We thankfully acknowledge “e-pg pathsala” a joint initiative of MHRD,

Govt. of India and NCERT under NMEICT (Executed by UGC)

and openstax.org, for partial adoption of their e-content in our course
materials.
 BACHELOR OF ARTS (HONOURS) IN
ENGLISH (BAEG)

BEG-4
Indian Writing in English

BLOCK-4

MAHESH DATTANI’S “FINAL SOLUTIONS”

UNIT 1 INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH MAHESH
DATTANI’S FINAL SOLUTION
UNIT 2 THEMATIC ASPECT IN MAHESH DATTANI’S
FINAL SOLUTIONS
BLOCK 4 MAHESH DATTANI’S “FINAL SOLUTIONS”

OBJECTIVE
In this block we dealt with Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solution the block is divided into
two unit and this play which faced challenges yet overcame the hurdles and finally
was staged and published .In this block all aspects whether it be societal norms ,
political pressure all has been dealt with detail analysis.

INTRODUCTION
The block has two unit. First unit deals with author , critical analysis of the play
while the second unit deals with different aspects be it gender disparity Communal
Violence in Final Solutions, Gender Issues in Final Solutions, Psycho-Sociological
Analysis of the Indian Society in Final Solutions, Caricature of Patriarchy in Final
Solutions, Defence of Scarred Psyche in Final Solutions, Music as Motif in Final
Solutions, Silence, Suffering and Sunshine in Final Solutions, Social Vision as
Reflected in Final Solutions, Vision and Visuals as Depicted in Final Solutions,
Deconstructed Family in Final Solutions, Presentation of Contemporaneity in Final
Solution, Locating the Self in Final Solutions, Social Exclusion in Final Solution,
Technique and Stage Craft in Final Solutions, The Use of Dialogues in the Play Final
Solutions, The Presentation of Moral Issues in Final Solutions, Telescoping Past and
Present. these are the different aspects that are highlighted through this study
material. .
UNIT 1 : INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH MAHESH
DATTANI’S FINAL SOLUTION
Structure
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Author
1.3 Critical Analysis
1.4 Conclusion
1.5 References

1.0 OBJECTIVES
After going through his unit you will be able to know

 Explain the concept of social structure

 Critically discuss the societal norms and the reason behind misunderstanding
in different sects of community .
 Is to make the learner aware of the historical background inorder to not repeat
it. “History is tragedy if gets repeated it becomes farce”

1.1 INTRODUCTION
In this unit we are going deal with one of the most socio-politico play by Mahesh
Dattani Final Solution. In this play through of portrayal of different character
playwright speaks his heart out . the situation of riot where the real culprit behind it
and the religious fanatics play a key role in maintaining
the doldrum .The situation turn precarious and from worse to worst in the name of
“Dharma” the Karma takes a turn in the name of preservation and maintaining the
sanctity of religion they indulgue in violence without even giving a second thought
that they are too are “human” with same right with no discrimination just because
there style, customs of living is different . Through this play Dattani tries to achieve
a level of balance and understanding in the communal level but differences do exist
be it tradition versus modernity or the different sects.

1.2 AUTHOR

One of the most significant writers of contemporary Indian drama, Mahesh Dattani
has elevated Indian drama in English to a major genre of social criticism. He is the
1
first Indian playwright to win the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award in 1998 for his
collection of plays – Final Solutions and Other plays. His diverse experience as a
member of the urban Indian society has a great influence on his writings who
considers theatre as a reliable means of representing the society. So, as a playwright,
he is more concerned about representing the society as it is and as experienced by
him. Dattani strongly believes that ‘who you are is reflected in your writings’.
According to him, it is the society from which his plays originate, and eventually, it
is the society again to which they go back. He is a playwright with a background in
acting, directing and scripting. He has his own theatre company – Playpen, in
Bangalore. Dattani rejects the concept of a choice or a particular identity to render
his thoughts and responses pertaining to the contemporary society, and his own life.
He does not like to be categorised as a postcolonial writer. Rather, he is concerned
about representing those themes that would best represent the contemporary scenario.
In his plays, he uses a lively and recognisable Indian English to best suit the voice of
the urban Indian society. His writings make an effort to reproduce his own time and
place – which is the contemporary urban India. In his theatrical writings, there is an
inherent attempt to make visible the invisible yet existing realities. He is a
courageous and innovative writer and voices the unseen and the unheard through his
plays. He writes about the experience of the marginalised sections of our society
such as minorities, gays, and women in his writings. His plays centre on the themes
of homosexuality, politics of gender, identity, family politics and violence to name a
few. He plays seem to critique and question the dominant gender identities. Because
of his attempt to reveal the ‘invisible’ issues, he receives both grave and appreciative
responses from the audience, reader and the critic. He has written many plays which
include Where There’s a Will, Thirty Days in September, Seven Steps Around the
Fire, Dance Like a Man, Tara, Bravely Fought the Queen, On a Muggy Night in
Mumbai, Brief Candle etc. These plays are some of his noteworthy contributions to
Indian English drama which represent the everyday realities of the modern urban
populace. His treatment of the issues of homosexuality, politics of capitalism and
violence against women in Bravely Fought the Queen, and profound childhood
trauma and child sexual abuse in Thirty Days in September has opened up discussion
on certain hidden realities, compelling the audience to explore the dark side of the
surface. Final solutions is resonant with the theme of communal prejudices that still
exist in the society. The play revolves around the theme of communal violence and
its historical and contemporary repercussions. No final solution to the situation is
given in the play; but there is an implication that a great deal depends on the choices
that people make to bring about changes in the society. The play has been performed
in various places and translated into different regional languages. Tara is a play about
two Siamese twins Tara and Chandan with three legs, and their family’s preference
for the male child Chandan. Seven Steps around the Fire represents the story of Uma

2
who is a victim of gender specific violence who is mentally tortured for not being
able to give birth to a child. On a Muggy Night in Mumbai is another play where
Dattani boldly discuss the issues concerning gay and lesbianism. His Brief Candle is
a play about a group of cancer patients who are trying to stage a comedy in order to
raise fund for their treatment. It is a play within a play where the reader finds
rehearsals being done for the comedy, representing the realities concerning the
cancer patients. Dattani always maintain non-judgemental stance when it comes to
conclusion. It is the audience who is made to think on the issues. He only brings
forward the issues, but abstains from sermonising. For Dattani, staging is all the
more important. Theatre for his is a shared experience between the playwright,
society, director, actors and the audience. According to him, understanding the
dynamics of theatre is of great importance to a playwright. This staging aspect that
makes a play different from a novel or a poem. He is playwright who very much
believes in the potentialities of theatre that can turn itself into an agent for social
change by generating awareness the social problem. In this module, we will discuss
Dattani’s handling of a very crucial issue of our time that is the presence of
alternative sexuality in Indian society in his two plays namely On a Muggy Night in
Mumbai and Bravely Fought the Queen.

1.3 TECHNIQUE AND LANGUAGE

One thing that emerges immediately in Dattani's career is the fact that while he
writes about everyday lives, he does not attempt an impossible realism. He in fact
revels in the possibilities that the stage (as well as the fictive mode) offers him, A
playwright who begins his career with a ghost present almost through the play
obviously has no interest in replicating the drawing rooms of this world . Dattani has
the ghost addressing the audience directly with the actor playing the ghost picking
up a victim in the audience to inform that his/her shoes need polishing (Act II:, scene
ii). In Dance Like a Man there are rapid shift not only in space and time, even actors
change roles instantaneously.

In the first flashback in Act One, the actor playing Jairaj wears a shawl to change
into his father. Viswas becomes Jsiraj, and Lata changes into Ratna. Their ages
remain the Datt:sni's Dramatic World same as the previous characters they played. A
shawl, lighting, and a lightning change in the setting and we are in the 1940s. At the
end of this flashback the younger Ratna exits calling for the younger Jairaj, Amritlal
takes off his shawl and becomes the older Jairaj, and the older Ratna enters calling
out to him. There are such rapid and effortless shifts in time and space throughout the
play. In Bravely Fought the Queen, past and present commingle as does the office
and the home in Act 1. The level that represents Baa's room in Act I remains in Act

3
I1 even though the locale has changed to the office of the Trivedi brothers. Even the
well stocked bar from the previous act is retained though now as part of the office. In
this act you see the interaction between Baa and the women that took place almost
off stage in Act I. You hear them through and in between the conversation between
the men; and Baa's comments on her sons and her husband are heard as we watch the
men in action. Baa's voice from the past intermingles with the present conversation
between her sons and frames it in ways otherwise impossible. In Final Solutions,
Hardika and Daksha, the old grandmother and her younger self, exist on the same
plane. When the play opens the younger (fifteen-year-old) Daksha is reading out
what she has just written in her diary, while the sixty-year-old Hardika is seated at
the same level. Again, Dattani's stage directions are worth noting: On another level is
a room ... This belongs to the young Daksha, who is in fact the grandmother, also
sometimes seen as a girl of fifteen. There are several instances when Hardika - the
grandmother, and Daksha - the young bride, are on this level at the same time,
although they are the same person. Hardika should be positioned and lit in such a
way that the entire action of the play is seen through her eyes. The past and the
present both co-exist, and while the past has fashioned the present the present helps
the characters to re-read the past. So the play has to be seen through Hardika's eyes;
the play should be seen as Hardika's education and tragedy. We are meant to see the
social processes of oppression and hatred as they operate on Hardika. Hence even in
a play which was meant to be about the construction of communal hatred, a play
which was meant to be on a large scale, choric in character, Dattani's stage
techniques are aimed at making the audience intimate with the life of a family - its
trials and tribulations and debilitating secrets. This is perhaps why John McRae notes
in his Introduction to Final Solutions and Other Plays that while Alyque Badamsee's
production of Final Solutions was spectacular and choric, Dattani's (he is a director
himself) was small-scale and intimate (p 8). You must have noticed in the stage
directions that we discussed above, as in the directions to other plays, that Dattani
likes to divide his stage into different levels. This enables Dattani to mingle the past
and the present as well as stretch available space to show different locations at the
same time. This may help both - a narratorial linearity as well as simultaneity. In
Bravely Fought the Queen, for instance, in the scene we discussed earlier, the
brothers are shown talking to each other in the office, while at the same time their
mother is shown in her interaction with the women at home. This simultaneous
action in two different locales helps us to evaluate the characters as the action builds
up to the moment when the mother and the brothers speak through each other and
some of the past is revealed. The influence of their mother's life and views on them
and their lives is seen as a continued presence through the device of having her
bedroom at a higher level and keeping it visible throughout the play. As we have
seen, Dattani exercises great care in ensuring through his detailed stage directions

4
that readers and potential directors understand all this. This division of the stage
allows clearly demarcated space for certain characters, or time periods, as well as for
different locales. He specifies the use of lighting for a similar purpose. This allows
Dattani to cut from one character to another, one time frame to another, one locale to
another as well as to fuse everything together when he needs to. This helps Dattani's
Dramatic him to build tension as well as further the action. The stage also becomes
emblematic World of the layered nature of our lives.

In On a muggy Night Mumbai, Dattani allows for at least three levels, including
one called 'shunya' where the true selves of the characters are revealed. C.K. Meena
says, in an article on Dattani, "Unmasking the Middle Class: The Drama of Mahesh
Dattani" (Indian Review of Books, Vol. 8, No. 6, 1999), that this distribution of "the
action among different levels on stage ... not only makes his plays visually exciting
but makes them move at a snappy pace." What do you think? Have you also noticed
how often Dattani uses an outsider as catalyst to the action? He also experiments
with symbolism (for example, the use of boilsai plants in Bravely Fought the Queen).
He departs from his usual style to include a chorus in Final Solutions. And the same
actors visibly play different roles in Dance Like a Man as we have seen. Dattani isn't
averse to experimentation and is an evolving playwright. What we have established
is that though Dattani seems to favour the well-made play as a vehicle, he doesn't
mind playing around with it, bending and twisting it to his will. The well-made play
is tailor made for Dattani because it essentially suits his kind of theatre where the
character is foregrounded and key actions are revealed in climaxes. This structure
helps him to build tension and to reveal things gradually till the tempo is heightened
to the climax. But at least two other things need to be said about Dattani's craft. Do
you know what they are? We haven't mentioned his humour as yet, nor have we
talked about his use of language. Dattani is essentially a comic writer. There is a
great deal of humour in his plays, from the subtle to the slapstick. Kusum Haider
points out in a review essay, "Essentially a Comic Muse" (The Book Review, Vol.
XXII, No. 3), that the tone of Dattani's "plays is light, there is bright comedy within
often sombre bounds." The comedy arises from Dattani's essential subject matter -
human behaviour. There is often comedy in the way people talk to each other as well
as in the way they present themselves to and perceive each other. But the amusing
dialogue does give way to dark truths. I would like to think that Dattani makes you
examine the spring-wells of your own sense of humour. Humour and laughter too are
ways of dealing with the world and its unpalatable truths. The most important
contribution of Dattani is perhaps his use of language. The note to his very first play,
Where There's a Will, reads as follows: Should the play be read in classrooms, I
sincerely wish that English language teachers ... will not dismiss my syntax as bad
English, or worse still as incorrect. While knowledge of the rules of grammar is
important, the richness and variety of the spoken word is a study in itself. The
5
characters, I am sure, would love to speak in Gujarati but have unfortunately been
conceived by a mind that thinks in English. This is not an apology, but a definition of
reality. In fact, it is this misfortune that puts all such works on edge, creating
challenges for both the performer and the serious student ... Dattani defends his use
of English as spoken by people in India but also goes on to make another serious
statement.

