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ISSN: 2320-5407 Int. J. Adv. Res. 9(11), 54-61
54
Journal Homepage: -www.journalijar.com
Article DOI:10.21474/IJAR01/13712
DOI URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.21474/IJAR01/13712
RESEARCH ARTICLE
SUBALTERN PERSPECTIVES IN MAHESH DATTANI’S BRAVELY FOUGHT THE QUEEN
Aninnya Sarkar1 and Dr. Indrani Singh Rai2
1. PhD Scholar, Amity School of Languages, Amity University Chhattisgarh.
2. Associate Professor, Amity School of Languages, Amity University Chhattisgarh.
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Manuscript Info Abstract
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Manuscript History
Received: 05 September 2021
Final Accepted: 10 October 2021
Published: November 2021
Key words:-
Existence, Crisis, Subaltern, Patriarchy,
Identity
Mahesh Dattani‟sBravely Fought the Queen elucidates the defaulted
picture of the Indian society, where the characters face a tremendous
existential crisis. The women are badly dependent on the men
characters for their survival, whereas the male characters are badly
dependent on the patriarchal system for proving their dominant
existence in the society. Every character in the play whether a man or a
woman faces a gruesome crisis for their survival. They are not free
birds who can drive their life by their free will. Women in the play are
portrayed as the victims under the tyrannical hands of patriarchy, from
which they are trying to escape from the claustrophobic existence to
their own shaped world of independence. This paper is an earnest
endevour to explore the existential crisis of the characters and search a
probable solution.
Copy Right, IJAR, 2021,. All rights reserved.
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Introduction:-
Kate Millet (Singh, 2018) in her treatise Sexual Politics infersthat politics is not confined to political parties or
Parliament, but it is exercised in any power-structured correlation, arguments when one gender is dominated by
another. These kinds of oppressive and cloggy relationships are highly prevalent in Indian society. Politics is
profoundly present in the man-woman relationship in the family as well as at the societal level. An allegory of the
woman‟sstruggle(IS Rai, 2008)can be seen and it also focuses on the successful and unsuccessful man-woman
relationship and traces the reasons behind their manifestation and sustenance in society.MaheshDattani is a rare
playwright in Indian English literature, who does not wish to go at par with the conventional dramatic canon. His
main motto is to develop a theatre which can be comprehended by the multi-lingual community of India and abroad.
Hence, he uses English as a means of communication. A close analysis of his plays reveals that the plays are rooted
in urban milieu of India and reflects the concerns and constrains of the common man. The plays dramatize the
common man‟s efforts to have space and respect in society. He points on the grey areas of humans where they feel
exhausted. They live on the fringes of the society and do not look for acceptance but are struggling against the
oppressive weight of tradition and cultural constructions of gender to grab as much fringe spaces for themselves as
possible. Their dramas are played out on multi-level sets where interior and exterior become one and geographical
locations get collapsed, making the space as fragmented as the characters that inhabit them.
Bravely Fought the Queen is about a typical Indian family, that depicts the life of the middle-class Trivedi family,
living in the posh area of Bangalore city. Dattani has pictured a character named Jiten who is a champion of
patriarchy being insensitive towards women. He is shown to be lacking the genuine feelings and always
misbehaving with the second sex. Jiten‟sbehaviour is a major problem in our society. There are several other
Corresponding Author:- Dr. Indrani Singh Rai
Address:- Associate Professor, Amity School of Languages, Amity University Chhattisgarh.
