Exploring the Perception of Masculinity in Indian English Drama

Drama is a mirror that reflects human nature through actions. It is a bridge that connects literature and the language of mankind. Drama was conceptualized by the Greek intellectuals sometime in 5th BC in Greece. During its inception one act play with the title “The Persians” by Aeschylus was enacted in 472 BC. Drama serves as an entertainment and source of learning. It also helps to critique the humanity for improvement and development. Besides the above mentioned, a history of Indian drama cannot be ignored as the subject of this assignment deals with Indian Drama. The account of Hindu Theatre begins with the Sanskrit plays, among which Natyashastra is the oldest text. Therefore the origin of Indian drama is found in the Vedic Period, long before English Drama. Most renowned playwrights of the ancient period are Bhasa, Shudraka, Kalidasa etc. The Indian Drama was purely of Indian origin. Bhasa was known as the founder and father of Indian Drama. On the other hand the Modern Drama originated in nineteenth century and thrived through 20th century. The modern drama is very rational, portraying real-life situations and real-time dramatic plots; the characters became mentally realistic and the subjects became communal criticisms. Henrik Ibsen is known as the creator of contemporary drama. The Indian English Drama dates back to 18th century when the British became stable in India. They brought with them, the idea of theatre. But during the early decades of their regulation, they could not present English Drama due to the ignorance of Indians regarding the English Language. Gradually, Western education made its way to India. As a result, Indian English Drama came into existence.

The play “Dance like a Man” by Mahesh Dattani is a modern drama consisting of two acts play which brings out family’s conflict. He is the well-known Indian English scriptwriter, recognized and acknowledged for Sahitya Akademi award for his “Final Solutions and Other Plays in 1998”. Dattani is a truly a manifold persona besides being a dramatist he is also an talented actor, director, film maker, screenplay writer, teacher and a dancer too. As a refined playwright, his focus was on marginalized sections of society where he tries to inform and make conventional society mindful about problem prevailing among the marginalized groups of people in India. He tries to prove that masculinity is not attached to biology but a social construct through this play. Through this, one may understand that masculinity, gender and identity of a person are all socially constructed for the advantage of men. This paper attempts to analyze masculinity as a social construction where patriarchy and intergenerational conflicts prevails.

Depiction of Masculinity in the Play “Dance like a Man”

Masculinity is nothing but perception of human behaviour socially constructed by men and the society. In the past the perception of masculinity was common which differentiated male from female and existed for a considerable period of time. However, with the advancement of civilization and development of rational thoughts in humankind, scholars started questioning the concept of masculinity in mankind. This idea became revolutionary among the mankind which led people to research on this concept. “Masculinity is understood as a configuration of practice in everyday life, and it is substantially a social construction. Masculinity refers to male body, but it is not determined by biology. “It is, thus, perfectly logical to talk about masculine women or masculinity in women’s lives as in men’s”. She further argues that “masculinity is just the pattern of practice by which people engage that position”. Similarly, Kimmel and Bridges referred “masculinity as behaviour, social roles, and relation of men within the given society as well as the meaning attributed to them”. In the play Dance like a man, Dattani intends to depict the issue of masculinity through the female characters to show nature of masculinity in women such as courage, ambition, determination and voice. This means manliness alone is not referred as masculinity. The female characters in his play who possess masculine attributes in them prove that masculinity does not refer to men’s attributes alone. In the play Ratna has a pivotal role who exhibits the masculine attributes over Jairaj.

Some of her masculine attributes are courage, ambition, individuality and determination that she puts forward in the play. The above masculinity features are substantiated by the following dialogue when Ratna says, “You are nothing but a spineless boy who couldn’t leave his father’s house for more than forty-eight hours”. Through this line she means to say that he could not be independent without his father’s support whereas she was ready to pursue her career. He seems a mere dependent upon his father which shows that Jairaj is lacking masculine attributes. The play is more in favour of Ratna than Jairaj which means Dattani has portrayed the concept of masculinity in women too. I feel that women too have contributed in the development of masculine concept to a certain extent showing their inferiority. That could be one reason which led to their distinction and discrimination from the male. This is still prevailing in the third world countries which has remained as a barrier for women. However, the studies have immensely helped to pave way and liberate women from this stereotype culture. With time women’s status have been uplifted and should continue to strive for the better change and prove their masculinity attributes. Today women have already started surfacing in many fields such as writers, sports, politics, and arm force but still have to go extra mile to equalize with male counterpart. Ratna in the play is just a simple example who tries to exhibit masculinity through her voice and ambition to make her daughter Lata a legendary dancer. To bring the context, Ratna says “If she can’t dance, what else can she be?' This statement shows that Ratna is ambitious in nature that she wants her daughter to be a dancer and earn the recognition for family and herself. It also suggests that Ratna wants to achieve her dream of becoming legendry through her daughter Lata.