He says that his characters "would love to speak in Gujarati" and his challenge as a
writer is to convey their Gujaratiness without distortion in English. His Where
There's a Will is thus a Gujarati play in English set in Bangalore. Dattani's characters
speak the kind of English that most middle class Indians do. And they would
obviously speak in it in the same situations that we would. The challenge that Dattani
faces is not to allow the audience to feel that his use of English limits his range or
that of his characters. He has to attempt the same feeling of authenticity, of range and
of nuance, as a Gujarati playwright writing about the middle class. Do you think that
Datami manages this or do you think that his Tam characters end up speaking a
homogenised convent English? Does there remain a perennial limitation'! I feel that
Dattani manages to meet this character successfully. He is getting to be freer in. his
use of language to the extent of cracking inter-lingual jokes. As his characters begin
to move freely from English to Gujarati and Kannada (do not forget that he is a
Bangalore based playwright), much as middle class Gujarati residents of Bangalore,
his theatre became visibly (audibly?) more representative and accessible and
acceptable. Dattani, I think, has over a period of time managed to extend the range of
his language which made it more suitable

1.4 MAHESH DATTANI’S FINAL SOLUTIONS

India is a country of communal diversity. The existence of such society demands

mutual understanding among its religious sects. But more than once the harmonious
chord has strained and a series of communal riots has maligned her history –in the
recent decades the rot is a bit speedy. Wherein lies the solution to such communal
problems? Probably, Mahesh Dattani, the first Indo-English playwright to win the
prestigious Sahitya Academy Award in 1998, might have had one in his mind. The
present paper is a humble endeavour to analyze Dattani’s play ‘Final Solutions’
(1992) and unearth the touching issue of schism in relationship due to
misunderstanding between the two major religious factions- the Hindus and the
Muslims. ‘Final Solutions’ by Mahesh Dattani is a play which frames the time and its
burning problems. In this play particularly the issue of communal harmony is raised
and what takes the play to a different level is that the playwright tries to cater a
solution to the problem by bringing the followers of the two religions on an even

6
keel. Whether it remains a conjecture or whatever, is a different matter altogether,
but, no doubt, Dattani tries. In ‘The Shadow Lines’, Amitav Ghosh failed to reach
any solution of the raging problem of the divide between the Hindus and the
Muslims, in ‘Riot’ Shashi Tharoor struck at the root of the problem and in ‘Train to
Pakistan’ Khushwant Singh concludes with a ghastly scene of death where two
minds of two different religious sects though got united in love but in reality could
not. In the conclusion of this play by Mahesh Dattani, there is a striving for reaching
an amicable solution but it is still dubious, rather an expiatory note dominates. Which
then the Final Solution is? In the Note on the Play, the director of this play, Alyque
Padamsee is candid in his observations, “The demons of communal hatred are not
out on the street ….they are lurking inside ourselves. The mob in the play is
symbolic of our own hatred and paranoia. ….Can we shake off our prejudices or are
they in our psyche like our genes? Will we ever be free or ever-locked in combat
….Arabs against Jews, whites against blacks, Hindus against Muslims?” Later the
play was translated by Shahid Anwar into Hindi and directed by Arvind Gaur for
Asmita Theatre in 1998. The director, Arvind Gaur, in his note on the play observes,
“‘Final Solutions’ touches us, and the bitter realities of our lives …The past begins to
determine the outlook of the present and thus the earlier contradictions re-emerge.
No concrete solutions are provided in the play to the problem of communalism but it
raises questions on secularism and pseudo secularism. It forces us to look at
ourselves in relation to the attitudes that persist in the society. Since it is an
experiment in time and space and relates to memory, it is a play, which involves a lot
of introspection on the part of the characters in the play and thus induces similar
introspection in the viewers…The chorus represents the conflicts of the characters.
Thus the chorus in a sense is the psycho-physical representation of the characters and
also provides the audience with the visual images of the characters’ conflicts.

There is no stereotyped use of the characterization of the chorus because

communalism has no face, it is an attitude and thus it becomes an image of the
characters. The sets and properties used in the play are simple. This has been done to
accentuate the internal conflicts and the subtext of the play.” Now, let us take a close
look at the play and make our own analysis of the same. The play opens with a
Shaw-like elaborate stage direction. He puts masks on the Mob/Chorus to make the
frequent change of identity look natural. When the Chorus puts on Hindu-Muslim
masks, the schism is hinted at. When the Chorus whisper or shout along with a
character, its function is to articulate the inner feelings of that particular character.
Ramnik’s mother, Hardika, too had a sorrowful past which made her averse to the
other religious sect. While trying to migrate from the neighbouring country
[Hussainabad] to India got ghastly butchered [by whom?]. Her friend, Zarine’s
father’s dry fruits and sweetmeat shop stood burnt [by whom?] and he came to her
father-in-law, Wagh, in search of a job. But his entreaty was not complied with.
7
Thus, the underlying tension, resulting in a schism between the two sects continued.
Even this day, when Javed and Bobby ran for shelter into Smita’s house, the age-old
customs got the better of Aruna, Smita’s mother. Ramnik tried to make the two
Muslim boys, who happened to be known to Smita, his college-going daughter, feel
comfortable in his house, setting the mob’s demand to hand the boys over to them, at
naught. Even he went to the extent of offering Javed a job in his shop, which Javed
declined to accept. The shop, which Ramnik’s father took from Zarine’s father,
could, no doubt, solve Javed’s financial uncertainty. But, ages of alienation, feeling
of otherness found voice through Javed’s spurning the offer: Javed: I didn’t ask you
for a job! So you can keep your fucking job! Bobby [to Ramnik]: It’s not true what
he says! Please Sir, believe me, he is not……… Javed [screaming at Bobby]: Stop
defending me! Do you think he cares? Ramnik: I care. Yes! It is you who are
indifferent. You don’t believe in anything except yourself! Javed: I believe in myself.
Yes! What else have I got to believe in? It’s people like you who drive me to a
corner and I have to turn to myself and my faith. I have a lot to thank you for!

In Act III, the conversation between Ramnik and Javed rises to such a crescendo that
Javed speaks his heart out in vehemence and inflicts the attack on a community
which appears inimical to him:

Ramnik: Why do you distrust us?

Javed: Do you trust us?

Ramnik: I don’t go about throwing stones!

Javed: But you do something more violent. You provoke! You make me
throw stones! Every time I look at you, my bile rises!

Such communal hatred calls for a close scrutiny of relationship between the two
communities referred to. History, no doubt, will put forth a sanguinary document of
constant friction and animosity between the two communities, resulting in partition!
Thus, the seed had been sown since many years, which has simply grown into a tall
tree now!

In Act I, Bobby and Javed are seen to be nabbed by the Chorus when they start to
leave for Jeevnagar that night when the curfew got clamped at Amargaon following a
communal riot. As and when they are found to be Muslims, they are attacked by the
Chorus. They run for life and takes shelter in Ramnik Gandhi’s residence. The
Chorus come baying for the boys’ blood and keeps thundering Ramnik’s door. When
Ramnik comes to their rescue, his wife, Aruna, gets flung to fury as all his prejudices

8
regarding religion get a major blow and Hardika keeps lamenting, “How could he let
these people into my house?......They killed his grandfather.....They will hate us for
protecting them. Asking for help makes them feel they are lower than us. I know!
..…They don’t want equality. They want to be superior.” Thus, the homely ambience
gets ruffled. Aruna even fumbles to give them a glass of water to slake their thirst.
Aruna flies to hat extent that she asks her husband to open the door and hand the
boys over to the infuriated mob. Aruna cringes in hatred when Ramnik asks to offer
them food as they might have been hungry and exhausted. The Chorus keeps
shouting, “Throw them out!” and Hardika chimes in unison, charging Ramnik, “Why
did you let them in? Why?” It is Smita who used to know them since long and hence
they can stay back. In fact, the light, the Chorus — all are synchronized in such a
way that the play comes alive on the stage. Smita takes a deep breath to say, “I know
who they are….This is Tasneem’s brother, Javed and this….is Babban –Bobby—
Tasneem’s fiancé.” It also becomes clear that Bobby will marry Tasneem shortly.
And, it comes out to the open too, that Smita had crush on Bobby for some time. But,
the question of religion stopped her from advancing any further. It also emerges from
the conversation that Javed is a restless, indecisive person who does not stay with his
parents and is jobless. Javed flies to the tangent crying, “We do love our own blood.
Unlike you who treat your own like shit which can’t be touched.” Aruna does not
lose her temperament but protests calmly, “Who gave you the right to criticize us.
We who have given you protection.”

An exchange of views follows, which calls for immediate submission from Bobby
and Javed, who get shelter at Ramnik’s house. Bobby and Javed get shelter at
Smita’s house for the night. The reason that kicks off the riot drives Ramnik to think
everything anew. He sorts a sundry issues with Bobby and Javed. The conversation
brings out the truth to the open—Javed has been rendered a scapegoat by the fanatics
of his own community who have simply used him! But Hardika cannot come to
terms with the fact that her son, Ramnik, has offered Javed a job in their shop. She
cannot forgive the people of that community, who brutally killed her father. Hardika
keeps musing to herself, as seen in Act II: “That night I couldn’t sleep. I listened. I
was angry that Ramnik was blinded by his ideals. Why did he offer that boy a job in
our shop? What was he doing? How did he know they were innocent? Couldn’t he
see there was more violence in that boy’s eyes than those stone throwers’ threats? He
wasn’t just saving two boys from getting killed. This was something else Ramnik
was trying to do.” Smita came to learn the secret of Javed’s source of living. He
acted as a hired hooligan to earn his livelihood. And for that reason only, his father
threw him out of the house. Javed got puce in anger and Bobby tried to pacify him by
retorting: “I had won him over …..I had….almost won him over.” But even at the
end of Act II, no solution to the problem of the great divide between the Hindus and
the Muslims is seen to be tabled. Use of theatrical devices is perfect in Act III where
9
three stage-spaces are used by Bobby and Javed [the floor], the Muslim Chorus
[highest level of the ramp] and Daksha [the other side of the stage where the light
focuses after skimming past the Hindu and the Muslim Chorus].

The dilemma, the heart-shattering guilt-feelings of Javed, Daksha’s reminiscing of

the past—all throw considerable light on the relationship between the two
communities which stand on precarious crossroads. The Chorus philosophizes:
Chorus I: Should we be swallowed up? Till they cannot recognize us? Should we
meld into anonymity so they cannot hound us? ……….A drop of oil cannot merge
with an ocean of milk. One reality cannot accept another reality. Bobby and Javed
are conversing and it appears that Javed is in for a change, Bobby: Nobody will
believe that you have changed. Javed: Have I….changed? Bobby: Why do you doubt
it? Javed: I cannot think anymore. But how far the change is towards a positive end,
that is far from predicting. Ramnik again offers the job and Javed raises the issue of
mutual trust between two communities thus picking up a quarrel afresh. Ramnik, too,
calls him ‘hired hoodlum’, ‘riot-rouser’. However, Bobby relates to Ramnik the
reason of Javed’s turning into a zealot: “A minor incident changed all that. …We
were playing cricket on our street with the younger boys. The postman delivered our
neighbour’s mail. He dropped one of the letters. He was in a hurry and asked Javed
to hand the letter over to the owner. Javed took the letter ….and opened the gate.
Immediately, a voice boomed, ‘What do you want?’ I can still remember Javed
holding out the letter and mumbling something, his usual firmness vanishing in a
second, ‘Leaving it on the wall’ the voice ordered. Javed backed away, really
frightened. We all watched as the man came out with a cloth in his hand. He wiped
the letter before picking it up, he then wiped the spot on the wall the letter was lying
on and he wiped the gate!..... We all heard a prayer-bell, ringing continuously. Not
loud. But distinct…..” Javed, thus, turned into an arch-enemy of a particular
community. Then, was it his fault to nurse hatred against this community? When
asked about his reaction, on hearing the prayer-bell after the incident, Bobby too
said that he felt equally ‘angry’ as Javed. After learning the background of Javed’s
‘hooliganism’, Ramnik saw reason and blurted forth, ‘And we are to blame.’ Even
sensible Ramnik tries to make Aruna see reason: “There is no magnanimity in not
allowing a Muslim boy touch our God or the water with which our God is bathed .”
And, Javed feels remorseful that he did not listen to Bobby when he ‘tried so hard to
talk him out of it’ tried to dissuade him from coming to Amargaon.

A solution is catered cleverly, - a ‘hired hoodlum’ gets back to senses, feels repentant
for his wrong-doings, keeps changing into a better leaf gradually. Smita, whose love-
affair with Bobby did not materialize, comes up with numerous queries which
clamour for befitting rejoinders. In Act III, Smita charges Aruna, her mother
straightaway, “I can see so clearly how wrong you are. You accuse me of running

10
away from my religion how wrong you are. You accuse me of running away from
my religion. Maybe I shouldn’t be. What if I did what you do? Praying and fasting
and purifying myself all day……” Aruna feels shocked and asks her daughter
whether ‘being a Hindu stifles her!’ Smita blatantly, rather unabashedly, replies, ‘No,
living with one does.’ Thus, Smita needed opening up her heart and putting forth
opinions regarding her mother’s prejudices and wrong-beliefs in the name of sanskar.
After taking refuge at Ramnik’s residence, when Bobby and Javed are about to leave
finally, Bobby breaks all norms by lifting the tiny image of Lord Krishna from the
altar in Aruna’s pooja-room and declaring in front of all, “See! See! I am touching
God!....Your God! My flesh is holding Him! Look, Javed! And He does not
mind!...He does not burn me to ashes! He does not cry out from the heavens saying
He has been contaminated!...Look how He rests in my hands! He knows I cannot
harm Him. He knows His strength! I don’t believe in Him but He believes in me. He
smiles! He smiles at our trivial pride and our trivial shame…..He feels me. And he
welcomes it! I hold Him who is sacred to them, but I do not commit sacrilege. [To
Aruna] You can bathe Him day and night, you can splash holy waters on Him but
you cannot remove my touch from His form. You cannot remove my smell with
sandal paste and attars and fragrant flowers because it belongs to a human being who
believes, and tolerates, and respects what other human beings believe. That is the
strongest fragrance in the world!” Aruna screams against the sacrilege while Bobby
rejoins, “The tragedy is that there is too much that is sacred. But if we understand
and believe in one another, nothing can be destroyed.” Is it not a call for a final
solution to a burning problem? But, the fact is that, it is only a suggestion that needs
practice and immediate implementation. Even after the two Muslim boys leave,
numerous queries keep floating in the air demanding answers. Ramnik decides not to
go to his shop as it assails him till date to accept the fact that, “It’s the same burnt-up
shop we bought from them at half its value.’ He confesses candidly, ‘And we burnt
it. Your husband. My father. And his father. They had burnt it in the name of
communal hatred.” He doubts whether he will be able to step into the shop once
again. He felt a need to expiate now by handing it over to Javed. He seems
determined to call Javed and pass it on to him as a legacy he [as a representative of
the sect] is supposed to inherit: “When these boys came here, I thought, I
would………I hoped I would be able to set things right. I-I wanted to tell them that
they are not the only ones who have destroyed. I just couldn’t .I don’t think I have
the face to tell anyone. [Pause] So it wasn’t that those people hated you. It wasn’t
false pride or arrogance. [A Noor Jehan song can be heard very faintly]It was anger.
[Italics mine] “ His mother, old Hardika, gets a shock of her life to learn the truth [or,
shame?]She was unaware of so long. But, her son consoles her, ‘You have to live
with this shame only for a few years now.’ Doesn’t it sound as a hollow solace
especially when he is assailed by the misgivings whether the boy would ‘come even

11
if called to take charge of their shop.’ Or, ‘it might be too late now.’ However, a
humane solution is proffered to iron off all points of misunderstanding or confusion
the two sects might have between them! This play is a response to Mahesh Dattani’s
reaction to the sporadic communal riots, breaking forth here and there, at different
times. When asked if he was upset to see the problems—social, political or
unconventional, he says, “They invariably do. Social issues move me and I like to
examine an idea from different angles.

