TARA

           TARA BY  MAHESH DATTANI

                                                -Aysha Sherin

Mahesh Dattani is an Indian director, actor, playwright and writer. Dattani was born in 1958 in Bangalore and was educated at Baldwin’s  Boys High School and then went on to graduate from St.Joseph College , Bangalore.  He worked as a copywriter for an advertising firm before starting his career as an actor and a playwright. His first play ‘Where There’s a Will’ was published in 1986.  Since then he has written numerous plays such as Final Solutions, Dance Like a Man, Thirty Days In September, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai, etc. He is the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi award. His plays address social issues especially prejudices and problems that the society is usually conditioned to turn away from. His plays deals with themes like gender discrimination , gender identity , communal tensions, child abuse ,etc. The play ’Thirty Days in September’ tackles the issue of child abuse whereas ‘Final Solutions’ talks about communal tensions after the partition.  Dattani’s play ‘Dance Like a Man’ was made into a film in 2003 directed by Pamela Rooks. He himself directed ‘Mango Souffle’ in 2002.  He is also the director and screenwriter of the critically acclaimed movie, Morning Raaga.

                            The two-act play ‘Tara’ by Mahesh Dattani deals with the theme of gender-based discrimination and the deep-rootednees of patriarchal values in the Indian society. “I see Tara as a play about the male self and female self. The male self is preferred in all cultures. The play is about the separation of self and the resultant angst”,this is how Dattani himself summarizes the play. ‘Tara’ tells the story of conjoined twins, Chandan and Tara, who are surgically separated in a way that favours the boy child. The surgery that separated the twins was intended to favour the male child to such an extent that Tara is disadvantaged in everyway and it eventually leads to her death.

    Act One starts with the present day Chandan in London, who is attempting to write a story entitled ‘Twinkle Tara’.  Overcome by guilt and grief over Tara’s disadvantaged life and early death, Chandan moved from India to London to start a new life and changed his name to Dan. But he admits that he has been unsuccessful in burying his past self and his attempts to embrace western life style has been equally futile. The drama is presented in a non-linear manner. It is portrayed in two different time frames –the past and the present. The past shows Chandan’s and Tara’s childhood which is played on another stage when Dan, the writer, recollects his memories for the new book he is writing. We are introduced to their mother, Bharati, their father, Patel and their childhood friend Roopa.  Bharati is shown to be caring and overprotective towards Tara. Her attitude worries Patel who is of the opinion that she needs counseling before things get out of hand. Patel, on the other hand, claims that he loves both of them equally and does not show any distinction but his actions speak otherwise. Patel decides a career and a future abroad for Chandan but not for Tara. Shockingly he also asks Tara to fill up the college form not for her sake but for Chandan. As Tara says, “The men in the house were deciding on whether they were going to go hunting while the women looked after the cave.”  Here Tara questions the gendered division of labour, the role that her gender is expected to perform.

Chandan: Mummy’s knitting and I am helping her sort out her mistake.

Patel: Let Tara do it.

This is yet another instance where the writer presents how gender based division of labour works in a typical Indian family. Men like Patel are of the opinion that tasks like cooking, knitting,etc., are to be assigned to women and they are better confined to the four walls of their home. Tara is portrayed as intelligent and witty but she is forced to evolve to the stereotype of the Indian women who are considered to be fit only to perform household chores. Both Chandan and Tara are treated unfairly and are referred to as ‘freaks’ but Tara has to face double marginalization. As Bharati says to Chandan, “Let her get older. Yes,Chandan, the planet will tolerate you. The planet will accept you- but not her!”

           Between their childhood memories, the play switches to an imaginative interview between Chandan and Dr.Thakkar, who performed the surgery on Chandan and Tara. In the interview they discuss the rarity of the situation. Thakkar explains that conjoined twins are rare and for the twins to be of different gender is even more peculiar. As Chandan refers to  them as ‘a freak among freaks.’  Throughout the play, Dr Thakkar is seated on a chair at a higher level and has a God-like stance who is seemingly omnipotent.

                Through the characters of Prema and Nalini, Dattani exposes the insensitive attitude of society towards differently abled people.  But Tara faces the humiliations and taunts thrown at her with her witty remarks. Roopa, on the other hand,  represents an Indian girl adhering to the socio-cultural construction of a woman in India.

Tara: Yes, he is going to write a story- about me.

About me.  Strong .Healthy. Beautiful.

Roopa: That’s not you. That’s me.....

It is clear that she thinks she is better than Tara because she is not physically deformed like her and knows well that in an Indian society, she will always be preferred over a handicapped girl. Initially, she is shown to be friendly with Chandan and Tara and advises them to stay away from Prema and Nalini and tells  that they are ‘Wandu Tarah’, which in Kannada means ‘odd types’. But as soon as she is earshot of Tara and Chandan she goes around gossiping about them. Bharathi also tries to force Roopa into being Tara’s friend. Throughout the play, both Patel and Bharati, are shown to be obsessed with providing their children with a ‘normal’ life.

                   Act one ends with Tara fainting during a heated argument between her parents regarding Bharati’s over-possessive attitude towards Tara.