Page 268 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Indian Writings in Literature

Notes And how Muslims like Javed suffer in the set up of the majority Hindu community. This all
resulted in communal riots and culminated in disruption of the normal social life, and thus
hampered the progress of the nation.
The mob in the play is symbolic of our own hatred and paranoia. Each member of the mob is an
individual, yet they meet into one seething whole as the politicians play on their fears. In this play,
the chorus continuously sings sometimes under the mask of Hindus and sometimes under that of
Muslims revealing their feelings of fear and hatred for one another. When the Chariot leading the
procession is broken and the Pujari is killed the Hindus masks sing:
The scenes of the play take place inside and outside Ramnik Gandhi's house where Ramnik has
given two Muslim boys shelter from the violent mob outside. The mob is in the form of a chorus,
changing its guise into Muslims and Hindus through masks and songs. Inside, a Hindu family is
sharply divided over giving shelter to the unknown Muslim youths in the midst of communal
frenzy and violence. Even after fifty years of Independence, people have not been able to forget
their enemity and bias against each other, i.e. Muslims against Hindus and Hindu against Muslims.
In the play, two young men, Javed and Babban, are hired to disrupt social harmony while others
like Hardika's parents - in-laws have secretly burnt the shop of their Muslim friend, with the
selfish end of buying it at reduced price.
Final Solutions is based on the apparently friendly relations between Muslims and Hindus and
the simmering currents of hatred beneath. The family unit comprises members of different age
groups, symbolic of past and present, stretching the plot to over a period of half a century. Young
people like Smita, Bobby and Javed, present the future and Ramnik and Aruna, the present while
Hardika, the grand mother of Smita, is sometimes presented in Daksha (Past) a fifteen year old
newly married young girl, writing her diary and then as her grandmother in her late sixties
(present) teaching her children and revealing the family's past. Major events are presented through
her eyes.
In this play a young baffled boy Javed, who becomes a victim and a terrorist and is exploited by
politicians in the name of 'Jahad'. He is trained for the terrorist activities and sabotaging. He is
sent to a Hindu 'Mohalla' where a 'Rath Yatra' is taking place. Javed is so over -whelmed with the
fervour of 'Jehad' that he throws the first stone on the 'Rath' causing chaos, ending up in the
killing of the 'Pujari' and crashing down of the 'Rath'. Bobby a close friend of Javed, saves him
from the violent mob and gets him sehtler in Ramnik Gandhi's house, where causes of Hindus and
Muslims hatred are being discussed and strange secrets of terror, greed, avarice and communal
hatred are being revealed.
Daksha is the grandmother of the Gandhi's. Who sometimes is seen as a girl of fifteen on the
stage? Daksha thanks that she is "a young girl who does not matter to anyone outside her home".
She says, "Last year in August, a terrible thing happened and that was freedom for India". The
most whispers : "Freedom! At last freedom!" Daksha close her diary and now Hardika appears on
the stage. She feels the things have not changed that much. A period of forty years is not a long
period for a nation. But on the stage, the drumbeat grows louder and the Chorus slowly wears the
Hindu masks. The words spoken by Chorus show the beginning of disharmony and painful
period ahead. As long as the persons are on the stage they are normal but as soon as they are
behind the masks, their thirst for blood resist. Whether we are angry with someone or someone is
angry with us each out burst takes its toll on both parties. The Chorus with Hindu masks burst
with angry words.

262 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY