Gender Consciousness and Gender Sensitivity A Critical Study of selected Plays of Mahesh Dattani

Abstract

Every area of social life today is touched by the ever evolving debates and discussions on gender and sexual identity. Life seems to toss new questions about gender identities, sexual behavior, representation and subjugation, choices and perversion every now and then. Michel Foucault postulates, Sexuality must not be thought of as kind of natural given which power tries to hold in check It is the name given to a historical construct Foucault 58... What Foucault posits in the previously mentioned comment, is applicable to the concept of gender as well. Normative sexuality and corresponding gender behavior has been a boiling issue in arena of literary criticism till date. Drama has been a subversive art form since long that has challenged the perceived notions, institutions, mores and taboos. Various playwrights have utilized this ability of the genre to investigate various concerns of human struggle and strife and Mahesh Dattani is one such name. Dattanis stage endeavors have managed to take taboo subjects centre stage and kick up a storm within the four walls of an auditorium. From religious fundamentalism, to child sexual abuse, to gender roles, to homosexuality, to arranged marriage, his plays have confronted issues that could cause many an Indian audience to squirm. The plays in selected for the Ph.D. project have attempted to denaturalize the gender and sexual spectacle or generic collage and the dislocation of ideology from genre. These plays challenge taboos, reverse the debate on subject and object, bring in how social performance adds further dimensions in interpretation of a gender. These plays emphasize that the identity is never fixed or absolute, let alone binary. newline