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Jitensroaming around us and such Jitens are caused due to the lack of gender sensitization prevalent in the Indian
culture. Jiten cannot be blamed for his thought process or perception towards women or men, it is the fault of the
structure of Indian society, on which Jiten is dependent upon. Gayatri Spivak (Spivak, 2003) in her work Can the
Subaltern Speak categorically revealed that all subjugated classes of the society are not permitted to speak. The
women in the play come out victorious at the end, fighting against the battle of patriarchy and emerging as strong
characters, whereas the men in the play stand defeated as they are also the products of patriarchy suffering due to the
hollow rules and structure being framed in the patriarchal paradigm. It turns the veils of the hidden truth which
spotlights the subaltern women who are from the fringes of society. (Rai, 2018)
Gayatri Spivak (Puvar, 2016) categorically said that all oppressed classes of the society were left to survive in the
confined spaces of domesticity, kept in dark to bear the burden of silence and sobbing. They were treated as the
second sex and were not permitted to participate in the public domain. Economically, culturally, and biologically,
they were treated as the incarnation of weakness and submissiveness. Their identity is identified only in context of
the male counterpart. In the Indian context, the „Code of Manu‟, husbands are treated at par God. (Mukherjee,2013)
And it has made the rule for woman to stay demarcated within the four walls of the house and be thrice obeying.
Firstly, she must be obeying her father, secondly, she must be obeying her husband after marriage and thirdly, she
must be obeying her son after her husband‟s death. She should be guided because she is supposed to have no wish of
her own. The dependency of a woman on men makes her to be treated as property. In Indian society, religious values
have always given the status of “Goddess” (Singh, 2018) to women, surviving with the ideals of sacrifice,
sensibility, love, patience, and resistance which did not permit her freedom and identity. In Sexual Politics, Kate
Millet on talking about the marginalization of women, proposes that the formation of „sexual‟ identity is very less to
be termed as biological, rather this concept of male and female is purely a social construction. (Caddick, 1986)Right
through Indian history, Indian woman‟scrucial dedication to her religion, establishments andrituals has enabled her
to be portrayed as the steward ofculture and faith. Women have been defined as theembodiment of purity and
revered as godly beingsdespite the fact that in reality they have been consideredas susceptible creatures constantly
requiring theprotection of man as their lord and master. (Dang, 2021)
The reason why Dattani chooses the urban Indian Family as his primary locale in order to explore the subterfuges of
patriarchy is not difficult to grasp for in the light of economic restructuring through WTO and IMF-led policies and
the globalization process, the family alone emerges as a critical institution in terms of production and replenishment
of human capital from generation to generation. Also, by centering his dramatic ideology on the institution of
family, Dattani administers to explore the institution of „familialism‟ as a dominant ideology that arms the existing
sociological discourse on the Indian family and its corollary institutions with a gamut of potentially exploitative
machinations. (Chakrabarti, 2017) In traditional society, men become wage- earners, women become home makers,
and much of their division of labour is already culturally determined for them. Although this standardization of
marriage roles is necessary for societal survival, in the modern times, it clashes with the opposite tendency towards
greater freedom and variety in personal behaviour. It is impossible to determine whether it is men or women who
suffer more in the family, because obviously, this depends somewhat upon the specific persons involved and the
character of their domestic life. These conflicts in women‟s role in the family arise from still larger contradictions
which exist in the status of women in the society. The society cherishes for them an ideal of a womanly woman, full
of feminine charm and kindness, gracious and tolerant, and a loving adjunct to her husband‟s more robust
intelligence.(Singh,2014) Gender is a recent concept used to understand man and woman. In gender studies
patriarchy affects the life of those who come under this umbrella. It gives the feelings of dominance to man to apply
it on women and young men. R W Connell has popularized “hegemonic masculinity” to show the proposed practices
that promote dominant social position of men and subordinate position of women. (Kulkarni, 2016)
