Ambition and Anxiety in Mahesh
Dattani’s
DANCE LIKE A MAN
B. Yadava Raju
There is a
paucity of drama in Indian English Literature (IEL). Compared to other literary
genres, the out-put of Indian English drama has been scanty. There are a number
of reasons for this. One of the most important reasons is that English is not
our ‘mother tongue’. English is a ‘learnt’ language, at best the ‘second’
language and the learning of it is still confined to the ‘urban elite’ of
India. As opposed to this situation, the playwrights in all the national
languages are more successful compared to those writing in English. It is in
this context Mahesh Dattani’s writings assume importance because his plays have
come to stay in the literary circles. Writing plays in English at this time and
situation is, certainly, a challenging activity. Mahesh Dattani not only
continues to write plays in English, but has bagged the Sahitya Academy Award
for English literature for his play Final Solutions.
The plays of Mahesh
Dattani bring Indian English Drama into the post-nineties. His plays are so
realistic that sometimes they generate a lot of discussion and controversy. At
the same time his plays embody many of the classical concerns of world drama.
Human relationships and the family unit have always been at the heart of this
dramatic representation. While concentrating on the family unit and human
relationships, Dattani bravely experiments with the techniques of presentation.
He often uses split-sets, hidden rooms and many other innovations. In Dance
Like a Man, Dattani makes use of the ‘flash-back’ technique that suits the
theme and brings out the best in the play.
Dance Like
a Man is a play in
Two Acts dealing with the history of oppression and revival of Bharatanatyam.
Any quick reading of the play will bring out two important aspects of the play.
On one hand the play focuses on the ‘difficulty with which the art form
(Bharatanatyam) is revived and saved for posterity to learn it. On the other
hand, the play attempts to bring out the ambition, anxiety and prejudices of
the artists who try to preserve the art form.
In the
earlier days Bharatanatyam was associated with temples and rituals. The art was
preserved by ‘devadasis’, who were professional dancers in temples. They were,
however, exploited by the priests and the rulers, and eventually, out of
economic necessity, turned to prostitution. Hence, a stigma came to be attached
to the dance form itself. Till nineteen-thirties and forties, the dance form
was ignored and neglected. Added to this was the British prudish attitudes
which dubbed Bharatanatyam as erotic. Some of our ‘brown sahibs’ also endorsed
such view and considered the art form as a ‘debased and licentious remnant’ of
our barbaric past. (see the playwright’s Note to the play). With the advent of
anti-nautch movement in the nineteen-thirties, many ‘social reformers’ also
whipped up public opinion against this art form. But in spite of this, in the
same decade, a few young dancers from well-to-do and respectable families came
forward to learn the dance form from the ‘devadasis’. It is due to such
enthusiasts that the art form has come to survive till today. This is the
explicit theme of the play which is made clear by the playwright himself in his
‘Note’ to the play.
The
originality of Mahesh Dattani lies in underscoring the clashes, conflicts,
jealousies, anxieties and prejudices of the artists while practising the art
form. Such an attitude of the artists proves to be counter productive. The play
meticulously exposes some of these emotions.
Structurally,
there are Two Acts in the play, each Act has its own divisions between the
present and the past lives of the central characters. Act One opens with the
present developments and flashes back into the past. Act Two opens with [the
past] nineteen forties and projects into the present. This shuttling between
the present and the past takes place more than once in Act Two.
In the second
part of Act One of the play, the conflict between art and society is a prominent
one. Amritlal Parkeh, Jairaj’s father, is the representative of the society of
the 1930s and 1940s. He is a freedom-fighter, but curtails the freedom of his
own son, who wants to be a dancer. Amritlal Parkeh is an autocratic father for
whom Bharatanatyam is the craft of a ‘prostitute to show off her wares’ (p.137),
and hence a man has no business to learn such a craft, and ‘anyone who learnt
such a craft could not be a man’(p.137).
