for a
change of societal mindset in orderto make India aplace,known for its harmony
and a place for better living. I
Works Cited

Beauvoir, Simone de. 'The Second Sex' (1949), https://www.marxists'org/

r e fe r e n c e/ subj e c t/ e thi c s / d e - b e a rtv ot.1 l2nd - s e x/
introduction.htm. Date of access-25 June 2014.

Datlani,Mahesh. Collected Plays. Penguin books India Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi.
2000.

'HIV/AIDS'. Canada.com 7 July 2014. http://bodyandhealth.canada'com/

channel-condition-info-detai1s. asp Date of acces s - 24 J:ullre

2014.

Konar, Ankur. 'Drama, Dattani and Discourse: Position and Exposition' . Lapis
Lazuli, Auturnn 20 12.http ://pintersociety. comlvol-2-issue-
2aufrimn-2}l2l.Date of access-26 June 2074.
Maclntosh, Jay W. 'The Origins of George Bernard Shaw's Life Force
Philo sophy.' https ://www. smashwords. com/books/view/
152348. Date of access-. 24 June 2014

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