Writing at the „Note of the play‟ in Bravely fought the Queen, Michael Walling says (Dattani, 2013) “is a play about
performance; and uses the theatre to demonstrate how in a world of democracy acting becomes a way of life”. It is
in three acts, Act I “the woman”, Act II “the man”, and Act III “Free For All”. On one hand it is the world of women
and on the other hand it is the world of men, who clash among each other each other. The play throws light to the
liminal space of controversy between modern ideology and traditional orthodox values. In the play the home is
portrayed as an in betweenness of claustrophobic existence, where the female universe is disappointed by the male
universe of business and this conflict leads to a very uncertain note of guilt and dissatisfactions at the end of the
play. Dattani reflects on the predicament and plight of Indian women in the past and contrasts their position in the
present scenario. Theplaywright has minutely observed andformed a concept of a woman whohas emerged out of the
age-old traditionalprejudices. In his plays, Dattani attributes theplight of the traditional women to
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theirpassiveresignation to male dominance andtheir acceptance of traditionalism andconcept of old values. (Mishra,
2019)The narrative centers around a family of two real brothers, Jiten and Nitin, who married two real sisters, Dolly
and Alka. The women of the home look after their mother-in-law- Baa, who is bedridden. Apart from them, there is
Sridhar who works in the advertising agency of the two brothers and the extremely talented and intelligent lady,
Lalitha. The play displays sights of oppression and dehumanization being done to women. The Merriam Webster
dictionary defines dehumanization as “to deprive (someone or something) of human qualities, personality, or dignity
or spirit”. (Jain, 2017) Simone D Beauvoir in The Second Sex points out how monogamous relationships are a
semantic assault on marriage. She reveals how “marriage kills love”, “Marriage is a form of servitude”, “Marriage is
obscene in principle”; “Marriage today a surviving relic of dead ways of life”; The chains of marriage are heavy;
conjugal slavery”; “Marriage diminishes man… but almost always annihilates women.” (Brennan, 2005) Women
across the world have been considered subhuman, fragile, sex objects rather a prejudice that led to their endless
suffering.
The drama unfolds allusions to two real-life Queens in the play- Naina Devi, the exponent of Thumri and the other is
the legendary warrior queen -Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi. The title of the “Bravely Fought the Queen” is an
adaptation of the English translation of the famous poem “KhubladiMardani wo tohJhanshiwali Rani thi”,
(Jain,2017) (Bravely Fought the manly Queen). The title itself states that how much a woman‟s identity stands
questionable to the society that she being a “woman” cannot lead the responsibility of the society. She must be a
“man” or equal to a “man” to stand powerful in the patriarchal paradigm. It owes its nomenclature to Subhadra
Kumari Chauhan‟s epic poem on the Rani of Jhansi. Both Subhadra Kumari and Rani of Jhansi share a common
history of protest against patriarchal delimitation and definition of gender roles. The Rani is seen in the poem as
stripping her feminine weaknesses and donning militant masculinity by picking a sword and plunging it into a sheath
at her waist.Again, the poet Subhadra Kumari Chauhan was the first woman Satyagrahi to court arrest in Nagpur
in1923 when she was just eighteen and pregnant. In the jail she had come to know that prisoners who belong to C
class are denied food and are offered inhuman behavior. Subhadra fearlessly and confidently protested against that
inhuman torture towards the C class prisoners. Thus,Dattani recalls two very brave women who resisted
thestereotypical representations of femininity to fight against oppression. (Gupta, 2018)
Dattani staged his characters to teach people how they should live their life. He talksabout gender inequality, social
restrictions, and sexual stereotyping they face within the demarcated boundary of themarried life. (Desmukh, 2018)
The play begins in the living room of Dolly and Jiten Trivedi where Lalitha, an unexpected guest suddenly confronts
Dolly, who is getting ready for an outing with her husband. And Lalitha arrives at Dolly‟s place, to discuss the
masked ball which is going to take place at their husband‟s office party for the launch of a new lingerie brand Re-
Va-Te. The picture denotes women‟s constant dependency on their husbands. Lalitha in order to save her husband‟s
job must pay a visit to the Trivedis. Woman‟s world is limited within the cramped demarcation of the wants and
needs of their husband. They hardly share a liberate space where they can exercise their own freedom.