The plays where the content came first are On a Muggy Night and Final Solutions.
As for the latter, I was asked to write a play about communal tensions and I said,
‘what can one write about that other than platitudes?’ But out of that churning
emerged Final Solutions.” [From excerpts of a newspaper interview] Though Shashi
Tharoor’s ‘Twenty-two months in the Life of a Dog: A Farce in Two Acts’ does not
deal with exactly the same ordeal, it reflects the complexity arising out of Emergency
in 1975. Ezekiel’s ‘Don’t Call it Suicide’ which was earlier titled Soft and Sad Music
is about the plight of sensitive individuals in this harsh world of stark realities. In
The Statesman[dated 25.02.09]in a detailed cover-page report titled ‘Lest We
Remember’ published under the section “Riot Act” ,while writing about a communal
riot in Lucknow almost 19 years ago, which claimed more than 130 lives, the
reporter observes, “At the time of the riots, Muslims had put up posters that said:
‘Hindustan mein rehna hain to Allah-o-Akbar kehna hain[if you want to live in India,
you must praise Allah]’,remembers using the term loosely-a leading light of the
Hindu community. ‘Bharat mein rehna hain to Vande Mataram kehna hain if you
want to live in India, you must say Vande Mataram’ is what the provocative posters
pasted by Hindu activists screamed, ripostes his Muslim Doppelganger.” If we take a
few Indian English novels at a glance, we are sure to find this issue of communal
hatred portrayed, quite faithfully. Amitav Ghosh , in his well-acclaimed novel, ‘The
Shadow Lines’, touched upon a similar sensitive issue of schism between the two
religious sects but dared not cater any ‘final solution’ to the burning problem,
resulting into partition. In a recent bestselling popular fiction, ‘The 3 Mistakes of My
Life’ by Chetan Bhagat, the reference to the hair-raising portrayal of communal riot
after the Godhra incident in Gujarat, is horrifying. Omi’s uncle, Mama, the leader of
a communal party, tries to kill a boy of the opponent sect just by way of revenge of
the murder of his own son: “‘I want the boy. I want that Muslim boy,’ Mama said.
‘What?’ Ish said. ‘Eye for an eye. I’ll slaughter him right here. Then I will cry for my
son. Get the fucking boy,’ Mama said and thumped his chest. His struggled to stand
straight. The blow torches lit up the dried grass on the entrance of the bank. A thick
lock kept the gate shut and the mob outside.” Such communal riots, however, cannot
be pooh-poohed away as we stay in a country which has a history drenched in the
blood of the people of these two religious communities. Chetan Bhagat, too, tries to
cater a solution through mutual understanding and amity, as he shows Omi
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sacrificing his own life while saving Ali, the little cricket talent. At the bottom, we
all are friends, having no enmity. It is only the fanatics, the bigots, who kick up
horrendous altercations to make firm the schism between the Hindus and the
Muslims, which we have already witnessed in Manohar Malgonkar’s A Bend in the
Ganges, where the vetting of the male sex-organ went on, to detect the religious
identity of everyone on the train entering Pakistan. If found a non-Muslim, the rioters
did not hesitate to hack the innocent victims to death. Hence, a solution was the
crying need of the hour, where Mahesh Dattani has boldly stepped in. Mahesh
Dattani successfully shows a ray of hope by rousing the conscience up from slumber,
through curing the ailment of communal hatred, causing momentary rage,
culminating into violence. ‘Final Solutions’ by Mahesh Dattani is an answer to a
long-pestering issue, without an iota of doubt. Communal attitudes are deeply
embedded within the characters and the symbolic interchanging of Hindu and
Muslim masks in the Mob/Chorus is extended on to the characters. Ramnik is as
much a staunch Hindu as a liberal he professes to be, Javed and Bobby are as much
staunch Muslims as helpless protection seekers they appear to be. It only needs an
innocuous pretext to spark off the seeds of communal violence and religious hatred
which is already located within the individuals. And this characteristic has been
handed down by history which is subtly suggested through the narrative’s frequent
movements back in time. For Dattani, the contemporary nation is one where religious
attitudes have been a product of history. Through the device of the diary two distinct
phases of the same character, separated by forty years, is merged, subtly suggesting
that the narratives of hatred too have not changed much.

Theatrically, visually, this is of immense significance. In a performance of Final

Solutions the age difference between Daksha and Hardika would appear so stark that
the ideology of ‘things have not changed that much’ would be shockingly pertinent.
It is this effect that Dattani wishes to create in his readers/audience and the effect
continues throughout the play. The Daksha-Zarine friendship is replicated in Smita-
Tasneen; Javed’s hatred is the same as that of Zarine’s. All the years of independence
have not been able to differentiate between Javed’s and Zarine’s sense of being ‘less
in number’. Daksha is Hardika’s memory and at the same time her warning to be on
guard as history seems to repeat itself. Daksha’s life has taught Hardika to suspect.
Hardika is overcautious and apprehensive as she foregrounds the entry of Javed and
Bobby even before they have appeared on stage. The two boys remind her of some
permanent scars in her mind created forty years back: “It was those two boys running
away who frightened me. Those two who were begging for their lives. Tomorrow
they will hate us for it. They will hate us for protecting them…All those memories
came back when I saw the pride in their eyes! I know their wretched pride! It had
destroyed me before and I was afraid it would destroy my family again!” Memory
hence emerges as a central theme in Final Solutions. It is through memory that
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Dattani points to the circuitous course of hatred. The sense of merging of the
generations of Hardika and Javed is brilliantly suggested: Hardika: ……. Your sister
deserves it ! Zarine deserves.. (Pause) What did you say your sister’s name was?
Javed : Tasneem Hardika : Oh. I thought it was Zarine. Indeed Dattani’s careful
manipulation of memory as an index to questions of identity and power is crucial to
his entire oeuvre. As Alyque Padamsee asks: “Is life a forward journey or do we
travel round in a circle, returning to our starting point?” In her essay on Final
Solutions, Angelie Multani also poses a set of similar questions: “What then is the
‘final solution’? Is one even possible? Would it be better for us to stop trying to find
the final answer, and just try to make our own peace with ourselves and those around
us? Is it possible to atone for the past?…” It is in this context that we need to take a
closer look at the title of Dattani’s play. The very word ‘final’ subverts the possibility
of a ‘solution’ since Dattani deliberately sticks to the plural—‘solutions’, thereby
questioning the justification of ‘final’. Angelie Multani points out that in this
deliberate subversion lies the repetitive nature of communal violence, guilt and
hatred— “The title of Dattani’s play on communal violence and tensions in
contemporary urban India itself calls to attention the apparent insolubility of this
situation….It is indeed, this very search for a final solution, which in many ways
perpetuates the cycle of violence and hatred.” The cycle of hatred and as Alyque
Padamsee terms it; ‘transferred resentments’ seem to continue. Ironically, ten or
twenty years after the Babri Masjid demolition, the country was subjugated to yet
more phases of communal violences: the Godhra carnage, 2002 or the riots in Assam,
2012—making the ironic quality of Dattani’s title disturbingly pertinent.

1.5 LET’S SUM UP

Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solution deals particularly with the riot that is a frequent
phenomenon in country like India in the name of religion .The religious fanatics take
role to play and they create situation which lead to worst turn and the cause of
communal riot , curfew become the mayhem of the day .Through this play Dattani
tries to get an ultimate solution to this rampant event which need to be addressed and
through art as a medium having faced challenges yet succeeded in spreading the
message of communal brotherhood and rose above religious boundedness .

1.6 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

1) Thematic aspect in the play ?

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2) Character analysis of Javed ?
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3) Is the title justified “Final Solution” ?
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UNIT 2 : THEMATIC ASPECT IN MAHESH DATTANI’S
FINAL SOLUTIONS

Structure
2.0 Objective
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Articulation of the Voice of Subalterns: Final Solutions
2.3 Communal Violence in Final Solutions:
2.4 Dynamics of Human Relationship in Final Solutions-
2.5 Gender Issues in Final Solutions
2.6 Psycho-Sociological Analysis of the Indian Society in Final Solutions
2.7 Caricature of Patriarchy in Final Solutions
2.8 Defence of Scarred Psyche in Final Solutions
2.9 Music as Motif in Final Solutions
2.10 Silence, Suffering and Sunshine in Final Solutions
2.11 Social Vision as Reflected in Final Solutions
2.12 Vision and Visuals as Depicted in Final Solutions
2.13 Deconstructed Family in Final Solutions
2.14 Presentation of Contemporaneity in Final Solution
2.15 Locating the Self in Final Solution
2.16 Social Exclusion in Final Solution
2.17 Technique and Stage Craft in Final Solutions
2.18 The Use of Dialogues in the Play Final Solutions
2.19 The Presentation of Moral Issues in Final Solutions
2.20 Telescoping Past and Present
2.21 Let us sum up
2.22 Check your progress
2.23 Reference

2.0 OBJECTIVE
The objective of this unit is to
 get a thorough study of different ideology in the play

16
  be it past and present relation or deconstructed family.

2.1 INTRODUCTION
In this unit we have dealt with different aspect be it Gender Issues in Final Solutions,
Psycho-Sociological Analysis of the Indian Society in Final Solutions, Caricature of
Patriarchy in Final Solutions, Defence of Scarred Psyche in Final Solutions, Music
as Motif in Final Solutions, Silence, Suffering and Sunshine in Final Solutions,
Social Vision as Reflected in Final Solutions. These are the different themes can be
prominently seen in the play .

2.2 ARTICULATION OF THE VOICE OF SUBALTERNS:

FINAL SOLUTIONS

Mahesh Dattani’s play Final Solution presents the voice of subaltern who suffer from
upcoming prejudices and react against the passionate and even violent hatred. The
play deals with larger issues of socio-political life such as the search for
identity-individual, communal and social, loss of faith and security, continuous
aggressive anger against the other community. The play is set against the riots after
the demolition of the Mosque and its aftermath almost after in the communal riots in
the states like Gujarat and others all over the country. Though the issues are broad,
large and national as well as international, encompassing the majority and minority
communities in the social fabric of India, the issues are presented through interaction
among some individuals and the member of a family in Kamargaon in Gujarat.

The family is headed by Ramnik Gandhi. His mother Hardika (Daksha of 1940s), his
wife Aruna and his daughter Smita and their house come two young Muslim boys
Bobby and Javed. The social and communal conflict is presented through the familial
conflict. In this play, the family unit represents the entire society of the past as well
as the present. The present living space of the Gandhi family is presented as bare
house presentation, with just wooden blocks for furniture. The other two places
mentioned are the kitchen and the pooja (worship) room. It is shown that there is a
very close relationship between religious beliefs and food habits. The theme and
concern which occupies the central position is that of communalism and how do
people from both communities deal with it and react to it. The memories of partition
and the consequent violence establish the fact that these memories and the
representation of the 1947. Communal violence will never enable the two
communities to forgive each other and themselves though that is the only final
solution to the issue of violent communalism. The barehouse of Ramniklal Gandhi,
the fact that he himself states that he has a saree shop, not a very big one in the

17
market area indicate the reality that he belongs to and heads a middle-class family of
not a very high income now. The status of the family is not very high and that the
represents a common household in the village Kamargaon. They represent the class
of the ordinary individuals. Their lives are marked by the “subalternity” of the lower
middle classes. They are not the makers of history but they are the part and parcel of
every historical event and both the participants and sufferers victim of the historical
events, what-happened after the partition of the country in 1947 and after the
Demolition of the Mosque in recent times is witnessed by them. They- the members
of Gandhi family-Ramniklal his mother, his wife and his daughter have memories of
the past through Daksha­Hardika’s entries in her diary and presently too they witness
the communal violence around as helpless, passive individuals who are subordinate
citizens belonging to the common humanity articulating the voice of the subaltern.

