Caged Birds: The Ugly Contours of Society in Mahesh Dattani’s Play Tara

Abstract

Mahesh Dattani, a Gujrati by descent was born and educated in Bangalore. Dattani is a post graduate in advertising and had moved on to be a copy writer.He started working with the Bangalore little theatre and was spotted by Alyque Padamsee who encouraged him into full time theatre, He was awarded the Sahitya Academy Award in 1998 and also one of the writers chosen to write plays for the BBC. As a dramatist Dattani is known  for real portrayal of  contemporary issues by works which use  deliberate ploys to project his central message. His intense and sensitive depiction of today’s India, its individual  quandaries, human deceits, familial  strains and social clashes, have earned him a  top spot among the dramatists of the nation. This paper is an endeavour to investigate such  areas as family interaction  and  sexual discrimination in the affluent of  contemporary India via the play Tara. Tara the central character is like a caged bird representative of the millions of Indian girls who due to their sex are discriminated against and never reach their potential.  A large number of social ,cultural and economic factors are the reason for this disturbing malaise in India.