On the very first meeting, also there is a recognition, how Lalitha during her introduction with Dolly contracts an
identity conflict when Dolly fails to remember her and says, “Whose wife are you?” (Dattani, 2006, p.5) To which
Lalitha replies that she is “Sridhar‟s wife”, and Dolly instantly points out how detached she is from holding much
knowledge about her husband‟s work. Again, Lalitha expounds that she is the wife of “Re-VaTe Sridhar”, a specific
identity by which Sridhar is known in the office. And, just in the same scenario, it is noticed that Lalitha calls Alka
and Dolly as Mrs. Trivedi. The entire episode elucidates the picture of women‟s specification in the society, where
they are identified either as someone‟s wife or someone‟s daughter, they hardly have any identity of their own
except for being dependent on the males of their house. At the same time, Sridhar instead of having a surname is
being called “Re-Va-Te Sridhar”. Likewise, the name of the project „Re-Va-Te‟, which is selected for a lingerie
brand for women is being taken from the good name of Revathi Sharma, the chairman‟s wife. When they went for a
holiday to Europe, the French could not articulate her name correctly and that resulted in her husband‟s decision to
name the women lingerie brand as „Re-Va-Te‟. The lines depict the masculinized society‟s perception of always
aligning women‟s products with the name or features of something womanly. Women is always a commodity for
men. Dattani has been an extremely sensitive and feminist playwright who tried to prioritize how women‟s dress and
her undergarments need to be as per her choice and comfort, the man has got no right to select or deck up woman as
per his choice. But unfortunately, the patriarchal premises have set the protocols for women to dress themselves, just
to satisfy the lusty thirst of the “male gaze”. Her choice has always been ignored or never taken solicitously.In this
context it can be said that the ruthless actions of patriarchy is equal to the harsh ruling power of the British rather as
a critic says, “Patriarchy is another name of colonization of gender. It is culturallyand socially appropriated.
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Subalternizationand silencing of women go on at different forms and colour in Indian society and areperpetuated by
different forces in thesociety”. (Biswas, 2021)
From the play, it is also observed that during the ad campaign of Re-Va-Te, women have given the feedback of the
advertisement‟s concept as “highly offensive”, and also explicitly stating the fact that the composers of the
advertisement have failed to understand women, “we...understood women”. (51) But even after that, the chauvinistic
approach of Jiten has not even faded a tinge, as he clearly ignores the consumer survey form, which is filled by the
local women, and sticks to their concept of portraying the advertisement in the similar insensitive masculinized
approach which is formerly disliked by women:
JITEN. There‟s nothing to discuss. I think it‟s a great campaign.
SRIDHAR. They hated it!
JITEN. They just need pushing.
SRIDHAR. I pushed them enough.
JITEN. Not hard enough!
SRIDHAR. But the consumer survey clearly showed…
JITEN. Screw the survey! You know who you should have tested it out on? Men!
SRIDHAR. Men!
JITEN. Yes! Men would want to buy it for their women! That‟s our market. Men would want their women dressed
up like that. And they have the buying power. Yes! So, there‟s no point of asking a group of screwed-up women
what they think of it. They „ll pretend to feel offended and say, “Oh, we are always being treated like sex objects.”