The play Final Solution is on communal violence and has not much to reveal about
the alternate sexualities. Javed and Babban or Bobby have come to Kamargaon
village days before the communal riots started. They had come to meet Tasneem
when Smita knows Javed as Tasneem’s brother and Bobby as Tasneem’s fiancée.
Smita: Why am I being asked all these question? I recognise two boys ... and this is
what you do! (Pause... points to Javed). This is Tasneem’s brother, Javed and this....
is Babban­Bobby Tasneem’s fiancée. Smita knows the two boys who have come to
Ramnik Gandhi's house in order to escape the wrath of the violent mob that is about
to attack them. For some time there has been some attachment between Bobby and
Smita though this did not grow as Smita came to know about the romance between
Bobby and Tasneem. Though the love-affair between Bobby and Tasneem is not at
all a case of alternate sexuality as it is a regular romantic love-affair between.
Tasneem and Bobby They, of-course, are busy in their love making which is known
to Javed who is Tasneem’s brother. The parents of both the lovers as yet do not know
about the proximity between the two young lovers and therefore the love affair is still
a secret affair among the four persons- Tasneem and her friend Smita, Tasneem’s
brother Javed and her lover Babban –Bobby. Smita has another friend who is Zarine
to whose place she goes to listen to the songs on the gramophone and does that once
or twice. Smita: Look, all I know is what I have seen. Bobby comes to college quite
often... to meet Tasneem. She...They used to go out quite often ... there’s no harm in
that, they are getting married anyway. Ramnik: No, there’s no harm in that. Smita:
And Javed- I have seen him once when I dropped Tasneem at her hostel. He was
standing there waiting for her... she told me later who he was (Pause) that is all.
Javed (Ramnik): My father didn’t tell you about me becausehe didn’t know where I
was (defiantly), I don’t live with my parents. This is how Smita explains how she
knows the two boys who have come to Gandhi’s house in such an explosive
atmosphere of brutal communal violence. The theme of communal violence does not

18
have the angle of sexuality except this one which has explained by Smita and
accepted be her father and both the boys Javed and Bobby. Mahesh Dattani's play
deal with alternate sexualities quite often but Final Solutions is a play which is more
social and political overtones and therefore the sexual angle is not given much
prominence in it. The love affair between the two is of course a matter that is
approved socially.

2.3 COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN FINAL SOLUTIONS

In the plays like Final Solutions by Mahesh Dattani violence marks the boundaries of
the community. Violence marks the limits of community. Violence occurs at or
beyond the limit. Daksha of the 1940s is now Hardika in her old age. She has seen
communal violence in all its aspects right from the days of the partition that divided
the nations and after the partition there have been many occurrences such as the riots
after the demolition of the Babri Mosque and the riots in Gujarat after the Godhra
episode. Daksha is now called Hardika. Daksha is exposed to the presence and
possibility of violence. Her friendship with Zarine is not understood in its right
perspective by all. She is rejected by her friend. She is beaten up by her husband. She
is locked up. Hari’s family does not want her singing film songs, not even her
humming a love song to Hari, her husband. She mentions the most terrible thing that
happened in India in the 1940s. The most terrible event was the partition of the
country on communal lives. The partition brought the outbreak of communal
violence and riots in different parts of country. It is estimated that sixteen million
people have lost their homes and were dislocated. Many more were killed, raped,
forced to covert and were separated from their families. These political and economic
battles have continued for the last six decades or so. In the 1990s the communal riots
flared up after the demolition of Babri Mosque and then again this communal
violence had its outbreak in 2002 in the wake of the incidents after the burning at
Godhra station. In the play, the riots take place on account of the political
differences, an economic and business rivalry between the Hindus and Muslim.

The Gandhi family has made several efforts to buy over the business run by Zarine’s
family. Their attempts failed. Then they take the advantage or rather a disadvantage
of communal riots in that of the country and burn the store. Then they buy this store
to run their own Saree shop there. Ramnik Gandhi offers a job to Javed not with a
genuine desire to help but out of his sense of guilt. His gesture is communal one. His
liberalism is fake and superficial. “You can handle those Bohara and Momen women
who usually pass by our showroom.” This is how the past lives on. It cannot be
forgotten. It continues vitiate present. The past continues to affect the present.
Daksha cannot and has not forgotten the betrayal by Zarine. This personal betrayal

19
generalised into a hatred for the entire community. As Daksha cannot forget and the
suffering inflicted, similarly Javed cannot forget the insult he faced from a Hindu
priest. Therefore in his acts of violence he seeks to revenge upon the entire Hindu
community. Both-Daksha as well as Javed –are trapped in the cycles of hate and they
often repeat that they cannot forget. Ramnik too cannot forget and forgive the crime
committed by his father and grandfather.

He remains a dried off. He is torn between his intellectual beliefs and his emotional
attachments. All of them-Daksha, Ramnik and Javed suffer as victims of their
prejudices and intolerance which ultimately breaks out into chaos and communal
violence. 6.4Breaking Margins to Make Spaces in Final Solutions- The margins are
broken by Smita the liberal daughter of Aruna and Ramnik Gandhi. Aruna is busy
preparing for her morning prayers, Smita takes Javed and Bobby with her to help her
to fill the water for this ceremony. The margins, the barriers do not allow the
non-Hindus, in fact bar them to touch any object that is required for a prayer
ceremony. Smita, Javed and Bobby step at of the house. The house as symbolises the
prejudices and the religious beliefs. Smita playfully and inertly splashes water on the
two boys and she thus breaks the narrow margin of tradition set-up that has brought
and continual the communal divide between the two communities of the country. The
division is so acute that even the “touch” as if pollutes the sanctity of the ritual. Javed
hears the sound of the bell and becomes stiffened. This is his instinctive reaction. He
is reminded of the prejudices and the humiliating experiences he has faced in his
entire life. At this juncture Bobby takes the matters in his hands and deals with this
situation boldly. He deliberately walks into the prayer room. He picks up the idol of
Lord Krishna in his hands. This is an act which is tremendously “profane”. Bobby
has touched the idol of a Hindu god with his “infidel” hands. He is a “yawan” (an
outsider, an alien to the Hindu religion) and has no right to touch a Hindu god like
Lord Krishna. Bobby finds that Lord Krishna’s idol in his hands becomes warm
which comforts him, gives him solace and pacifies his spirit. He takes the bold step
of handling in his own hands the Lord’s idol. Bobby states that Lord Krishna is not
defiled by his touch. Lord Krishna and Bobby’s hands are in a very welcome
position. Bobby is not humiliated but the God has accepted Bobby and Bobby’s
touch warmly, gracefully, pleasantly. This is the touch of a human being. This is the
touch of the person who respects the beliefs of others and who tolerates the religion
of others. After all, basic human love, trust and tolerance are needed to establish
social, economic, religious and political harmony. Bobby, the Muslim youth has not
come forward to break the image as the others of his religion did by defying the
sanctity of temples and other places of worship. Daksha was convinced of the fact
that she liked Noor Jehan’s songs and so angry Krishna has instructed of smashing
all her records of Noor Jehan in the riots. It is Lord Krishna who accepts the touch of

20
the Hindu and the non-Hindu with equal equanimity, with impartiality with total
detachment. Lord Krishna desires to spread the message that forgiveness is the final
solution to communal hatred, jealousy and divide. Mutual trust and disintegrated love
cement the bond. The old narrow beliefs about the division among the masses into
different religious groups divide, break and tear the social fabric. Making spaces for
both the communities to adjust and to accommodate and to come together is what is
needed. Breaking of margins, the barriers, the prohibitions is the way to expand the
spaces. This is what is done by Smita who takes Javed and Bobby to fill in the water
from tap in the basket and the water needed for prayers and then Bobby lifting the
idol of Lord Krishna.

2.4 DYNAMICS OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIP IN FINAL

SOLUTIONS

The birth of India and Pakistan brought in its wake a traumatic disaster of partition
among the Hindus and Muslims. Dislocation, riots, violence, rapes, mass migration
marked the tensions in the atmosphere. What began in 1947 has continued in the last
seven decades, has continued relentlessly causing violence, bloodshed and atrocities
of all types. Human beings behaved inhumanly. The basic human values were
thrown away and crushed cruelly. Those were the senseless times but even after the
seventy years the times and the circumstances have not changed a little. 15-08-1947
partition, 1948 riots, 1992 (06-12-1992) Babri Mosque demolition and riots, 1993
Bombay bomb blasts, 2002 post-Godhra riots and 26/11 terrorist attack on Mumbai
show that the violence has continued to disrupt the dynamics of basic human
relations on communal grounds. Daksha established a very harmonious relationship
with Zarine. There was a clear establishment of deep and firm bonds of human
relationships between Daksha and her Muslim friend Zarine and between Smita and
her friend Tasneem. Both Zarine and Tasneem are quite often mentioned and
described in the play. They do not appear in person and in action in Final Solutions.
Daksha and Zarine present a pair of beauties who have similar musical tastes and
both have closely attached identities. They represent the harmonious golden past of
the close human relationships between the Hindus and the Muslims who used to live
in total harmony and comfortable peace. Daksha and Zarine enjoyed immensely the
singing by Noor Jehan and three of them- Daksha, Zarine and Noor Jehan singing
together in perfect unison. This is one pair of a Hindu woman and a Muslim woman
who enjoyed perfect bliss in their network of human relationships of love and trust.
The dynamics of human relationships of the Hindus and Muslims in India are of two
brotherhoods, full of love and loyalty, sincerity of devotion, firmness of trust and
deeply entrenched in humanitarianism. Smita and Tasneem are studying in the same
college and both are close friends. Smita visits Tasneem quite often in her hostel. She

21
knows both Tasneem’s brother Javed and Tasneem’s lover and fiancée Babban or
Bobby. In the family of Ramnik Gandhi, these are four persons. Ramnik’s mother
Daksha of the past and Hardika of the present and his wife Aruna both hold fast to
orthodox traditional beliefs and customs. Smita is his young daughter who has liberal
ideas and progressive views and holds fast to the network of mutually comfortable,
trustworthy, loving human relationships. She is open-minded and so takes Javed and
Bobby to the tap and makes them fill the bucket and pot full of water. She allows
both the Muslim youths to help her till the water for ceremony. She challenges the
traditional belief and does not believe in age-old prejudices. Bobby too responds to
her gesture and with great respect and humility holds the idol of Lord Krishna in his
hands. Both Smita and Bobby through the bond of human relationships prove that
after all the entire humanity has the same values to follow; respect what others
believe, tolerate the views of others, be eqanimous, be compassionate, be loving to
everyone else and that is how build the dynamics of human relationships.

2.5 GENDER ISSUES IN FINAL SOLUTIONS

The division of identities occurred when two nations were established on the basis
of religious identities. The terrible rioting, communal and religious disharmony and
uncontrollable violence threw up countless such incidents in independent and secular
India. The communal violence and unrest that has continued during the last seventy
years and one form it always formulated and that was to publically put to shame a
woman’s honour just because she belonged to another religion. Daksha declares,
“Dear diary today is the first time I have dared to put my thought on your pages...31
March, 1948”.

After forty years Daksha-Hardika observes that things have not changed very much.
The terrible communal divide has continuously grown monotonously. Daksha’s
gramophone record were smashed by the stone thrown from outside and the records
are cracked. The gender issue is transparent here. Daksha is not allowed to continue
her friendly relations with her friend Zarine, both belonging to same gender. The
gender issue that is presented in this play is the subordination and suppression of the
female gender. Daksha is not allowed to say a love-song to her husband Hari. She
was commanded by her in-laws to remain silent and never to sing. She started going
to Zarine’s house to satisfy her thirst for music which was her aesthetic taste. Her
visits to Zarine’s house were stopped, on the suspicion that she tasted food at
Zarine’s place; she was beaten up and locked within. Her simple desire to listen to
the singer- Noor Jehan’s song could not be fulfilled. She was prevented even to wish
to listen to the songs by Noor Jehan because the singer is Muslim from Pakistan. She
is discriminated on account of her gender- her being a female. The gender issue

22
noticed in the case of other female characters in the play Final Solution. In the next
generation is Aruna­Ramniklal Gandhi’s wife. She is traditionalist in her thoughts
and actions. She is in the prayer room ringing the bell and pouring water on Lord
Krishna’s idol. Her views are held fast by her but her daughter and her husband have
views which are opposite to her views. Towards the end Smita tells her that she kept
herself silent because she did not want to her mother. Ramnik too does the same.
Even then it is clearly noticed that both the father and the daughter many times
bypass the grandmother Daksha-Hardika and the mother Aruna. These two elderly
women are treated rather discriminately. The gender issues are noticed in the cases of
Zarine and Tasneem though both of them never appear in person in the play but both
have their impact of the dramatic action of the play. They represent the same
discrimination on account of their gender as practised by both the major communities
in India- the Hindus and the Muslims. Smita is a progressive liberal minded young
woman who openly advocates the final solution of forget and forgive and thus
establishes the empowerment of women that is steadily increasing in India.

2.6 PSYCHO-SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE INDIAN

SOCIETY IN FINAL SOLUTIONS

Mahesh Dattani through his dramatic world presents the articulation of the voice of
common man-the subaltern. He sketches the psycho-sociological analysis scenario of
the contemporary times through his dramatic works such as Final Solutions. He
attempts the search for the self and society. He is in search for independent Indian
identity through theatrical tradition which is quite contemporary both in form and
content. Final Solutions is a radio play on the issue of communal violence which
often disintegrates national integrity destroys the graceful human relationships.
According to Alyque Padmsee, the noted director and theatre personality, the play
Final Solutions is about transferred resentment, people when they feel humiliated or
let down begin to look for scapegoat. They begin to take their anger on their wife,
children or servants, is an old Indian custom. This is above all a play about a family
with simmering undercurrents. Anger gives a psychological tinge to a socio-
psychological issue. The play Final Solutions is rooted in the familial as well as
individual realities that combine to form the complete whole. The crowd outside
shouts “throw them out, we’ll kill them”. The irrational behaviour of the mob is the
external manifestation of the prejudice that admits no rational justification of human
thoughts. The gestures, the action, the dialogues are all coordinated to expose the
fury of the mob and also its frenzy to kill the young boys. The Ramnik is determined
to protect the young boys. The dialogues between Ramnik and chorus suggest the
conflict between fundamentalist and liberal-which presents the psycho-sociological
analysis of the contemporary Indian society. Ramnik even explodes in anger and asks

23
his wife Aruna, “What do you want me to do? Throw them out, they’ll be
butchered.”

The dramatic conflict has minutely recorded the integrated reactions that erupted in
the human psyche quite often. These sharp reactions erupt spontaneously and match
with external chain of events. The reactions have the psychological base while the
events have the sociological perspectives. The inevitable and invisible clash of
motives is noticed between the individual’s noble ideals and the social priorities
which are charged by hatred, revenge motives and violent outbursts. The chorus
warns Aruna to be aware of the moves and motives of the two young Muslim boys,
“They will stab you in the back! They’ll rape your daughter ...throw them out.”

