Page 238 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Indian Writings in Literature

Notes Mahesh Dattani is one India most successful playwrights and his plays are known for addressing
issues that society tries to hide or turn its face away from. Besides being a busy playwright and
director, he also conducts Summer Theatre Courses at the University of Oregon, USA. He also has
his own theatre studio in Bangalore where he offers courses in acting, directing and writing.
29.1 Detailed Study—Final Solution

"Final Solutions" has a powerful contemporary resonance an it addresses as issue of utmost concern
to our society, i.e. the issue of communalism. The play presents different shades of the communalist
attitude prevalent among Hindus and Muslims in its attempt to underline the stereotypes and
clichés influencing the collective sensibility of one community against another. What distinguishes
this work from other plays written on the subject is that it is neither sentimental in its appeal nor
simplified in its approach.
It advances the objective candour of a social scientist while presenting a mosaic of diverse attitudes
towards religious identity that often plunges the country into inhuman strife. Yet the issue is not
moralised, as the demons of communal hatred are located not out in the street but deep within us.
The play moves from the partition to the present day communal riots. It probes into the religious
bigotry by examining the attitudes of three generations of a middle-class Gujrati business family,
Hardika, the grandmother, is obsessed with her father's murder during the partition turmoil and
the betrayal by a Muslim friend, Zarine. Her son, Ramnik Gandhi, is haunted by the knowledge
his fortunes were founded on a shop of Zarine's father, which was burnt down by his kinsmen.
Hardika's daughter-in-law, Aruna, lives by the strict code of the Hindu Samskar and the
granddaughter, Smita, cannot allow herself a relationship with a Muslim boy. The pulls and
counter-pulls of the family are exposed when two Muslim boys, Babban and Javed, seek shelter in
their house on being chased by a baying Hindu mob.
Babban is a moderate while Javed is an aggressive youth. After a nightlong exchange of judgements
and retorts between the characters, tolerance and forgetfulness emerge as the only possible solution
of the crisis. Thus, the play becomes a timely reminder of the conflicts raging not only in India but
in other parts of the world.
Mahesh Dattani's 'Final Solutions' is that rare look at a socio-political problem that defies all final
solutions….Arvind Gaur's competent direction… intense, topical and artistically mounted, Asmita's
'Final Solutions' brought back memories of Habib Tanvir's rendition of 'Jis Lahore nahi Dekhya'
and Saeed Mirza's 'Naseem.
'Final Solutions' touches us, and the bitter realities of our lives so closely that it becomes a difficult
play to handle for the Indian Director. The past begins to determine the outlook of the present and
thus the earlier contradictions re-emerge.
No concrete solutions are provided in the play to the problem of communalism but it raises
questions on secularism and pseudo secularism. It forces us to look at ourselves in relation to the
attitudes that persist in the society.
Since it is an experiment in time and space and relates to memory, it is a play, which involves a lot
of introspection on the part of the characters in the play and thus induces similar introspection in
the viewers. I have attempted to experiment with the chorus. It has been used in a style, which I
would like to call 'realistic stylisation'. The chorus represents the conflicts of the characters. Thus
the chorus in a sense is the psycho-physical representation of the characters and also provides the
audience with the visual images of the characters' conflicts. There is no stereotyped use of the
characterisation of the chorus because communalism has no face, it is an attitude and thus it
becomes an image of the characters. The sets and properties used in the play are simple. This has
been done to accentuate the internal conflicts and the subtext of the play. Theatre for 'Asmita' and

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