(54)Women have always been looked upon with demeaning eyes within the patriarchal boundary. Their survival and
lifestyle are totally relied on the way the males of the society have designed them. Henrik Ibsen while making the
notes for A Doll‟s House in 1878 wrote, “A woman cannot be herself in contemporary society, it is an exclusively
male society with laws drafted by men and with counsels and judgeswho judge feminine conduct from the male
point of view”. (Hossain, 2015)Also, at the same go, one very important point can‟t be denied that the men of the
society are shown as products of patriarchy, who are strictly instructed to follow the patriarchal guidelines and if in
case they are trying to divert from the rules of the society, they are not paid much attention, like as it is found by the
character of Sridhar who mercifully tries to support the side of women‟s consumer survey, but the cruel Jiten does
not let it happen. Baa, the mother of Jiten Trivedi and Nitin Trivedi and the unnamed mother of Praful and the two
sisters Dolly and Alka represent the first generation. (Devi, 2011) She is a constant representation of absence-
presence in the play who is marked by the switching lights on and off and of course the ringing of the bell and her
constant shrieks “Dolle-e”. She is the only senior most character in the play, who is supposed to be taking care of the
family but being a victim of brutish patriarchy, she is unable to take „memory‟ and „past‟ out of her mi nd. Baa‟s
husband was a dominating and violent man who not only prevented her from singing but also used to beat her up
time and again. He also ill-treated their sons. As a result of the tyranny of her husband, she adopts a hatred attitude
for Jiten only because his appearance and behavior match with his father (Baa‟s husband). On the contrary she starts
loving Nitin, her another son, in an excessive and abnormal way, for he resembles her (Baa herself) in nature and
appearance. Her obsession with her son Nitin, and her craving for love from him alienate her and arouse an Oedipus
complex in turning him into a homo-sexual so that his love for his mother remains the same. She mentally and
emotionally becomes totally dependent on Nitin. The example of how Baa compels Nitin to hate his father and
support her emotionally:
BAA. Do you like your father?
NITIN. He is dead. Baa.
BAA. How can you say such things? (As if to a child.) Nitin?
Do you like your father?
NITIN. (voice changes to a child) Yes, Baa, I like him.
BAA. Go away! You are not my son! You are bad, like him!
(Again, as if to a child.) Nitin! You don‟t like your father, no? He‟s not nice!
NITIN. (with a heavy stutter). Nnn-nnn-nnn-no, Baa.
BAA. Good! You are my wonderful baby! You are my prince! (Again, as if to a child.) Nitin you hate your father.
Tell me.
NITIN. I-I---ddddon‟t, I ddddon‟t…
BAA. There he is! He is coming! Go away! Leave us alone! (Screaming to Nitin,) Tell me you hate him! He hits
me! Nitin, tell me you hate him! Say it!
NITIN. (in a normal voice). Yes, I hate him! (Takes Baa protectively in his arms) I hate you! Go way! Leave us
alone! (85)
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Further, Baa‟s possessiveness with Nitin makes her badly intrude into the privacy of her daughter-in-law, Alka‟s
space. Her behaviour of always adhering to her sons and gaining hold over them gave rise to such an extent that she
becomes a dominant controller into the married life of the two sisters. She allows her son Jiten to beat his wife,
Dolly at the advanced stage of pregnancy, and this resulted in the birth of Dolly and Jiten‟s daughter Daksha, as a
prematurely born spastic child at the seventh month. At the end of the play, Jiten makes a poignant confession, of
how he has been dependent on Baa for his inhuman behaviour towards Dolly, “I didn‟t mean to … you know, I
didn‟t. It was Baa! Blame her but not me! She is my daughter (Crying). Get her back!” (97) On the other hand, in
Nitin‟s case, she is stopping him from having children with Alka and has no objections with her son becoming a gay
and keeping a same sex relationship with Praful. Daksha too is victimized. She has a silent presence in the play and
stands as a symbol of Jiten‟s violence and torture of Dolly. Her existence is given very little importance in the play
as she is born spastic, her mother and father do not feel comfortable discussing her openly with anyone. In this
connection Amitav Ghosh comments, “Women are conditioned to arrest their emotional and mental
growth”. (Ghorpade, 2017) Perhaps, another picture of the patriarchal society is painted here of how mentally
retarded patients are alienated or always placed in the silent zone of the society.