The patriarchal authority is another dominant feature in the history of humankind and is depicted through Amritlal in this play. This is another stereotype which is also constructed socially. This patriarchal hegemony is quite common and accepted across the globe. He represents this traditional hegemony in the play where he remains so rigid in his philosophy and controls the family. There are couple of situations which show Amritlal’s rigidness. They are as follows:

Amritlal: “I want this din to stop. I want Guruji out, that’s is what I want”. Here he tries to say that he does not like to see Guruji engaging his son and daughter-in-law and influencing them in dance which he is against it.

Amritlal: “Your husband happens to be my son. And you are both under my care. It is my permission that you should ask for”. This statement says that both of them being under his care she should ask a permission from him and not from Jairaj.

Amritlal: “It is hard for me to explain. I leave it to you. Help me and I’ll never prevent you from dancing. I know it will take time but it must be done”. The motif of this argument is to show patriarchal order exercised by Amritlal. Even Jairaj tries to depict his patriarchal attribute towards the end when Ratna says that she wants to paste the review in their album. Jairaj says, “I’m sorry Ratna. I don’t want to see you pasting those reviews in our album—pretending they are yours”.

Jairaj on the other hand becomes the prey of the patriarchal domination which reflects the then Indian society at large. He has to dance to the rhythm of his father and the wife as well. Amritlal says that as long as Jairaj remains under his care he must listen to him. As he could not live on independently he has to live within his father’s control. Amritlal also has control over his daughter -in law, Ratna. She gets carried away and joins with her father-in-law, Amritlal conspiring to keep Jairaj away from pursuing dance as his career. She helps him to gain advantage to herself as he has promised her that she may continue as a dancer if she can prevent Jairaj from dancing. He always wishes to see his son becoming a man. This indicate that Amritlal is so conservative and has rooted notion that a man should not take dance as a career. He does not view dance as art in which man can also embrace and contribute for its promotion and development. His belief on masculinity is clearly depicted through the title itself which means a man has to be a man. However, Dr. Michael Kimmel, American sociologist argues that it is a hegemonic discourses place on dance. I do believe in it that it is a social construction of hegemony placed on dance not willing to loss masculine attributes through such art. Here, I would strongly disagree with Amritlal’s notion that men should not take up dance as a profession. In fact, men are equally potential like women who can earn their livelihood. For instance, in the Kristopher Wojtera, Polish man who attended the ballet dance school in Poland and Aaron Cota from USA have become ballet dance teacher and currently he is in the USA. They stated that they stated that they have really good earning being a dancer and teaching too.