This view is
opposed tooth and nail by Jairaj, who is all out to prove himself to be a male
(Bharatnatyam) dancer. In disobeying Amritlal Parekh and rejecting his views on
dance both Jairaj and Ratna come together and challenge the old man. They leave
the house in defiance. The ‘first flash-back’ of Act One comes to an end with
their defiance. Act Two begins where the flash-back in Act One ends. Jairaj and
Ratna, out of sheer helplessness return to Amritlal Parekh’s house within two
days. Their helplessness is exploited by Amritlal Parekh. He imposes certain
restrictions on the dancing practice of Jairaj and Ratna. He agrees to allow
only Ratna to dance so long as she helps him in making Jairaj a man, who can be
worthy of a woman. He always advises Jairaj to ‘grow up’ (p.166) and be a man.
Strangely, after this sort of pact with Ratna, the old man disappears from the
scene. It appears as if he has handed over his responsibility towards his son
to Ratna. Ratna, thus, buys her freedom at the expense of Jairaj’s desire to
become a dancer. Ambition and anxiety over-take Ratna. In order to prove
herself as a dancer, she ‘destroys’ Jairaj by undermining his ‘self-esteem’ (p.188)
as an artist.
In the second
flash-back of Act Two, the way in which this plan of ‘destruction’ has been
executed is dramatized. Jairaj feels neglected and dismissed. He is used, he
feels, as a tool, and as stage prop, or as choreographer to Ratna’s
dance-items, but seldom as a co-dancer. Jairaj charges Ratna that he was
deliberately given his ‘weakest items’(p.188) and was made to dance always in
the shadow of Ratna. He was rated to be a mediocre artist. His desire, thus, to
become a dancer is thwarted. Jairaj hopes to see, at least, his son, little
Shankar as a dancer and wishes that he would dance the ‘tandava nrityam’ of
Lord Shiva (p.185) right on the head of his grand-father, Amritlal Parekh, when
he becomes a young man. But this desire of Jairaj is also not fulfilled, since
the child dies. It appears that the ayah, in an attempt to keep the child away
from weeping for his mother, administers an overdose of opium and unknowingly
kills the child. Thus, in Jairaj’s opinion, Ratna is more responsible for the
death of the child. Ratna was always, he alleges, after the name and fame as a
dancer rather than discharging her duty as a mother, and as a wife.
But, then,
Ratna also blames Jairaj for his mediocrity (p.190) and his addiction to
alcohol (p.187). She holds Amritlal Parkeh also responsible for Jairaj’s
downfall. According to Ratna, Jairaj’s downfall began from the day he returned
to his father’s house. She charges Jairaj that he was always ‘a spineless boy’
who couldn’t leave his father’s house for more than forty-eight hours’ (p.132).
For her Jairaj ‘stopped being a man’ from that fateful day onwards. For the
past forty years Ratna has been holding this complaint against Jairaj. In fact,
the audience get to know about this mutual disagreement between Ratna and
Jairaj in their very first meeting with them in Act One. The play, in fact,
opens with this distrust between them and continues to show it till the end of
the play. Thus both of them distrust one another, and lead a life of misery.
The unison and jathi that are required in any successful dance item, are
lacking in their day to day life. But both of them agree that the sacrifices
made to be what they are now, are too great (p.145). However, they exude the
confidence that Lata, their daughter, needn’t go through all this since she is
‘talented’ and worthy of her profession. Ratna, once again, as is usual with
her, tries to claim the entire credit for the success of Lata’s dance
programme. She is of the opinion that the rare reviews on Lata’s performance
are due to her ‘sweet-talking the critics’ (p.182). This view of Ratna is
questioned by Jairaj, Lata really ‘deserved’ (p.183) the good reviews. The critics
were, in fact, not doing Ratna any ‘favour’ (p.183). In this connection Jairaj
suggests to Ratna that she has ‘at least a daughter to be jealous of’ (p.184).
The play ends
with Jairaj’s admission that they were only human and lacked the grace and
brilliance, and also lacked magic to dance like God (p.194). To be able to
revise, protect and continue the art of dance, to be true, any art, the
artist(s) should rise above the human weaknesses. Art will be well protected
only in the hands of such artists.