Baa being a woman instead of hindering the situation of domestic violence towards her daughter in law Dolly, has
let it happen. Baa emphasizes the nature of those helpless women who while seeking justice to themselves take the
sadistic pleasure of inflicting the same pain to the next generation.In this case, Baa‟s nature cannot be blamed alone,
instead, the society‟s culture and dimension need to be analyzed that lead to such pathetic outcomes. Also, the bell
that Baa constantly rings is used as a powerful symbol by Dattani to demonstrate the strength, power, andauthority
of the patriarchy that demands service, obedience, and respect. (Prakash,2014) The character Baa can be linked with
the concept of matriarchy which is introduced by Bochofen (1861). It is a socialinstitution revolved around the idea
of ruling mothers or females signifying the power structure. The term is an acronym composed of the Latin
word mater meaning mother and the Greek word archeinmeaningto rule. In fact, itis an institution that doesn‟t stand
as opposition to patriarchy as rule by women has never existed in the patriarchal sense of rule. Writer Shashi
Deshpande inher novels goes on setting a new paradigm in which she doesn‟t mean the matriarchy as the reversal
ofpatriarchal form of society, but as a system with its own rules. (Bamane, 2014) But in Trivedi family patriarchy is
so dominant and widespread that matriarchy has no space to impose its importance to the life of the Trivedis.
The play continuously undergoes strife between the urban modern values and the traditional beliefs. A war- that is
perhaps never-ending and has no solution. But a certain relief and relaxing picture can be obtained from the
adjusting and caring domicile of Sridhar and Lalitha. Lalitha does not suffer in hands of her husband but, she suffers
at the hands of the patriarchy. She is an employee of Jiten and Nitin‟s office and very fond of making bonsai and
nurturing them with her own hands. Besides, she writes poems and publishes her articles related to women in the
newspaper columns. She is an outsider and different from the three Trivedi women. She is in a place somewhat
superior to the Trivedi women. She has a room in the public domain. She has her part to decide whether they
(Sridhar and Lalitha) should have children or not. Once Lalitha and Sridhar won raffle in one of those made-for-
each-other contests. The prize for it was two free tickets to Goa or cash. She rejected her idea of going to Goa,
because her absence would affect the growth of her bonsais which is solely dependent on her. She tells Dolly,
“Sridhar wanted Goa and I wanted cash. I just couldn‟t imagine leaving my bonsais with my neighbour, worry
whether she had remembered to water them.” (26) Sridhar says to Lalitha, “It‟s difficult for women to exactly
opposite of what their husbands want, just to prove they are independent”. (26) Her attachment for bonsai presents
her imaginative world where she can design everything according to her own will. She too longs for something the
society does not give. Similarly, bonsai represents the women of India whom the man-centric world has never given
the chance to grow freely.
Sridhar has a delicate and sensitive attitude towards women. He is involuntarily dependent on the Trivedi brothers
for his job. But he is not scared of pointing his Boss Jiten for his wrong attitude towards women. Jiten is shown very
harsh towards Sridhar, he orders Sridhar to get him, prostitutes. Although Sridhar challenges his Boss, but to buy a
new flat, he finds no redemption from the inhumanity of Jiten and cannot easily quit his job. Thus, he obeys his Boss
to earn his bread. Alka, Dolly and Lalitha are bonsais each of a different kind. Violence is the norm with which the
actions of women are controlled. As a brother in a patriarchal society, Praful has the complete right to resort to
violence if he feels his sister is going astray. The pathos of women is evident in Alka‟s words:
I told him to drop me before our street came. He didn‟t understand and dropped me right at our doorstep Praful saw.
He didn‟t say a word to me. He just dragged me into the kitchen. He lit the stove and pushed my face in front of it! I
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thought he was going to burn my face! He burnt my hair. I can still smell my hair on fire. Nitin was right behind us.
Watching! Just… Praful said, „Don‟t you look at any man Ever‟. (31-32)
Alka is too disappointed with her life, she has neither got the love of her husband nor any affection from her brother.
Her brother Praful deceived her by arranging her marriage with Nitin so that he can continue his affair with Nitin.