Aruna’s hesitation is coordinated with the thoughts of the mob and the chorus. This
makes a pattern of religious prejudices that leads to the religious frenzy which is the
power behind the violence between communal groups in India-right from the
partition of 1947 to the terrorist attack of 26/11. It is clear that communal violence is
a man-made chaos and it emerges after the loss of eternal human values. The
personal psyche and the social customs are in great conflict in the Final Solutions.
Javed is used as instrument by the frenzied mob and Aruna is under the impact of her
old traditional notions of the intolerance imposed on her by her religious beliefs and
customs. That is how the presentation of the psychological outburst is presented by
Mahesh Dattani in his play Final Solutions against the backdrop of post-Babri
demolition times.

2.7 CARICATURE OF PATRIARCHY IN FINAL SOLUTIONS

Final Solutions is a play that presents three families­ Zarine’s, Tasneem’s and
Smita’s in respect of the dramatic action directly and indirectly. Directly Smita’s
family is presented. Smita’s father is Ramniklal Gandhi, who is small shop-keeper
who runs a not very big saree shop in the cloth market of the village Kamargaon near
Ahmadabad in Gujarat. The time is post-Babri Mosque demolition communal riots
that hit the entire nation. The two young Muslim boys take shelter in the house of the
Gandhi family. Ramnik Gandhi is ready to protect them fully against the fury of the
violent mob outside. He defies the concern expressed by his mother Daksha-Hardika.
He does not care for cautious warnings given by his wife Aruna. His stiff
authoritarian patriarchal conduct is noticed in this portion of the play which presents
exposition. The third act of the play is that of solution and “forget and forgive” is the
solution offered by Ramnik and Smita. Ramnik like Daksha-Hardika wants to forget
the past. He has already made an offer to Javed to work in his saree shop as Javed
will be able to talk with Bohra and Momen women that pass by his shop. The real

24
intension of course behind this offer comes out towards the end of the play. It is not
on account of his desire to maintain equality among the communities but it is
atonement of the past sins of his father and grandfather. The Gandhi family wanted
to buy the shop owned by Zarine’s family; offers were made by the Gandhis to the
Muslim family but were not willing to give up the ownership of their shop. Taking
the disadvantage of the chaos after the communal riots the Gandhi family members
set fire to the shop which they want to buy. Then they ask for the burnt shop. The
deal is finished and now Ramnik owns the shop which is father and grandfather
captured through a deceitful trick. He atones for this sin of the patriarch of his
family. The patriarchal authority of his father and his grandfather is hoodwinked by
Ramnik Gandhi. He defies them now but he could not and did not oppose them when
they actually committed the sin. The patriarchal authority stands supreme in the
family of Ramnik and Smita Gandhi, though both of them have liberal progressive
views. The patriarchal authority is noticed in the treatment given to the young bride
Daksha-Hardika. She was fan of Noor Jehan, she wanted to listen to the songs sung
by Noor Jehan but the dictatorial autocrats in her family’s patriarchal pattern
prohibited her to play the gramophone records at home. When she visited Zarine’s
house, the same was prohibited, she was beaten up and looked inside her room. This
is nothing but the patriarchal pattern that acts in a dictatorial manner. The two
Muslim families too have acted likewise Zarine’s family ruled out the friendship and
looked at it suspiciously. Javed’s family too is ruled by patriarchy. Javed is thrown
out of his house by his father. Javed is thus isolated and gets attached to the
communal groups. The patriarchal authority is shown to be working out hollowness
of the family structure.

2.8 DEFENCE OF SCARRED PSYCHE IN FINAL SOLUTIONS

The human psyche is the origin of all its manifest expressions such as speeches and
actions. The psyche if scarred is expressed in violence as is known in the Freudian
principle which stated the suppressed emotions cause explosions. The demolition of
Babri Mosque in Ayodhya on 6th December 1992 caused such a commotion
throughout the country on account of communal divide between the Hindus and the
Muslims. The scarred psyche of the members of the Gandhi family is predominantly
presented in the play. Dakshathe grandmother-Hardika has a scarred psyche on
account of the experiences she cannot forget which she desired to record in her diary
which she began writing on 31st March, 1948 in the wake of partition riots. She gets
prejudiced against those who smashed the gramophone records of her favourite
Muslim singers like Noor Jehan, Shamshad Begum and Suraiya. She is unable to
satisfy herself because her family members cannot and do not allow her to her
musical interests. The records are broken, cracked and her friendship with Zarine is

25
obstructed. This has scarred his psyche. She is lived throughout her life with these
scars on her mind and also on her body. She is therefore prejudiced against the entire
community. She has been denied friendship and was prohibited to continue her
musical interest. She cannot do what she wants to do because of the scars on her
psyche. These scars have made them rather embittered on her life and in her attitude
to life. Another person whose psyche is scarred is her son Ramnik Gandhi. His father
and grandfather by hook and crook captured the shop owned by Zarine’s family.
They deliberately set fire to that shop in the days of the chaos caused by communal
riots and violence. This deceitful act is a crime and a sin in the eyes of Ramnik
Gandhi. The scars on his psyche made him atone for this sin. His offer of a job to
Javed is his act of atonement.

He attempts this as the scarred psyche prompts him to follow the dictum of “forget
and forgive” which is the final and the only solution to problems of communal
jealousy, hatred and violence. Javed is another character that too moves through the
scarred psyche. He has been a sportive enthusiastic young boy who moved in all
circles and was welcome everywhere in the past. An incident occurred in which this
young boy was humiliated by the orthodox Hindu priest. This insult is engraved on
the young mind of Javed. He has turned to violence, to terrorism on account of this
scar on his psyche. That scar has made a permanent wound and his personality has
become rather twisted, warped on account of this cruel and inhuman treatment. The
seeds of communal hatred have been sown in his mind and the poisoned tree grew to
bring out his vengeance on those who he felt insulted him. The scars of the psyches
of Daksha-Hardika her son Ramniklal Gandhi and the young Muslim boy Javed have
prompted the dramatic action of Final Solutions.

2.9 MUSIC AS MOTIF IN FINAL SOLUTIONS

Daksha-Hardika is a lover of music. She has an intense interest in film music. She in
particular loves to sing to hum the songs sung by Noor Jehan, Shamshad Begum and
Suraiya. In order to listen to the songs of Noor Jehan, she makes friendship with
Zarine, the oldest the best of the girls from the Khoja family that lived in a lane near
the market.

And I heard! (A Noor Jehan song can be heard) faintly, from

the window above, the voice of Noor Jehan. The window
was shut. But I am sure they must all be sitting around the
gramophone, listening to my favourite song (Listens to the
song for a while)... I could only hear the song faintly. But as
we mould away from her house, I could hear the song loud as

26
if I was sitting next to the gramophone.

She heard that song in her mind. The words that she had forgotten came back to her.
She sang out loud and stopped only when she came to the door of her own house.
She went to Zarine’s house one day for giving her embroidery work. Then
Daksha-Hardika told Zarine that her in-laws did not allow her to play the
gramophone. Zarine took Daksha-Hardika upstairs. She asked me what I would like
to listen to Noor Jehan, of course! She seemed pleased with my choice. She would up
the machin and played favourite song! We both listened and sang along with Noor
Jehan. Three voices singing together in perfect unison. Every now and then our eyes
would meet and we would smile as we continued singing-as if, if we stopped, Noor
Jehan would stop singing for us. I even danced a little and spun across the room and
leaned against the window looking out into the bright sunlight like the heroines do in
the talkies. Hoping I would find a koel to coo-coo along with me for the rest of the
song.

This is how Daksha­Hardika, Smita’s grandmother and Ramnik’s mother, is a fan of

Noor Jehan and her songs. She visits Zarine’s house just in order to hear Noor
Jehan’s songs. Music is thus a motif in this play Final Solution. Noor Jehan’s songs
have fascinated Daksha-Hardika and she visits Zarine’s house to listen to those songs
because music is prohibited in her inlaws house. The music is a link between the
Hindus and the Muslims. Noor Jehan in India and Lata Mangeshkar in Pakistan are
so popular that they have almost the cultural ambassador of their countries.
Therefore, Zarine and Daksha-Hardika become so intimately friendly through this
motif of music that has embraced the entire dramatic action of the play Final
Solutions. Music has its significance for both Javed and Aruna. Javed picked one of
the letters that was dropped by the postman. The man came at out and wiped the
letter, the wall, the spot and gate that was touched by Javed while handing over the
letter to him. Then Javed heard the sound of the bell ringing continuously and
distinctly. The same sound of the bell is heard when Ramnik’s wife Aruna rings it in
her prayer room. The sound of the bell-the neighbours’ and Aruna’s­ is another motif
of music in the play Final Solution. Noor Jehan’s songs on the gramophone and the
ringing of the bell provide musical effects in the play.

2.10 SILENCE, SUFFERING AND SUNSHINE IN FINAL

SOLUTIONS

Silent sufferings have been experienced by Javed was insulted by the neighbor
whose letter was just picked up by Javed and kept on the wall. He found that his

27
touching the letter was treated as if it was a pollution of the neighbour’s house. Then
they heard the continuous and distinct ringing of the prayer bell for a long time. That
was how Javed for a little was insulted and humiliated. Javed did not react then but
afterwards on the next day morning the neighbor came out shouting that his house
was polluted by someone who had kept meat in his compound. Javed remained
silent. He just suffered and continued to remain silent for the time being. His
sufferings were intensified when he was thrown out of his house by his parents. He
became alienated from his members of the family. He of course continued to remain
in contact with his friend Babban-Bobby and with his sister Tasneem. His silence
and his sufferings made him get attached to the group of the fundamentalist. These
groups are always in search of such youths like Javed who are cut off from the
society and also from their family.

Javed is used as an instrument for imitating the violence by throwing a stone to start
the agitation. His silent suffering is thus used to intensify the violent communal
divide among the Hindus and Muslims who are divided in the country. The other
silent sufferer in the play is Daksha-Hardika. She suffers right from the early days of
her married life. She is a lover of music. She admires singers like Noor Jehan,
Shamshad Begum and Suraiya. Of these her first priority is to Noor Jehan and her
style of singing. She is not allowed to play the gramophone in her house as that
moment in the career of Daksha. Hardika–Daksha knows the power caused by actual
experience of being beaten, locked inside and insults and humiliations which are the
experiences which have become centrally pivotal in Daksha’s psyche. She too
silently suffers for a long time. She is prejudiced against the entire Muslim. The
silent sufferings have been turned into the prejudice towards the communities. This is
the root- cause of violence and bloodshed that is caused by the communal divide in
the country. Daksha-Hardika therefore refuses to give shelter to the two young
Muslim boys who have come to the Gandhi house to save themselves from the wrath
of the violent mob outside. Ramnik Gandhi gives shelter to the two young Muslim
boys- Javed and Bobby-in spite of the protests by his wife Aruna and his mother
Daksha­ Hardika. This is the sunshine after the silent sufferings. Smita’s recognition
of the two boys and her subsequent help to them to remove their guilty conscience is
the real sunshine that is presented in Final Solutions in order to present the message
-Forget and Forgive.

2.11 SOCIAL VISION AS REFLECTED IN FINAL SOLUTIONS

Final Solutions is a play on the socio-political issue of the communal violence that
has recurrently erupted in India right from the day of independence at midnight to the
two nations that were born on the basic of religious affiliations. The provinces with

28
the majority of Muslim population formed Pakistan both in the West and the East
and those that had a considerable Hindu population became India. Daksha is
Ramniklal Gandhi’s mother in her young days and now in her old age she is called
Hardika. Young Daksha is innocent and she has no prejudices. She looks at the
Hindus and the Muslims with the same equanimity. She has no bias against the
Muslims but makes friendship with them and seems and even dances with her
Muslim friend Zarine while listening to Noor Jehan’s song. She did not like attitude
of her husband Hari and her in-laws towards the Muslims. Then she received the
barbaric treatment in the communal riots in Husainabad. Her father’s house there was
attacked and her father was killed by the Muslim by Muslim fanatics. Daksha was
beaten up and locked in for mixing with the Muslim neighbours and visiting their
houses. Young Daksha who was unbiased became old Hardika who was blatantly
prejudiced towards the Muslim community. The same person holds two different,
totally opposite views, in respect of the communal relations. Then she realised that
she was wrongly prejudiced towards Zarine’s family. Ramnik, her son, finally
discloses the fact her husband and his father arranged the shop to burn for getting it
cheaply in the days of the riots.

The Final Solutions offers the social vision which with its catholicity,
broad-mindedness, and inclusiveness will remove the cobwebs of wrong biases and
false prejudices in respect of communal relations in a multi-racial, multi-religious
country like India. Communal disharmony and social discord is the result of hatred
and false ego. Prejudices and biases against the other community are harmful.
Everybody has his own faith and religion-mutual faith is essential. Tolerance is
necessary. Trusting others, understanding the members of all the social and religious
groups is the way out. Mahesh Dattani has offered a social vision by indicating the
solutions to remove the communal tensions and violence that has often erupted quite
often with the regular frequency in a vicious circle. Sending the Muslims to Pakistan
is neither practical nor possible. This solution as voiced by some Indian society is
according to Mahesh Dattani, is a foolish one. Then what is the solution? What social
vision is offered by Mahesh Dattani to the opium sections of communal hatred, the
intoxication of religious pride and prejudiced disharmony. The understanding of the
inequality of the entire disharmony is the way out. Tolerate and treat respectfully is
the solution. The social vision given by Mahesh Dattani is “Forget and Forgive”. It is
divine to forgive. Human identity is permanent and applicable to all the human
beings and not the external appearances of being a Hindu or Muslim. The solution
lies not in the external world but within man’s own consciousness. Humanism is
above everything else. The love of humanity will remove the dark clouds of
prejudices, greed and hatred which cause communal hatred and bring violence.

29
2.12 VISION AND VISUALS AS DEPICTED IN FINAL
SOLUTIONS

The first visual that is impressive enough is:

Chorus 1(pounding with his stick): Send...them...back. (Pause)
Chorus 4(questioning): Send them back?
Chorus 2(pounding with stick): Drive...them...out. (Pause)
Chorus 5 (questioning) Drive...them...out?
Chorus 3: Kill the sons of swine!

