Dance Like a
Man
By Mahesh Duttani
Born on 7th August, 1958
in Bangalore , Mahesh Duttani is
an intellectually stimulating Sahitya Academy Winner
. Dattani‟s play script
casts its focus and locus entirely on the urban space, specifically rooted in
the dynamics of domestic space. Mahesh Dattani is a Bangalore based dramatist
and director. The themes of his plays have attracted the attention of a great
number of readers and audiences in theatres. He has tried to bring hidden issues of society such as plight
of women and transgender, gender discrimination, homosexuality child sex abuse
etc. into light through his plays. He has shown the problems of city life in India in a significant
manner in his plays. He has a striking artistic mind that makes him different
from other dramatists.
The play Dance
Like a Man is a stage play in two
acts. The play was first performed at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Bangalore on
22 September 1989 as a part of the Deccan Herald Theatre. Traditional Dance, in
the play, is a form or a tool that enables the writer to tell his story. This drama
explores and analyses the gender discrimination in a society, the injustice
done only on the term of gender and the preference given to a male child over a
female in an Indian family. The play explores the nature of the patriarchical tyranny that even men
might be subject to.
In this two-act play,
Dattani has tried to knit the story around three generations and their
conflicts. The play deals with issues like problem of marriage and career, conflict
between the tradition and modernity,
patriarchal domination, plight of devdasis, gender roles etc.
Dattani portrays an Indian family in which Amritlal Parekh possessed unquestionable power over Jairaj and Ratna. The action of the play takes place in the big house of Amritlal which is located in centre of the Chennai city. The drama was written in flash back mode. Presently, the characters are Jairaj, 62 year old and Ratna, his wife ageing 60; Lata, their daughter, Viswas, her would-be-husband and Amritlal, Jairaj’s father. Amritlal Parekh being the head of the family, he declared himself to be responsible head for taking important decision of all their life. Amritlal as a father wishes his son to have the best, he also worries that his son’s choices would not make him anything if he pursued them any longer. He gave his son the freedom to practice dance instead of cricket as a young boy but he was worried when the hobby for dance as a boy grew into a passion for Jairaj as an adult. Jairaj desired to take his passion for dance as his profession and that would lead his son nowhere and he would not be able to support his family in future. Amritlal feared that his son, unable to take the role of man by the social norms, would fail to win the love and respect a wife has for her husband.
Amritlal was a
reformist and freedom fighter yet a prudish
and conservative. He supported India to get freedom from the Britishers.
Ironically he controlled and framed strict regulations over his own son’s
wishes. He rejects the freedom of his son who wanted to become a Bharatnatyam
dancer. Father implements his wish on his son and wants him not to take
up dance as his career because it is not a ‘male oriented’ profession. For
Jairaj, Dance is a form or a means to express emotions and stands as the tool
of defiance, revolt, negation of a particular way of life that was decided by
his father, Amritlal. He starts dancing as a hobby. Dance for his father is the profession of a
prostitute, improper for his daughter-in-law and absolutely unimaginable for
his son. He forbids Ratna from visiting the old devdasi who teaches her the
intricacies of bharatnatyam. He cannot tolerate the sounds of the dancing bells
that ring through their practice sessions. Jairaj becomes more headstrong
because of the support of his wife, Ratna who also was interested in
traditional form of dancing. Amritlal dislikes the long-haired guru with
an effeminate walk and cannot, most of all tolerate the idea of his son –a man-
becoming a professional dancer. Amritlal Parekh makes a pact with Ratna. He
will permit her career in dance only if she helps him pull Jairaj out of his
obsession and make him a ‘manly’ man. Amritlal knew that dance would not help
Jairaj to earn enough money and that would make him unworthy in the eyes of his
wife Ratna. For Amritlal, dance was good as far as it remains a hobby but it
was not proper to be taken as a profession. Jairaj and Ratna both with a common passion
for dance are victims of Amritlal the patriarch of the family. Even after
Amritlal's demise Jairaj, his son cannot get rid of the expectations of his
father which eventually leads him into depression and alcoholism. In contrast, Ratna at every stage cooperates with Amritlal for her
benefit and pursues her passions till the end. Hegemonic masculinity norms can be traced to society's pressure on
women to be groomed and look desirable. Man is declared to be the bread earner
and he is expected to be in such a profession in which self-esteem is concerned
with it, in Indian society. In the other term, man did not get freedom to pursue
the profession of an art form like Bharatnatyam. Jairaj’s father equates the
art of dance with prostitution.