He tricks her and uses her as an instrument. With her sister also Alka does not share a very healthy bonding. Dolly
and Alka often end up taking verbal fights revealing each other‟s unsatisfied life. So, the only option left is to booze
and tackle the sorrows. Her life is dependent only on the pleasures of alcohol. On the other hand, Dolly is an isolated
woman who is trapped in a loveless marriage with Jiten. At the beginning of the play, she confesses to Lalitha, how
her existence is not given much importance by her husband, who never shares a word with her about his office: “I‟m
afraid I don‟t know much about my husband‟s work”. (5) Jiten is neither loyal to her nor tries to comprehend
Dolly‟s wants and needs, he instead derives carnal satisfaction from the whores. But still despite all these pathos and
sorrows, Dolly emerges as a strong character of the play because she designs her own world where she concentrates
in keeping herself beautiful by putting on make-up and face masks. She takes pleasure in hearing thumri songs and
most importantly creating an imaginative passion of having sensual fantasies with Kanhaiya, the cook, an
imaginative character prepared in the minds of both the sisters to escape the barbaric and bizarre approach of the
inhuman patriarchal world. Another important side to highlight in the play is through the homo-sexual character of
Nitin, whose sexual preference is ignored by the society and the preference is always put in the silent zone. Gender
is a social construct, but identity is a self-construct. It is the contented identity which is accountable for human
persona. If it is established otherwise, the conflict both mentally and physically spurs and it is obvious that a
constrained identity will lead to a constrained self and it is true that no evolution is ever complete, it‟s a continuous
process.(Rai, 2019)
Towards the end of the play, Act III „Free for All‟, at a particular scene it is showcased that the bonding of the three
women, Dolly, Alka and Lalitha are highly involved enjoying their friendship- rather creating a feminine world of
their own, revealing their own joys and sorrows, a world which the women always quest to shape their
independence- with the soft music of the thumri song played at the background, when Alka decides to change the
cassette and Lalitha suddenly popped up saying how Dolly‟s story reminds her of the poem of “Jhansi Ki Rani” and
then slowly and steadily, Dolly and Alka attempted to erase their real-life roles and imagined wearing the mask of
the queenly status, where none can ruin them but it will only be they themselves ruling their life.Dolly wants to
dress herself as a „tawaif‟ (77) and Alka as the „Queen of Jhansi.‟The play deeply focused on the line: “Bravely
fought the manly Queen”. (78) Perhaps, the line signifies how in the Indian society „brave‟ has no other synonym
but Man, the reason why the anti-essentialist feminists always wanted equal rights as man. But it is highly
questionable for the post-modern thinkers who believe in the concept of essentialism and gender unity in diversity.
Thus, the phrase „manly queen‟ stands irrelevant and contradictory.
Theatre for Dattani is not a mute and mechanical representation of social dynamics, but it is a lively representation
of the voices resounding in context to totality of human experiences that consciously or unconsciously affect the
existing dynamics of human sensibility.(Trivedi, 2016)Unlike Girish Karnard who lays prominence on history,
myths and purans, Dattani elevates the voice of marginalizedpeople or the subalterns within the contemporary
urban Indian society. Those who are overlooked amid the fast-changing scenario of the modern society, extensively,
got importance in his writings. His excellence as a playwright stands upon the fact that he writes explicitly about his
own feelings, thoughts and the real problems that occurs in the society. Through his plays the „here‟ and „now‟ of
modern urban Indian society noticed by the contemporary intellectuals, Dattani makes a suggestive experiment with
his dramatic art to explore the hidden recesses of human consciousness and is successful in achieving the target of
universality. (Bhattacharjee, 2016)
Discussion:-
As per my literature review, after going through many papers, I have land up to find out few problems of gender that
is highly prevalent in our present society and how Dattani has tried to give a space to those problems in his plays.
