Patriarchal Segments of Indian Society: A Study of Select Plays of Mahesh Dattani

The entitled research paper is based on the theme of ‘The Impact of Patriarchy system on women ‘behind the gender discrimination and patriarchal point of view as expressed in the selected plays of Mahesh Dattani, who is one of the most well-known contemporary Indian dramatists. Dattani has won the Sahitya Academic award for his book pof plays in 1998 entitled Final Solutions and Other Plays. His first full length play is Where There's a Will and Playpen is his theatre group, formed in 1984. The discrimination is found in the relation among man and woman, and eunuch. There are various reasons for establishing this discrimination. And most of the plays of Mahesh Dattani have indicated some specific reasons for the formation of the discrimination and inequality between man, woman and eunuch. The selected plays of Mahesh Dattani, Dance Like a Man, Tara, Bravely Fought the Queen, and Seven Steps Around the Fire, etc. show the discrimination and inequality from different point of view in the contemporary Indian society. In the play Dance Like a Man, the discrimination is found through the cultural exercise of dance in the Hindu patriarchal society; in the play Tara, it is presented throughout the conducts of parents towards their children according to gender and sex. And in the play Bravely Fought the Queen Dattani has shown the relation between commercialism and gender or the Marxist gender issue. Seven Steps Around the Fire has been known for the study of the Indian third gender (eunuch). The main focus of the writer is on the theme of women’s problems like alienation, nostalgia, identity crisis and, human relationships etc. The present research paper is a sincere attempt to exemplify the concern of women, motherhood and their familial relationship in Dattani’s plays.