The chorus that enacts the role of the mob or that of the commentators in action
comprises five men and ten masks. There are five Hindu masks and five Muslim
masks. The mob chorus become the chorus when they ‘wear’ either the Hindu or
Muslim masks. The masks change but-the plays—five of them remain the same. All
human beings are alike. The mask is appearance, humanity is reality, supreme truth,
communal identity is the external form and human identity is the permanent and
transcendental to all. When men are under masks, they question the identity of
others. The mask is like opium which intoxicates men to behave irrationally and
cause chaos and destruction in society. Communal hatred is caused under the
intoxication of prejudice and blind faith. The visual impact of mask brings out the
vision that basically all human beings are alike and the external attachments need
that change that basic humanity. The next visual is quite striking and resolves the
conflict caused by the communal hatred and prejudices of false ego, greed and deceit.

Aruna: Stop! (Bobby is near the pooja room.) Stop him!

(Bobby suddenly picks up the image of Krishna which is tiny
enough to sit in his palm.) Put that back! Oh God! No!
(Throughout the following scene, Aruna’s cries are drowned
by the mob/chorus)
Bobby: (extends his hands and shows the image to everyone)
see! I am touching God!
Chorus all (pounding thrice): We are not idol breakers!
Bobby: Your God! My flesh is holding him! Look, Javed!
and he does not mind!
(The mob chorus pounds)
Bobby: He does not burn me to ashes! He does not try out
from the heaven saying. He has been contaminated!

Bobby continues to hold the image of Lord Krishna in his hands and feels it warmth.
Lord Krishna’s image resets in his hands. Lord knows that Bobby cannot harm in

30
him, Lord knows his own strength! Lord believes in him and Lord Krishna smiles.
Bobby’s touch and smell cannot be removed now from the image of Lord Krishna as
his touch and smell belongs to man who believes and tolerates and respects that other
human beings believe. That is the strongest fragrance in the world! The visual is the
strongest point of the play Final Solutions which ends with Bobby’s declaration of
the social vision that needs to be adopted by one and all. But if we understand and
believe in one another, nothing can be destroyed. And if you are willing to forget, I
am willing to tolerate. Mutual trust and love will remove the cobwebs of communal
hatred and violence. Understand and believe in the basic humanity that lies in the
heart and mind of every human being. Tolerance and love will enable man to
understand another, to tolerate the views held by another and to respect the
viewpoints of the other human beings. This prepares everybody to respect the
religious beliefs of other community. It is pride, ego, greed and hatred cause
communal violence but these can be eliminated through love, trust and tolerance. Be
human and be contended in life.

2.13 DECONSTRUCTED FAMILY IN FINAL SOLUTIONS

The family that is deprived in the play Final Solutions is the Gandhi family. Daksha
of her youthful days is now Hardika, Smita’s grandmother, Aruna’s mother-in-law
and Ramnik’s mother. She often mentions her husband Hari, her mother in law Guja
and her father-in law Wagh. Her in-laws did not allow her even to hum a love-song
to her husband Hari. Her visits to her friend Zarine’s house for listening to Noor
Jehan’s songs were misinterpreted and she was beaten up and locked in her room.
This embittered her and she remained so throughout her life. Her attitude to Muslims
too changed after the attack by the fanatics on her house and killing of his father by
them. This is the beginning of the deconstruction of the family life of the Gandhis.
Ramniklal Gandhi after the departure of the two young Muslim boys from his house
is reluctant to go his shop. When asked by his mother Hardika about his willingness
to do so, he discloses something which he had held close to his heart for a long time.

Ramnik (looks at her with pity) it’s their shop. It’s the same burnt up shop we
bought from them, at half its value (Pause). And we burnt it. Your husband, my
father, and his father, they had it burnt in the name of communal hatred. Because we
wanted a shop. Also they learnt that.... these people were planning to start mill like
our own. I can’t take it any longer. I don’t think I will be able to step into that shop
again... (Pause)

31
So, it wasn’t that those people hated you. It wasn’t false pride o arrogance. (A Noor
Jehan song can be heard very faintly.) It was anger. (The song plays for some time
and stops as if the record has been smashed by a stone)

Hardika (crushed): Why didn’t you tell me? All these years. Ramnik: You have to
live with this shame only for a few years now .

Ramniklal Gandhi tells his mother after many years about the act that was arranged
by his father and his grandfather. This was deceitful act. Ramniklal Gandhi has kept
this sense of guilt for his father and grandfather’s actions for a long time in his heart.
The incidents of communal violence, the visits by the two Muslim youths and the
holding of the idol of Lord Krishna in hands by one of them have totally shattered
Ramnik Gandhi. He realises that he will have atone for the sins committed by his
elders. The clouds of communal hatred that begin to darken the atmosphere about
seventy years ago have not been dispersed. The destruction of the family of Gandhi
is noticed on one other dimension when Smita tells her mother.

Smita: Don’t! Please, mummy, don’t try so hard! You are breaking me. Ever since I
was small, you have been at me to go the temple, make garlands, and listen to you
reading from the Gita I love you, mummy that’s why I did that. I listened to you. I
tolerated your prejudices only because you are my mother. May be I should have told
you earlier, but I’m telling you now, I can’t take it! Please don’t burden me anymore!
I can’t take it! The destruction of family life is depicted fully in this statement.

2.14 PRESENTATION OF CONTEMPORANEITY IN FINAL

SOLUTION

Contemoporaneity is marked by socio-politico-economic forces that produce

authentic experiences. The present needs to be presented through the breadth of
view. Reality is something that needs to be stated in a broad manner pointing out the
complexities, diversities and contradiction involved. Mahesh Dattani's plays deal
with the visible problems and the invisible issues in the contemporary times. The
dramatist has attempted through the theatrical presentation to portray who a human
being is what man has made of man and actions. The action stretches from the
partition riots of 1940s to the post-Babri Mosque demolition riots covering a period
of about sixty years of the contemporary times. Hardika, the grandmother of today, is
known as Daksha in her young days, Daksha remembers the past and the events of
the 1940s roll out before her eyes through nostalgia. Hardika too remembers the past
and in particular how she befriended with Zarine for listening to the songs sung by
Noor Jehan, Shamshad Begum and Suraiya who dominated the preindependence

32
days of sixty years ago. The past is linked with present by the double roles of Daksha
and Hardika played by the grandmother. Things have not changed much, things have
remained the same. This is true of the attitudes of man though an oil lamp is replaced
by an electric bulb. What prompts human actions is the attitude on life and its
problems and various issues. Religious fanaticism and national prejudices have
continued unchanged during the last seven decades of contemporary times of the
twentieth and the twenty first centuries.

Final Solution has presented an episode in the Gandhi family house in the days when
the curfew is still imposed in Kamargaon near Ahmadabad. The communal riots have
not yet subsided. Religious fanaticism and communal prejudices and religious biases
have been rampant. Mobs from both the communities laced with bottle-bombs,
weapons and sticks chase the members of the other community. The stalled the
Chariot procession and God’s image was prostate in the street. The players are the
same but the masks of the Hindus or Muslims enforce them to be frenzied and
revengeful. Ramnik Gandhi has given shelter and protection to the two young Musli
boys-Javed and Bobby who have entered his house. He has a liberal progressive and
dynamic view. The contemporary situation is quite realistically presented through
Hardika’s antagonism, Aruna’s indifference, Ramnik confused guilty conscious and
Smita is bold liberal humanism. The mob fury is very realistically presented as the
religious identity makes men irrational and they loss the human identity. The loss of
human values makes men violent and irrational. The clash of invisible motives, the
conflict of religious and communal interests, the opposition of the morals and the
fishy, disharmony caused by hatred, greed, pride and insecurity is presented
accurately. At the same time, Mahesh Dattani has seized the opportunity to suggest
that the final solutions do not lie without but lie within. It is the consciousness and
conscience that will eliminate hatred and ill will. Forget and Forgive, Love and
Trust, Recognise and Respect, Tolerate and Accommodate. That is the ultimate
solution.

2.15 LOCATING THE SELF IN FINAL SOLUTION

The search for identity-personal identity, communal identity, social identity, and
national identity-is made in the play Final Solution by Mahesh Dattani. The play
presents the history of communal hatred and violence right from the 1940s. In the
contemporary times the same unchanged scenario is noticed to be present in the
post-Babri Mosque Demolition in 1992 and afterwards and the post Godhra riots in
2002. The issue of identity is closely related to the search for identity of the self.
Daksha-Hardika diary and the present predicament are inked as nothing has much
changed in all these decades of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The division

33
in the social groups is marked by the disharmony characterised by religious groups.
The communal divide is marked by the distinction between Us and They. These two
terms have assumed greater significance in these days after the clash of civilisations
as ascertained by Frantz Fanon and Edward Said. “Us” refers to the group that
considers itself dominant, major, chief group and in this context it is the group of the
“Hindus”. “They” is the term that refers to the Muslims in the Indian society. They
are the breakers of the image, they are the eaters of the beef and they are the
followers of the Holy Book. On 31 st March 1948, now Hardika began to write her
diary and she mentioned the partition riots. Even after forty years the same
bloodshed, the same hatred and intolerance for the other group still fills the
atmosphere Gramophone record was smashed by stone and now there is a stone in
her. After the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992, Daksha­Hardika’s son
Ramniklal Gandhi attempts to right a few wrongs. He gives shelter to Bobby
(Babban) and Javed in order to protect them from the fury of the violent Hindu mob.
There are dialogues heard which present both the sides: Should we be swallowed up?
Till they cannot recognise us? Should we melt into anonymity so they cannot hound
us? Lose ourselves in shapelessness? Should we? Can we? What must we do? To
become acceptable? Must we lose our identity?....what of course it is to be less in
number .These are the questions being frequently asked by the minority community
of the Muslims. The Hindus on the other hand ask the Muslims: Why did they stay?
This is not their land. They have got what they wanted. So why stay? They stay to
spy on us. Their hearts belong there. But they live on our land. These questions are
relentlessly asked till the distinctive identities vanish. The mechanism of ‘othering’
influences the self. There is also the irrational fear, the phobia of the other. The two
groups decide to detach oneself from the other. A distancing takes place, such a
displacement takes place. Each group asks “Why am I here? What am I doing here?”
The tensions between the communities will vanish and can be eliminated just
changing the “consciousness”, the attitudes, the thinking of getting to know, to
understand, to reorganise, to repeat to tolerate, to trust to love and this will helps both
the groups­“Us” and “They”­to gain stature and individual identity. Be fair be frank,
be bold, be impartial, be outspoken, be independent and then you will be rational
enough to know what you are.

2.16 SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN FINAL SOLUTION

Javed is excluded from his family. He just picked a letter dropped by the postman
and put it on neighbour’s wall. The letter, the wall and the gate were first “purified”
by the “crazy” neighbour before accepting the letter. The next morning he came out
shouting that somebody had some meat in his house. The insult and the public
humiliation perhaps made Javed react in this manner. Intolerance started from one

34
side and there was a reaction to this from other side. Javed’s parents came to know of
his actions. His father drives him out of the house. This social exclusion makes him,
get attached to the group of the fanatics. He is used as a tool by these groups. He is
prompted to lift the stone and to throw the first stone. Javed knows that he has now
cut off from others and therefore says:

Javed: To shout and scream like a child on the giant wheel in the carnival.

The first screams are of pleasure. Of sensing an unusual freedom. And then... it
becomes nightmarish as your world is way below and you are moving away from
it...and suddenly you come crashing down, down and you want to get off. But you
can’t. You don’t want anymore. It is the same feeling over and over again, you
scream with pain and horror, but there is no one listening to you. Everyone is alone
in their own cycles of joy and terror. The feelings come faster and faster and they
confuse you with the blur created by their speed. You get nuances and you cry to
yourself. This is what is condition of human life that is caused by the social
exclusion. Cutting off from the others makes men or women rather tend to become
extremists. The Gandhi family­Ramnik’s father and his grandfather have brought the
burnt shop at half the price it would have fetched normally. The deceitful trick they
have played is that they took the disadvantage of the chaos after the communal riots
to arrange the burning of the shop. This is a monetary, mercenary gain that the
Gandhi patriarch have gained through a deceitful trick to hoodwink their
counterparts. The sense of this guilt has been carried by Ramnik for a long time.
Now he has revealed it to Hardika. She is crushed. She was till then secure in her
hatred of the Muslims. Now her sense of being in the right is shattered. This is why
Ramnik has been so extremely tolerant. Even Aruna is shaken out. Smita has been
chocking for a long time till now. Now Smita’s outburst against Aruna’s rigid
restrictions has rattled Aruna. Smita: It stifles one yes!... I can see so clearly how
wrong you are. You accume me of running away from my religion... would you have
listened to me if I told you were wrong? Again, do two young boys make you so
insecure? Come on, Mummy. This is a time for strength! I am so glad these two
dropped in. We would have never spoken about what makes us so different from
each other. We would have gone on living our lives with our petty similarities. Javed
was actually excluded from family and social life. Ramnik kept the guilt of his father
and grandfather hidden for such a long time. Smita now tells that all along she has
been stifled on account of the rigid practices of her mother. The instances of
exclusion are noticed in the play Final Solutions.