Chakrabarti in his paper „Patriarchy and Familialism in Dattani‟s Bravely Fought the Queen‟ throws a challenge to
the consequences of heteropatriarchy and familialism that inflicts pain on characters like Dolly, Alka and Nitin, who
are left in the grey zone of their preferred living. The “Fringe space” that Dattani draws in his drama in the form of
family, society or Nation controls or constricts the lives of his characters in the play. The space tends to compel the
characters to accept either the traditional modes of survival or secretly fantasize the alternate spaces where they true
wish to belong. Ghorpade in her paper, „Victimization of Women in the Hands of Men and their Patriarchy in
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Mahesh Dattani‟s Bravely Fought the Queen‟portrayed how women in the play are always the victims in the male
chauvinistic society. They are like the saplingsat the hands of males who have sought to curtail their full growth and
led to the growth ofgrotesque artificial plants but unable to serve the real purpose of natural trees like a cold shade or
a fruit. Thus, like the bonsais, the women are incapable of realizing their fullpotential. All have suffered through the
intervention of patriarchal force.Gupta in her paper, ‘The woman who fought bravely: The absent women characters
in Mahesh Dattani‟s Bravely Fought the Queen‟, elucidates how women in spite of being silent and submissive to
the patriarchal society bravely fights for their rights. They explicitly express the dissatisfaction with the
conventional laws being framed by the society and at the end fights back bold and elegant demanding liberty and
breaking the stereotypical pattern of the society.Singh in his paper, „Rise of Women by Breaking the Stereotypes
and Patriarchal Oppression in Mahesh Dattani‟s Bravely Fought the Queen‟ portrays the subalternization of
Indian women in the private and public domain in the masculinized society.Her objective is to put forth the
discrimination and injustice done to the second sex of oursociety. Further, it highlights the transition of women from
being mere victims of patriarchytowards being self-assertive and questioning male authority.Puvar in his paper,
„Mahesh Dattani‟s Bravely Fought the Queen: A Facet of New Woman‟, paints the scenario of women‟s struggle in
the modern world to strive for independence and identity in the patriarchal realm. He shows how this society is a
challenge for women to peacefully find out a path for their happy survival. In my opinion, Dattani‟s Bravely Fought
the Queen gives us a clean idea that the traditional roles of masculine and feminine are imposed not biologically
always but a social construct in the psychology of humans from the patriarchal world. We have always targeted man
for his inhuman behaviour but we can‟t totally eliminate the fact that man is a fruit of the tree named patriarchy and
that tree has got no branch called gender sensitization. For understanding or sympathizing with each other‟s
problem, man and woman should equally participate and recognize the gap that is formed in between them. Human
sensibility should be the only key nature that needs to be adopted by man and woman to erase the prevalent helpless
situations of the society.
Conclusion:-
Men view culture and society as male for male is the norm and humanity as masculine. Stereotyped portrayal and
under-representation of female characters contribute negativity affecting her aspirations, attitudes which influence
their personality development resulting in loss of identity. In the same way in Dattani‟s play, the women constantly
face an identity crisis as they cannot justify their independence being oppressed and subjugated by the patriarchal
hands of the society. In India with the prevalent problems of gender identity trouble, there is at present no immediate
way out to control or eradicate the issues, other than bringing into light the urgent need of imposing or spreading
gender sensitization. Insensitive man like Jiten Trivedi and homo-sexual man like Nitin Trivedi have the full right to
live their life as per their choice. The society can‟t burden them with the responsibilities of conventional marriage
and exploit the life of such helpless women like Dolly and Alka. Dattani portrays real life experienceand tries to
articulate the voice of the oppressed sections of the society. The traditional patriarchal structure of societal rules and
regulations are very suffocating and painful. The pattern “Being a male dominant society, male rule and women
follow” (Sheela, 2018) needs to be altered. Patriarchal society unfolds a gap or a loophole between the man-woman
relationships. The gap which draws the picture of violence, misunderstandings, unwillingness and silence or the lack
of mental connectivity issues in between humans. But this gap can be erased or deleted only if there is a proper
sensitivity and understanding between the two sexes. Male and female need to grasp and comprehend each other‟s
problems, and this is going to happen only if they equally participate in the activities of the domicile and the
business world. This sensitivity needs be installed in the life of men and women from the very beginning of their
childhood. So, that brutal men like Jiten and sobbing in silence women like Dolly don‟t land up getting married to
each other and destroying their life.
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