Page 267 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Gowher Ahmad Naik, Lovely Professional University Unit 32: Mahesh Dattani: Final Solution—Characterisation

Unit 32: Mahesh Dattani: Final Solution—Characterisation Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives

Introduction
32.1 Characterisation
32.2 Summary
32.3 Key-Words

32.4 Review Questions
32.5 Further Readings

Objectives

After reading this Unit students will be able to:
• Discuss about Mahesh Dattani.
• Make an analysis of various characters in Final Solution.

Introduction

Mahesh Dattani maintains a low profile as a writer , but he is internationally acclaimed as the
most outstanding playwright of recent times. The plays of Mahesh Dattani emerged as 'fresh
arrival' in the domain of Indian English drama in the last decade of the twentieth century. His
plays deal with contemporary issues.
They are plays of today sometimes as actual as to cause controversy, but at the same time they are
plays which embody many of the classic concerns of world drama. His major plays are Dance Like
a Man, 30 Days in September, Bravely Fought the Queen, Final Solutions, Tara, and On a Muggy
Night in Mumbai Dattani's work probes tangled attitudes in contemporary India towards communal
differences, consumerism and gender.
Dattani has treated each subject with a deep-seated identification rooted in everyday angst. Such
charged emotions spare no one - neither the players and the director, nor the audience. Deep
within platitude-ridden Indian society, his characters seethe and reveal, probe and discern, scathing
their families and neighbours, leaving each reader or watcher with a storm within as the aftermath.
An essential storm for our evolution as socially sensitive individuals.
Mahesh Dattani does not seek to cut a path through the difficulties his characters encounter in his
plays; instead he leads his audience to see just how caught up we all are in the complications and
contradictions of our values and assumptions. And by revealing the complexity, he makes the
world a richer place for all of us. Where There's A Will is about the rift between the Hindu and the
Muslim communities.

32.1 Characterisation

Final Solutions has taken the issues of the majority communities in different contexts and situations.
It talks of the problems of cultural hegemony, how Hindus had to suffer at the hands of Muslim
majority like the characters of Hardika/Daksha in Hussainabad.

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