Intergenerational Conflicts in the Play

Intergenerational conflicts is another aspect which Dattani has interwoven in the play to show the difference in views. He tries to bring out the contradiction in thoughts between generations. In the play Amritlal represent the first generation with a firm philosophy of patriarchy whereas Jairaj and Ratna represent the second generation with much more liberal principles of life. Lata and Viswas are the third generation whose views are completely different from other two generations. This type of intergenerational conflicts indicate the backwardness and the advancement of thinking process and the liberal way of life. Amritlal carries the traditional principle of patriarchal hegemony whereas Jairaj and Ratna carry the liberal principles of life. For instance Amritlal opposes Jairaj taking up dance as his career implies that he is living with age old rigid concept that dance is not for men. He criticizes his son’s will saying that a “woman in men’s world may be considered as being progressive. But a man in a women’s world is pathetic”. However, he does not like his son dancing like a woman where he does not earn his livelihood from it. Amritlal wishes to see his son behaving like a man. He argues that man’s happiness lies in becoming a man but not taking up dance and behaving like a woman. On the other hand Jairaj and Ratna want to continue dance as their career. Amritlal actually allowed his son to dance as it was his hobby during his boyhood and never thought that he would take up dance as his career. Jairaj’s taking dance has never made father a happy man. On the day when they were for practice at home with the Guruji the conflict erupts and he warns Jairaj, “I want his din to stop. I want Guruji out, that’s what I want”. Amritlal does not like Jairaj’s association with his Guruji whom he does not consider as a man. At this time he also says Jairaj that he does not like Guruji including his walking style and keeping long hair. Similarly, he warns Jairaj for growing his hair long as he believes that a normal man does not grow long hair as it is only characteristic of a female to keep long hair. On the other hand Jairaj states that, “I can’t have a decent rehearsal in this house”. This shows that Jairaj becoming frustrated listening to his father’s nagging words. This misunderstanding later leads to fleeing of Jairaj and Ratna from the house. This shows that he could not resist his father’s authority in the beginning but later he resists as he was compelled to return home due to his economic status.

After forty-eight hours both of them return home and father still accepts them and warns them to follow him. Later he finds Ratna visiting Chenni amma the oldest exponent of the Mysore school who knows the art of abhinaya. She tells Ratna that she does not have even single student who is dedicated enough to absorb her knowledge. Having learnt that Ratna is a dancer she pleaded her to learn from her. At this point Amritlal questions her stating, “You know very well where, because that’s where you go every Monday. It was fortunate for me that it was Patel who saw you going there. I can trust him to keep his mouth shut”. Here he does not like his daughter-in-law visiting Chenni Amma who has such a low status in the society. He warns Ratna not to visit her as it is going to bring a question of his social status in the society because Devadasi do not have social status in the community. They are deliberated as the prostitutes in the community as they sell their body for their living. But then if we look into from the world’s view then the society in fact has exploited them and no one bothered to revive the dying culture, dance and uplift the status of Devadesi in the society. The society did not bother to correct and protect them rather they worsen their statues further. This is where Ratna puts her question to Amritlal “Well, you can start by reforming such people instead of me”. Here Ratna argues that Amritlal should do something to reform those women who have become prostitutes in the society rather than telling her as she is not the street dancer. This shows the conflict in view between father-in-law and daughter-in-law.

Viswas and Lata have a minimal conflict as they represent the modern generation unlike other two generations. These characters have discussion of their own which depicts the conflict among the modern generation. Viswas says, “Only doctors and firemen go out on emergence. Dancers stay at home till it is show time. They also stay at home when they have invited their future son-in-law to their house”. He expected Ratna and Jairaj to be at home when he arrives there as Lata says to him that his visit is known to her parents. This shows that Viswas wants some kind of warm treatment at his arrival. Then Lata says, “Actually they couldn’t care less who or what you are. As long as you let me dance”. This dialogue mean to express that her parents do not care as long as he allows her to dance. Then Viswas says, “And if I whisk you away to Dubai and sell you to a sheik? As a response again Lata says, “Well, at least I’ll be dancing in his harem!' She means to say as long as she is allowed to dance it does not matter whoever takes her. This implies that for the dance family it is a question of their existence and identity. Viswas also mocks the characteristics of Lata’s granddaddy gently. He also reveals the dominant nature of Ratna over Jairaj that he is deprived of having tea which Viswas feels unfair. When Viswas inquire Lata if she has ever reveal the status of his parents to hers it indicates that he is bit of business minded. Lata too shows that she is little inclined towards wealth as she says “I’m the sole heir to this property. It’s worth quite a lot”.

Conclusion

This assignment unfolds the perception of masculinity predominant in, the then Indian society right after the independence. It also talks about the patriarchal hegemony and the intergenerational conflicts on the issue of dance which were prevalent during the postcolonial period. Dattani has created an awareness on the patriarchal authority which has been prominent culture in Indian subcontinent. The reason for the playwright to focus in this area could be to criticize the society not bothering the dying culture (art of dance) to revive it. It also suggests that elite people have no concern of promoting the dying culture. In the name of freedom fighting they go for earning the power and money for themselves. Partly it suggests that older generation could not embrace the modernity rather they strict to their traditional outlooks. 

References

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