Page 269 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Unit 32: Mahesh Dattani: Final Solution—Characterisation

Ramnik, the father carries with him the burden of the guilt of his father's black deeds, transferring Notes
some of the resentment to his mother. Hardika, Aruna, his Wife and Smita, his daughter both hit
on at each other for no apparent reason. The entire family is of course, putted again the back deep
of a root. Tom City Zarine and the other guests from the post make an entry in the dramatic device
that Dattani uses to show his time-shifts-Daksha, the young Hardika whose voice will resonate
through the play inter weaving the post with present.
The play now assumes a wholly different perspective even as the familial tensions continue within
the home and are set off by communal tensions outside. The outside (Babban and Javed) is in a
sense allowed entry, after severe resistance from within (Aruna and Hardika) and then begins the
extortion of the fragile familial ties. Several scenes establish the bond between Aruna and Smita,
with Ramnik, the father often being made to feel isolated. But with the instruction of Babban and
Javed, Smita reveals her true sensibility and fees herself of the 'stifling' prejudices of her mother,
at the same time trying to be fair to her. Ramnik, too has never revealed the guilt of the post of his
mother, saving her the weight of the burden than he has had to carry all alone. The mob/chorus
comprising five men and ten marks on stick five Hindu and five Muslim marks, is the omnipresent
factor through out the play, crunching on the horseshoe shaped sump that dominates the space of
the stage which is otherwise split up 4 into multilevel sets. The marks lie significantly strewn all
over the ramp, to be worn when required.
Dattani carefully uses the same five men in black to double for any given religious group when
they assume the role of the mob, which they do in a stylized fashion. The living area is not
furnished except for the realistic level that functions as the kitchen and the Pooja-room and another
period room suggesting the 1940s where Hardika/Daksha are to revisit the past.
The play infect begins with such a visit through the opening scene where Daksha sets beginning
the process of recording lived history "Dear Dairy today is the first time I have dared to put my
thoughts on your pages 31 March 1948". Criss-crossing a whole gamut of memories that are to
construct the character that she is to become- Hardika "After forty years - I opened my diary again.
And I wrote. A dozen pages before. A dozen pages now. A young girl is childish scribble. An old
women's shaky scrawl. Yes, things have not changed that much," Things have indeed not changed
much. The space of the stage is thick with ominous cries that reverberate and the same hatred and
intolerance for the other still sents the air stones had come crashing down on Daksha's records
sheltering Shamshad Begum, Noorjahan, Suraiya, "Those beautiful voices. Cracked…" like her
friendship with Zarina. Forty years hence, her son Ramnik attempts to sight a few wrongs taking
in Babban and Javed and protecting them against the fury of the mob & meanwhile, the audience
witnesses the dialogic rational of both the sides "should we swallowed up?
"Final Solutions" has a powerful contemporary resonance as 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 or 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 on 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,

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