Page 233 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Unit 28: Mahesh Dattani: Final Solution—Introduction to the Text

and invisible in the scene in which Ramnik Gandhi opens the door to let in Javed and Bobby. Notes
Hardika and Daksha alternately utter a series of questions and exclamations:
HARDIKA. Why did he do it?
DAKSHA. Oh God! Why do I have to suffer?
HARDIKA. Didn't he have any feelings for me?
DAKSHA. I just wanted them to be my friends!
HARDIKA. How could he let these people into my house?
DAKSHA. Oh! I hate this world!
HARDIKA. They killed his grandfather!
The alternating utterances emphasize the absolute change that Daksha has undergone. The girl
who suffered because she was denied contact with her Muslim friend Zarine and her family has
grown to be an old intolerant woman who cannot suffer the presence of two Muslim boys who
have sought refuge in her house from a bloodthirsty Hindu mob. The change from the former to
the present self comes under blazing spotlight in a remarkable juxtaposition in which Daksha sobs
and begs to be let out whereas Hardika berates her son for letting the two boys in. The one who
was once young and open to the world has now become old and closed to the world.
Her emotional intransigence reflects an identity which is partial and frozen because it would not
recognize the past. And it would not do so because it does know what really happened in history.
The moment she discovers what really happened, her emotional intransigence ends and she begins
to keenly await the return of the two boys whom she had once wanted to be immediately turned
out of her house. "Do you think . . . do you think those boys will ever come back?" she asks Ramnik
as the play ends.
The wearing of Hindu or Muslim masks by the Mob, which translates instantly into "frenetic"
reflexes, is an instance of the mask(ed) identity territorializing the entire being, almost taking it by
force of violence. The distinction between them and us emerges then with a savage primordial
force. Indeed, it has no logic but asserts itself as the logic, with its attendant off-the-cuff ethical
formulation: "They who are wrong. Since we are right". The intransigence vis-à-vis the other is
born of a circle of darkness that the self weaves not only around but also within itself. Hardika's
long years of confinement, during which she has fed on resentment and hatred of the other
community, is thus a form of exile from the self also. And it finds its parallel in Javed's exile from
home which is motivated by a sense of profound grievance on behalf of his community. Hardika
will breach the wall of inner darkness by understanding history; Javed will do so through
disillusionment. Having glimpsed the other in the self, both will then be ready to recognize in the
other a self in its own right, an other that is not a threat or nuisance to the self.
And yet, significantly, the passage to light happens to lie, in the case of each, through the conscious
agency of another. Hardika sees light, which ends her (self-) confinement, with the help of her son
Ramnik who tells her what had really happened over forty years ago. Javed sees light with the
help of Bobby who notices his friend wavering on the edge and decides to prevent his relapse into
old blind hatred.
Ramnik on his part understands the necessity of resolving the self-other dialectic, but even he
requires shock treatment to shed his self-delusion. He knows that not all people in the other
community are demons even as he understands that there are demons in his own community also.
But the knowledge has not yet touched him to the core to shatter his vestigial inhibitions. It is
Javed who would give him the shock treatment:
You don't hate me for what I do or who I am. You hate me because I showed you that you are not
as liberal as you think you are.

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