Dance Like a Man is a play that does not present the character as pure White or Black but it shows their different shades in all possibilities. Jairaj, the male protagonist of the play becomes a victim of gender restrictions. Usually women become victims or suffer due to the patriarchal culture. But this play focuses on the plight of a male who tries to break the conventional roles allotted to his gender by the society. In this process, he loses his identity as an artist in society. Jairaj’s dreams are shattered as his father considers that Bhartanatyam is an effeminate thing that belongs to female gender.
Shallow
materialistic values of art and life v/s old spiritual values
The play deals with the
conflict between art and society. It also focuses on the sense of competition
among the artists themselves. Young Jairaj and Ratna are practicing dance in
the house of Amritlal Parekh. He is representative of the society of the nineteen
thirties and forties. In the earlier days Bhartanatyam was associated with
temples and rituals. The art was preserved by Devadasis. They were the
professional dancers in temples. They were exploited by the priests and rulers.
Finally, due to the economic needs these people turned to prostitution. So, the
dance form was ignored and neglected till nineteen thirties and forties.
In order to protect and
continue any art form, the artist should raise above human weakness. It is a
state of human consciousness that wraps up the distinction of male and female
into a state of ‘wholeness’. In his self-discovery, Jairaj discovers that the
divine essence of human self is neither male nor female. Gender discrimination is
integrated in human consciousness and is closely associated with individual
choices, self development and self-identity.
PORTRAYAL
OF RATNA
The play tells the story
that revolves mainly around Ratna, her aspirations as a good dancer and a good
mother who expects perfect dancer in Lata. Her dominance over her husband is exposed by the playwright. Lata wants
to marry Viswas and to gain favour of her parents, she invites Viswas to her
house. When Jairaj and Ratna arrive, though late, they discuss about the
forthcoming dance competition of Lata and her preparation. There is no harmony
in their married life, both of them want to see Lata a winner and get selected
for the Canadian festival. They are talking about mridanist (musician) whose
arm is broken not paying attention to Viswas. Later, they apologize for their
behaviour and accept his proposal on one condition that he will allow Lata to
dance after marriage. Lata wins the competition and both the parents are
overjoyed. They read reviews of appreciation by critics in the newspapers about
Lata’s performance and speculate over her selection for the Indian Festival in
Canada. By the use of flashback technique, the playwright reveals the past of
Jairaj and Ratna and their confrontation with Amritlal, Jairaj’s father.
Amritlal does not like Jairaj’s passion for the dance, especially for
Bharatnatyam. He does not like Jairaj’s idea of growing hair long. He expects
his son an adult and grown up and in this matter he expects Ratna’s help. But
both Jairaj and Ratna never respect Amritlal’s selfish opinions. They leave the
house impulsively but come back after two days humiliated, accepting Amritlal’s
shelter. But during these two days, all the three are changed and some sort of
transformation is sought in them. Amritlal is ready to pay Jairaj and permits
and advises him to perform dance as a profession. He asks Ratna to help him
making Jairaj an adult and grown up and that he will permit her to dance. The
play ends on a happy note that both Jairaj and Ratna despite earlier
differences get mutually united and they perform the dance in the heaven
without missing a step or a beat.
Ratna seems to be a selfish woman altogether, a woman of
self-esteem and over-ambition. This is also displayed in her relationship with
her daughter and an infant son. When she is young, she practices hard to gain
perfection in dance. She all the time thinks to win appreciation of the audiences.
She forgets her motherly duty
towards her infant son, Shankar. She along with Jairaj goes for night
performances keeping Shankar in the custody of ayas who offers him opium to
make him sleep for more time and the ayah gets long peaceful sleep. She finds
Shankar died of overdose of opium. She accuses Jairaj for that also and
expected him at home near Shankar when she performed in the public. In her
youth, Ratna cares only for the dance and her appreciation by the others. She
neglects even her motherly duties. In contrast, when she is old, to be precise
60, she cares for her daughter and her
performance. As a good mother, she dreams her daughter successful. She
takes hard efforts for that also. She proudly tells Jairaj about Lata’s success
and decides to take very serious efforts for her daughter’s success. Ratna is
portrayed as a woman who is more concerned with her own career than her duty to
the family. In an Indian family system, it is important on the part of a woman
to perform dual or plural duties. She has to maintain her self-interest as well
as perform roles of sister, daughter, mother, mother-in-law, sister-in-law etc.
Disclaimer: Images have been taken from Google sites.