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2.17 TECHNIQUE AND STAGE CRAFT IN FINAL SOLUTIONS

The individual and social contexts are presented in a network of multiple levels of
the stage setting of the play Final Solutions. The communal violence is the dominant
and central concern. There are two levels on the stage. One is a raised ramp and the
other is a room. The ramp is of the shape of the crescent moon and both the ends of
ramp slope down to the stage level. There are five players who comprise the chorus
of the play. There are ten masks of which five are the Hindu masks and the other five
are Muslim masks. The players who comprise the Chorus wear black clothes and
only when they pick up the masks according to situation. They become the
representative Hindu mob or the Muslim mob. They hold the appropriate sticks
bearing the masks to present whether they are Hindus or Muslims as the mob or the
Chorus. The action of the Chorus confined to the ramp. As the Chorus, the plays
initiate action introduces the situation or the character or comment on the action
being presented. This is the traditional role played by the Chorus as in the Greek
plays where the Chorus performs these functions of being initiator, presenter and
commentator or as in the Sanskrit plays the same role of Sutradhar (compeller) is
played by these players who perform the deal roles being the mob or being the
Chorus. The use of this upper level of the ramp is frequently made throughout the
play Final Solutions. The stage craft is innovative and creatively suggestive. The
stage direction runs, “within the confines of the ramp is a structure suggesting the
house of th Gandhi’s with just wooden blocks of furniture. However upstage,
perhaps on an elevation, is a detailed kitchen and a pooja room.” On the lower is a
room with a roll top desk and an oil lamp converted to an electric one suggesting that
the period is late 1940s. The stage arrangement moves from Daksha’s diary written
in 1948 and then forty years after in 1988 and then the Mob/Chorus slowly wear the
Hindu masks. The musical drumbeat is being used only for dramatic effect and root
for its musicality. The Mob/Chorus become just after they wear the mask. The
Mob/Chorus operates from the ramp that is the upper level of the stage setting. The
main action is presented on the lower level on which the two spaces are
prominent-the kitchen and the prayer room. The ultimate action of the play is the
holding of the image of Lord Krishna in his hands by Bobby. Smita’s outspoken
retort to her mother and Ramnik’s confession of guilt to his mother which takes place
on lover level. The giving of the shelter and the protection provided also takes place
on the lower level. The stage craft of this play with its spaces and levels is quite
appropriate to the contexts which are presented. The personal as well as the social
context which embraces the national context are quite dramatically and artistically
presented through the stage arrangement.

36
2.18 THE USE OF DIALOGUES IN THE PLAY FINAL
SOLUTIONS

The use of dialogues is quite relevant to the situation and to the temperament of the
speaker. The nostalgia of Daksha the prejudiced views of Hardika, the traditional
nature of Aruna, the confused state of the liberal head of the family Ramniklal
Gandhi, the outspoken liberalism and progressive attitudes of Smita, Javed’s
defiance and Bobby’s bold action are appropriately presented through the use of
dialogues in the play Final Solutions. The Mob/Chorus too speaks appropriately to
highlight the dramatic action of the play. Daksha’s nostalgia is the link that bridges
the communal violence of the 1940s with the communal hatred and violence in the
post Babri Mosque demolition in 1990s. The use of dialogues is made to present the
dramatic action. The play begins with the panoramic view of the subalterns who have
presented the articulation of their voices through the dialogues used. The
Mob/Chorus goes pounding goes on presenting their the dramatic action and the
character presenting own perspectives on this issue of communal hatred and violence
that covers the entire duration of about seventy years after the independence of the
nation. The marginalised like the Muslims have continued to suffer. The Muslims are
in minority in the transactions of the various socially significant episodes. The
dialogue used is quite relevant to the situation that is being presented. Smita (goes to
him): Daddy, Tasneem says the Muslim girls’ hostel was bombed.

Ramnik: I don’t believe it! Was anybody hurt?

Smita: Its true. She and the other girls are trapped inside the
matrons called the police but nobody’s come.
This dialogue is quite matter-of-fact as both the father and daughter are
speaking about the likely incident of bombing on the girl’s hostel.
The apathy of the police force is commented upon.

Chorus 1: Their chariot fell on our street!

Chorus 2: Their god now prostate before us!
Chorus 3: So they blame on us?
Chorus 1: Was the chariot built by us?
Chorus 2, 3: Blame the builders of those frenzy thrones.
Chorus 4: A manufacturing defect!
Chorus 5: Doesn’t their God have a warranty?

This dialogue is spoken by the Mob/Chorus of the five players who now wear the
Muslim masks. The dialogue presents the reactions from the view- point of the
minority group in the Indian society. The dialogue appropriately brings out different

37
shades such as the statement of facts, a remark that ridicules the tone of defiance, the
logical question as an objection, the attempt to pass on the responsibility on others,
another satirical remark. This is how the use of the dialogue is pliable and rises to
every dramatic action depicted in the play Final Solutions.

2.19 THE PRESENTATION OF MORAL ISSUES IN FINAL

SOLUTIONS

Daksha of 1940s is Hardika of the 1990s. Daksha is all the while recollecting the
memories of the past. Her nostalgia is interrupted by the Chorus representing the
mob. The link between the past and the present is established and it is also
emphasised that nothing has changed during the last six or seven decades after India
became independent. The partition riots have continued the communal hatred and
violence during this period of the interviewing decades. Politically India was divided
into two nations. Pakistan was formed on the theocratic principles while India has
adopted the democratic principles. The communal riots have most frequently erupted
in these six-seven decades and most prominent is the outbreak riots after the
demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992 and the aftermath of Godhra incident. The
occurrences of the riots establish the fact of the communal divide based on
prejudices, biases, self-interests, political and the other mercenary ends. The moral
concern is of great significance because the social division of the majority and
minority groups is something disturbing. The harmony and the integrity of the nation
is jeopardised of the spread of communalism and its poisonous impact of the social
fabric. There are moral concerns which are mainly responsible for the moral
break-down in the society. The moral issues lead to the contemporary social divide
on the political, economical, social and cultural divisions of the two major groups of
the Hindus and the Muslims.

The group mentality and the group loyalty has led to the communal hatred,
communal violence and the same has been presented in the play through the dramatic
presentation of the distinctly opposite views voiced by the Hindu and Muslim mob
presented through the mosques by the five members of the Chorus. There are just
four members in the Gandhi family of which there are three women. Hardika the
grandmother is prejudiced against the Muslims and does not approve of the arrival of
the two young Muslims boys on the premises of the Gandhi family house in
Kamargaon. Smita recognises the two young Muslim boys but Aruna is engrossed
her routine prayers and rituals of worship. Ramnik has carried the burdensome guilty
consequence for a long time. Morality is suggested by Ramnik that the burnout shop
was purchased at half the price which is a real moral issue concerning the problem of
the violence, commercial interests, personal and social ego. The moral dilemmas

38
before Ramnik emphasises the significance of this contemporary issues related to
political economic, cultural, social problems as presented by the dramatic action of
the play Final Solution. The reflection of the contemporary problems is noticed in the
dramatic presentation of events associated with the dramatic action which runs
through three acts of the play Final Solutions.

2.20 TELESCOPING PAST AND PRESENT

The pervading importance of ‘diary’ has been interpreted. Diary has significance in
the textual, contextual, and sub textual level. It is material entity but attempt has been
made to highlight the fact that it can reveal the undercurrent flow of thoughts. In this
play it exposes the psychological and mental turbulence of a woman’s sensibility. It
contains the emotion, psychic passion of Hardika. Through her undercurrent of
thoughts Dattani presents the fragmentary glimpse of wounded or traumatic
experience in India. This was the state of Nation. This was the idea of Nation during
riot after Babri masque demolition. India was battered by communal tension.
Through Diary past and present coalesce together. It is the medium of memory.
Through individual memory Dattani peeps into larger society with its mutilated
images and problems. It has been presented in postmodern way. It breaks spatial and
temporal periphery. It fixes time past and time present.

Final Solutions is a stage play in three acts .The play opens with a kind of flashback
scene. In this scene we see and hear a fifteen year-old bride Daksha reading out what
she had written in her diary. This flashback goes back to the late 1940. Here we
simultaneously see and hear Daksha as she has passed nearly fifty years. In the
present she is the grandmother known by the name Hardika. Also on the stage,
perhaps at the back are present the mob. They were carrying sticks with a Hindu and
Muslim mask at either end. These masks cover the faces of the members of the mob
as they assume the Muslim and Hindu identities or faces alternatively throughout the
action of the play. Daksha’s reminiscence over the mob wearing Hindu masks
introduces the theme of communal tensions as they speak of the overturning of a
chariot carrying images of Hindu Gods and of a knifing of a pujari.

Diary is an important device in this drama. Diary is a record with entries arranged by
date reporting on what has been done in the past. It actually preserves a person’s
undercurrent of thoughts which often get deluged in later future and the person can
connect his present to his past via this diary. Therefore, it is reservoir of a man’s
experiences, feelings. It is, therefore, supreme media of one’s memoir. It captures
moment, and tries to give vent to the historical and societal background as well. In
this drama diary illumines the two different stages of a woman’s character whose

39
identities are separated only by 40 years. The technique is indeed post-modern.
Through the diary two generation of time past and time present is heavily compared.

This use of diary is a very important technique in revealing the psyche of the
characters and at once presents the agitating moments of history finely. It also serves
as the driving force behind revealing the mixing memory and desires of the
characters. Memory is a kind of experience and it is associated with trauma studies.
It is a privileged area through which nature of past events can be represented. The
past events may be historical or public. In early editions of the Oxford English
Dictionary the entry for trauma defines it as ‘a wound or external bodily injury in
general’. Later the meaning has shifted from physical level to the psychological
level. Here I shall discuss about the psychological impact of the communal tensions
that has cropped up in course of time.

Memory is a crucial discourse in contemporary literature. It maps out one of the

predominant clear cut societal, mental and psychological panorama. Memory
actually retains the main topical items throughout various modes and models. In
postcolonial literature where literature portrays the mutilated images and problematic
models and mindscape, memory is a compelling tool in digging out the innermost
psyche of characters and action. “What a wonderful piece of work is Man”, declares
Hamlet in Shakespeare’s drama Hamlet (Act ii. Scene2). Indeed, man is the only
animal who can only think, memorise and use that memory to uncover distracting
moods, action, conflict etc. Though memory analysis is a very recent phenomenon,
its recurring use and its multiple patterns can be discerned in early Renaissance
dramas such as The Duchess of Malfi. Actually it captures the specific moments in
the current of times and therefore, we see Shakespeare in his Hamlet and Taming of
the Shrew and Marlow in his Tamburlaine handling this subtext efficiently in their
works.

There are three components of memory labelled as ‘memoria’, ‘recollection’ and

‘remembering’. Studies such as these have impacted criticism in the early modern
texts, as in the recent work of Huston Diehl. While this work focus on ‘crises’ of
memory, the centrality of memory to early modern culture is easily seen. Ancient
texts provided early modern readers with exemplars, and George Puttenham
recognized the operations of memory:

“No kind of argument in all the oratories craft, doth better persuade and more
universally satisfied them example, which is but the representation of old memories
and like successes happened there in past”.

40
These ‘old memories’ not only ornament successful arguments, they engender
psychological effects by reviving our spirits. In early modern discussions of faculty
psychology, memory is necessary to the construction of rational subjects. Memory
becomes integral to the moral subjects. It is the art of memory that has dominated the
study of individual memory in modern period. The underlying structure of memory
art is described by Merry Carruthers, “The fundamental principal is to divide the
material to be remembered into pieces short enough to be recalled in single units”
Memory is integral to the valorised piece of self-hood.

Forgetting occurs in history, politics and life in general. “The struggle against power
is the struggle of memory against forgetting”, comments Milan Kundera in his book
Book of Laughter and Forgetting. This description is very much fitful in Indian
perspective when we see various religious segments and power-centric
fundamentalists struggling against each other forgetting the integrity that ties basic
values which continue to bind India. Indeed, Indians have experienced the scars that
its history allows us to peep into it during partition .Actually the issue of
communalist violence and sectarian tension shaped by memories of partition
conflicts is a crowded and highly contested area. In novels particularly this motif has
found recurrence and Indian novelists were highly successful as it was the core issue
of Indian minds from times immemorial. But in dramas the issue is very much
neglected but there is no doubt that the issue may be presented most vividly with its
lurid aspects. In this respect, Dattani’s Final Solutions is a milestone.

In this text identity is very much shaped by the memory and trauma. This identity is
of the Indians in particular, yet universal in appeal. It probes into an individual’s
position in the wider historical and social context. At the outset Daksha’s pondering
over a day in 1948 brilliantly fuses time past and time present .Thereby, it refigures
the past in terms of communicating through the present but the experience is deadly
enough. Mahesh Datttani’s Final Solutions is a play about communal riots in India
and subordination of women. It presents three women who belong to three significant
times in the history of India-Daksha/Hardika belongs to pre-independence period;
Aruna, her daughter-in-law, belongs to independence period; Smita, Aruna’s
daughter is a contemporary post-independence Indian woman.

In this Three-act play there are six incorporated diary entries which are loudly read
out by Daksha. These diary entries are scattered throughout the whole texture of the
play and bring the readers in direct confrontation to the gruelling moment of previous
experiences. If we read the diary we can at once have the glimpses of text, context
and sub-text underwritten. However, one should not read them in isolation because
the disenchanting note of communal tension is very much at work in all of them.

41
Daksha first invokes his diary by recalling: “Dear diary. Today is the first time I have
dared to put my thoughts on your pages” (Final Solutions 8).A few lines after he
goes on “I am sharing my innermost thoughts with you. Nobody else knows what I
think or how I feel, except now you” (Final Solutions.p. 8). Therefore, it is evident
that Daksha is building a relation with the diary and diary is essential in connection
with her. The diary preserves both happy and sad news. It contains the narrator’s dire
situation. Daksha: “All my dreams have been shattered…I can never be a singer, like
Noor Jehan. Hari’s family is against my singing film songs”. It also reminds the
readers of a festive moment of history. “But there is so much happening in the world
that maybe it isn’t fair to trouble you with my sadness”. Actually she wants to state
about India’s grasp of freedom. But it was freedom which was not unscathed; it
charred Indian people’s mind. Therefore, the diary unambiguously reveals the mixed
feelings of relishing India’s long-cherished freedom and at once projects the riots
between two religious sections.

Daksha (reading from her diary). “He said he was happy we were rid of the
Britishers…The windows broke one by one…The stones came smashing into our
rooms”.(Final Solutions p.9)

In the play, Daksha has taken to writing a diary to share her secrets, one of which is
her inability to sing the songs of Noor Jahan. The family heard her singing and spoke
to her husband Hari about it. Then Hari reprimands her. In her valuable diary,
Daksha reminds how her father participated in the country’s struggle for
independence from British. Through her diary, we can see her childhood memories
tainted with communal clashes associated with her father’s death and destruction of
her favourite gramophone. From this diary Daksha tells her continual suffering
married life with her husband, Hari who strictly restricted society’s norms of female
decorum to her wife, Daksha. .

