Readers of the Lost Art

MAHESH DATTANI

- A PROFILE -

Bangalore's own playwright Mahesh Dattani bares life to the bone. Pre-occupied as it were with gender issues, Mahesh is a spokesman for all the marginalised people. All of us, he says " want to be part of society, of the mainstream but we must acknowledge that it is a forced harmony".

In his play 'Tara' we find the idea of 'forced harmony' recurring as it does in several other plays he has authored. Those who survive are those who wont "defy the gravity of others". It's all about conforming. You can't survive unless you fit into a social stereotype like homosexuals for instance. So, it's all about keeping the rebel in oneself alive and at the same time move in that forced harmony. That's where the struggle lies.

Dattani who studied in Baldwins and St Joseph's college basked in the affection of his parents and two older sisters. Throughout his academic career neither was he a student of literature nor did he show any signs of literary creativity. The stage was set for a stunningly ordinary life spent in helping run his father's business.

However, in one of life's dramatic twists, Dattani did not melt into the backdrop. Instead he started writing plays, and once he started there was no stopping him. Where There's a Will was staged in 1988 and from then on he turned out one play every year until he paused for breath in 1993. He then commenced scriptwriting for cinema, television and radio while his plays were getting published, translated and staged in India and UK as well.

In Where There's a Will, the ghost of an autocratic old man who has wiled his property to his mistress overhears the unpleasant truth about what his nearest and dearest really think of him. Dance Like a Man harks back to a time when dancing was considered a harlot's pursuit and reveals the duplicity of society's moral standards. In Tara, a mother is forced to choose her son's welfare over her daughter's and this wreaks havoc in the lives of the whole family. Bravely Fought the Queen is a bleak play depicting the stunted lives of the members of a joint family and the troubled relationships that dishonesty breeds.

Final Solutions, a play about Hindu Muslim conflict was slated for the Deccan Herald Theatre festival in Bangalore in December 1992. A week before it was scheduled to be staged, the Babri Masjid was demolished. The festival organisers fearing calamitous repercussions rejected the play. It was finally staged the following year in Bombay and Bangalore.

Night Queen was written for the 1996 annual literary supplement of The Telegraph in Calcutta. Closer to production is Do The Needful which will be aired on BBC 4 and which he plans to stage in Bangalore next year.

Prejudice, guilt, dishonesty, compromise - this is what Dattani's plays comprise of, the stuff of life itself.