Mahesh Dattani: Tara

Mahesh Dattani’s “Tara”

About Author

Mahesh Dattani was born on the 7th of August in 1958 in Bangalore, Karnataka. He is one of the most famous modern Indian - English playwrights. Dattani received the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for his contribution to Indian English Drama in 1998. He always deals with the complicated dynamics of the modern urban family. In many of his plays, he deals with various issues like homo sexuality, gender discrimination, communalism and child sexual abuse. Dattani is one of the play wrights who challenged the construction of India and Indian as they have been presented in the modern English theatre. His famous works are Final Solutions, Night Queen, Dance Like a Man, Tara, and Thirty Days.

Introduction

Tara is the third dramatic work of Mahesh Dattani. It is one of the Dattani’s best loved plays in the world. In this play Dattani attempts to study the gender-based injustice and how the male given preference over the female in an Indian family. The play deals with the emotional separation of two conjoined twins (at the hip) and the manipulation of their mother and grandfather to favour the boy child over the girl child. This play also deals with the issues of class and community and traditional values. Sushma Seth is of the opinion that Tara is the story of conjoined twins separated at birth, by a surgical procedure intended to favour the boy over the girl.

Summary

The play deals with emotional separation of a Siamese twin boy and a girl. The play is divided into two acts. The scene of action is a suburb of London where Chandan, who is referred to as Dan, recollects his childhood days spent with his sister Tara. He is trying to write a story about his own childhood days but drops the idea and writes Tara’s story. The entire story moves around Tara and Dan as they are Siamese twins at birth. When a major operation to separate them is planned, it is discovered that the pair has three legs between them. The medical doctor, Thakkar and his team suggest that the third leg would survive better on the girl, so that she could be normal. According to the doctor the boy would have to do with an artificial leg. But pressure is brought on the surgeon by Patel, who is supposed to become Chief Minister very soon, to give the boy two legs, though he knows that the boy’s body will reject the leg. The reason is that they prefer the male child because he will carry forward the family name, and on the contrary, the word girl is a synonym for ‘dowry.’ The situation becomes worse, if the girl is physically challenged or there is any physical or mental deformity in her, then the dowry too will not work out. She will remain unmarried and bring defame to family. At last, the surgeon is silenced by a bribe. His worst fears come true. This results in Dan becoming a cripple while Tara is already a crippled one. What hurts Tara most is the fact that preference is given to the boy simply because he belongs to the dominant sex. She also realizes that she is denied of the opportunity of becoming a normal human being simply because she is a female. The play ends with a reverie of Dan where he and his sister hug each other happily. Thus the play is about every girl child born in an Indian family, who suffers from some kind of exploitation.