In the second diary Daksha portrays the little family frame with its own monotone.
The diary binds a family life in every detail. It depicts a Hindu family’s devout
sensibility towards the deity. It at once shows an orthodox Hindu family’s
superstitious mindset. The very irony is that the orthodox character believes that
touch with another sectarian would ultimately ruin one’s soul. So “My mother was
sensible that way. If anyone contaminated her by touching her, she would just
sprinkle some Gangajal and be done with it” (Final Solutions p.16). Great irony lies
in the fact that India has possessed freedom, but is dispossessed of integrity of heart
and mind. Its society is hollow at the core. A great many number of people in Hindu
community are repulsive of Muslim custom- “The other side –where they sell-
unmentionable things”. But in spite of all, the hope that exudes throughout the

42
second diary entries is that there is one thing that unites a bit many section of society
including people at the level of the marginal. It is music of Nurjahan. It is a song
sung by Muslim voice. However, it exposes the musical taste of Daksha. So through
Daksha’s second diary we can have a glimpse of the panoramic picture of typical
Indian society.

As already suggested, a significant aspect of Final Solutions is Dattani’s

simultaneous manipulation of past and present time. It is accomplished through
Daksha’s narrative diary at different stages and in relation to different events. In Act
one of the Final Solutions, we see the young Daksha writing in her diary. She has
been given a new name, Hardika, after marriage to match with her husband’s name,
Hari. But she cannot use this name in her diary. She obviously does not like either
the new name or her in-laws as she looks ‘distastefully’ in their direction. Daksha
likes a Muslim girl, Zarine. She used to go to zarine’s house. Here, Daksha-Zarine
friendship is replicated in Smita-Tasneem. Although Dattani sets the two generations
apart through his manipulation of time past and time present, blending of the two
becomes imminent. Actually in this diary, Daksha is Hardika’s memory and at the
same time warning to be on guard. But history repeats itself. Daksha’s life taught
Hardika to suspect. Hardika is over-cautious and apprehensive as she foregrounds the
entry of Javed and Bobby even before they have appeared on stage. The two boys
remind her of some permanent scars in her mind created forty years back:

“It was those two boys running away who frightened away me. Those two who were
begging for their lives. Tomorrow they will hate us for it. They will hate us for
it…All those memories came back when I saw the pride in their eyes! I know their
wretched pride! It had destroyed me before and I was afraid it would destroy my
family”. (Final Solutions p.14)

Through the incorporated lines in the third part of diary Daksha harks back the past
when, after the partition, her husband told her that all the Muslims had left for
Pakistan, their new homeland. Daksha metaphorically reveals the irrational tendency
of her section of people. “The world may change but Gaju and Gaugh remain where
they are, like a huge bunyan tree everybody remembers being there for hundreds of
years.” (Final Solutions p.38). Her diary also shows her close affinity with the
Zarine’s family because she would have an easy access to their home and would be
able to listen to her favourite gramophone records there. From her third diary, we can
see that Daksha used to visit Zarine’s house. When she entered the house, she found
Zarine engaged in embroidery work. Daksha handed over a saree to Zarine’s mother
for embroidery. The two friends laughed and listened to songs by Noor Jehan. Thus,
they spent their life joyfully with their mundane activity of life. Violence has stopped

43
but enmity between religions is still dormant in the core of the heart of the people.
Scholasticism goes quite in vain. People become indolent; they grunt, groan and
indulge in all types of absurd activities. Their activity actually gets published in their
collection of donation for building temples and celebrating festivals. Money actually
makes them only to mar them in later period. Politicised mindset compels them to
spread the violence. In this part of diary human psychology is revealed at its best. It
also reveals that proper mentality cannot be formed in abnormal ambience.

The fourth part of diary is typical representation of neighbourhood picture. It only

reveals the scathing effects of riots on a Muslim family and a heartless indifference
on the part of Hindu family. Still it bears the sweet association on the part of two
friends from two different communities. Bondage of hearts can erase difference of
race, culture, religion. Music brings them on the same pedestal. Diary forthrightly
explicates,

“We both listened and sang along with Noor Jehan. Three voices singing together in
perfect unison. Every now and then our eyes would meet and we would smile as we
continued singing, as if, if we stopped, Noor Jehan would stop singing for us” (Final
Solutions p. 43).

Niladri R. Chatterjee has explained in his essay- “Daksha, Music and Transgressive
identity Formation in Final Solutions” : “…well aware of the sensure that her liking
for Noor Jehan is earning her, Daksha continues to cherish the Muslim singer as the
embodiment of an aspired culture”. Daksha’s musical selection makes a protest that
she had no other means of voicing. Her musical choice of Muslim singer, Noor
Jehan, creates a template on which Daksha constructs her own gendered identity as
well as an identity which defies the family-made cultural norms in which she is
confined herself. Niladri R. Chatterjee further says in the same essay-“Daksha’s
reception of Noor Jehan is not a subversion of that which is being received. Her
strictly uncritical reception of the Muslim singer actress is meant to be a criticism
and an indictment of the cultural strictures she is proscribed by”. Identity is formed
amidst the debris of fragmented entities of the persona due to straining atmosphere.

The next diary entry shows the inherited anger that one can bear in sub-conscious
level. It fervently marks the fact that anger is pre-historic and it can be exploded at
the trigger of a moment. In dire situation manly quality is shorn off from a person’s
character and he forgets the need of religious bondage because society compels him
to act otherwise. Though Hari is a typical good character, he was raged at the
mention of human attitude to the Muslim. The problem is not solved, people only is
covered by beastly wallow. Daksha’s diary indirectly sheds light on this spot.

44
Daksha (reading). “We were silent for a long time and I forgot about Zarine’s
problems I was confused. And yet, I wanted to please Hari…Hari smiled while he
continued chewing on his supari. He beckoned me to lie beside him on the bed. And
I did.” (Final Solutions p. 55)

The last diary entry captures the distrustful attitude of each of the characters. This
distrust makes one isolated from the entire community. Actually there is no perfect
united community in that position. So Daksha decides to go outside to Zarine’s house
alone in order to find consolation. But consolation is yet to be attained. Familiar
persons seem to be apart from each other. From her last diary we can see a hatred
feeling of Daksha when she went to Zarine’s house. Daksha actually dislikes their
food. When the member of Zarine’s house started eating their meals, the smell of
their food repelled Daksha. She sat with them without her hands touching the table
and watched them “eat those things!”. For this reason Daksha’s husband hit her
repeatedly and she was confined to the house by Hari and his parents for the offence
she had not committed. Difference of taste for food is symbolic here. It perfectly
suggests the mindset which cannot be bridged easily. The innocent youth catches the
elder persons’ indifferent attitude. The possibility of reconciliation of the different
segments is blurred, seemingly, on the ground of economical matter.

The ill-treatment still hurts her. This anguish and bitterness and pain of the last
encounter with Zarine make an abiding impression on Daksha or Hardika.
Henceforth, for most part of her life, Hardika stays trapped and cocooned in her
community. From her hatred feeling, she considers them ‘horrible people’ with false
pride and arrogance, and hates them. The end of the diary is indeed pessimistic and
caustic; Daksha’s idea is noteworthy-

Daksha. “What wretched people. All this fuss over such a small matter. I hate
people with false pride. As if it is their birthright to ask for more than they deserve.
Such wretched people! Horrible people!” (Final Solutions .p. 60)

Reflecting on the whole gamut of memories, examining the various course of events
through the diary, Daksha concludes, “things have not changed so much”(Collected
Plays p.167). Forty years have elapsed since Independence. Daksha is now
transformed into Hardika, who opens her diary and starts writing again. Now she
calls it “a young girl’s childish scribble” to her matured handwriting-“An old
woman’s scrawl”-implying the passage of time, but regrets that things today are the
same as they were forty years ago. And Hardika remembers, we realize those forty
years on, indeed, things have not changed so much, as the play has opened in the
midst of another riot, and a curfew is declared in the small town of Amargon where

45
Gandhis live. Through the device of diary two distinct phases of the same character,
separated by forty years, are merged, subtly suggesting that the narratives of hatred
too have not changed much. This is of immense significance both from theatrical and
visual points of view. In the same play the age difference between Daksha and
Hardika would appear stark. So the ideology of “things have not changed so much”
would be shockingly pertinent. It is this effect that Dattani wants to create in his
readers and the effect continues throughout the play.

Thus we can see the pervasive importance of diary in this text. Its use is very
intellectual and it at once breaks the spatial and temporal barrier within the short
arena of dramatic performance. The conflation of Daksha and Hardika is thus a
conflation of the past and the present, of related historical inputs and the specific
contemporary scenario. For this reason, the blending of the diary of time past and
time present widens the temporal and spatial base of the play. All these add to the
multilayered features and at once enhance the effect of the dramatic performance. It
echoes many of the thematic issues and highlights them which are impossible to
draw from outside. It brings us to another important element in Dattani’s plays.
Dattani likes to probe into the secrets in his plays, may those secrets be sociological
or psychological. These secrets actually build up the core area of the drama, thereby
making the structure well-made enough. Diary expostulates the surface of
tempestuous past. The action then goes on to the climactic position. At the end of the
play, the action is pathetic indeed. Here Daksha saw the dark facet of Zarine and her
family. However, Daksha’s family’s behaviour was responsible for the outrage and
emotional pang of Zarine’s family. Actually this attitudinal difference leads to the
ultimate disharmony of the characters and cycles of hatred and violence.

The last utterance of Daksha in the diary ‘wretched people.Horrible people’ is very
pathetic. Daksha considers Zarine’s family to be benumbed with false pride and
arrogance, and hates them. She was the only person who was free of prejudice but
her ideals broke off. The ending is different that many of us cannot like to respond.
Indeed there is the major difference between Final Solutions and most of the other
plays of Dattani. The difference is, of course, that Dattani’s Dance Like a Man and
Tara end in an optimistic tone. But Final Solutions does not offer any such
assurances.

In Final Solutions, Dattani’s use of diary draws attention to his brilliant conflation of
Daksha and Hardika, as well as past and present of the Indian Nation. At the end of
the play, Hardika’s actual hatred of Muslims and Daksha’s complete confinement in
the room are two important growing issues in the plot that are linked very wisely.
Dattani’s intention of presenting the burning issue in the present world is reflected

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through the journey of Daksha’s diary in the play. According to Angelie Multani,
Daksha’s diary establishes the history of division-the source of ‘us and them’, the
link between personal experience and political belief or social hatred.

Dattani has perfectly delineated the hierarchies and networks. Actually, Dattani’s
plays always use the family as a central trope. He draws attention to the relationships
within the families, and extended families, including friends, neighbours etc. He also
highlights the generational gap between the old people and the youth. Through the
device of diary Dattani is also able to define clashes and conflicts between tradition
and modernity in India’s context. John Mc is full of praise of Dattani’s talents and
even relates this to the best dramatic tradition in the world. He says,

“The starting point for many of the greatest plays is the family-from The Orestia to
Hamlet, from Racine to Ibsen and Chekov, from the royal concerns of Shakuntala
to the tribal spectacles of Wole Soyinka , human relationships and the family unit
have always been at the heart of dramatic representation. Yes, Dattani has the
Ibsenite talent for revealing the secrets of a family, but he goes beyond this, making
his characters turn towards the future in exorcising the past”.( “A Note on the Play”.
P.40-50)

In Final Solutions, the present and the past co-exist. While the past has designed the
structure of the present, the present assists the characters to reinterpret the past. This
is possibly done only through the technical use of Dattani’s diary in the play. When
the play opens, Hardrika is both young and old. Her youth talks of the past while her
aged self lives in the present-bitter and withdrawn. Thus Dattani’s device of diary of
using two actors consecutively represents one character.

2.21 LET US SUM UP

After going through this unit you might has got in depth detail analysis each tit bit
from the challenges this paly face , the reaction of people. Each aspects has been
dealt in minute detail in order to give a detail analysis of the masterpiece at large
.Whether it be Defence of Scarred Psyche in Final Solutions, Music as Motif in
Final Solutions, Silence, Suffering and Sunshine in Final Solutions, Social Vision as
Reflected in Final Solutions, Vision and Visuals as Depicted in Final Solutions,
Deconstructed Family in Final Solutions, Presentation of Contemporaneity in Final
Solution, Locating the Self in Final Solution, Social Exclusion in Final Solution,
Technique and Stage Craft in Final Solutions, The Use of Dialogues in the Play Final
Solutions, The Presentation of Moral Issues in Final Solutions, Telescoping Past and
Present. These are the certain thematic outlook that has been portrayed.

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2.22 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

1) Technique and Stage Craft in Final Solutions. Elucidate

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2) Presentation of Moral Issues in Final Solutions. Justify

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3) Music as Motif in Final Solutions. Explain

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2.23 REFERENCE

1. Dattani, Mahesh, Final Solutions, New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2000
p.189

2. Chatterjee ,Niladri. ‘ Daksha ,Music and Transgressive Identity Formation in

Final Solutions’ .Plays of Mahesh Dattani . Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. New
Delhi: Pencraft International, 2012. Print.

3. Cuthers, Merry. The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval

Culture. 2nd ed. Newyork: Cambridge University Press,1990. Print.

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4. Dattani, Mahesh. Final Solutions. Ed. Angelie Multani. New Delhi: Pencraft
International, 2009. Print.

5. Dattani, Mahesh. Collected Plays. New Delhi: Penguin India, 2000. Print.

6. Kundera, Milan. Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Newyork: Harper

Collins,2012. Print.

7. Mc Rae John. Introduction. Final Solutions and Other Plays. By Mahesh

Dattani. New Delhi. East-West Press Ltd. 1994. Print.

8. Puttenham, George. The Art of English Poesie. Kent State: Kent State
University, 1970. Print.

9. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed.Richard Andrews and Rex Gibson.2nd ed.

Newyork: Cambridge University Press,1990.

10. https://www.the-criterion.com/telescoping-the-past-and-the-present-in-attanis-
final-solutions-a-critical-discourse-on-the-diary

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