Generation gap in 'Dance like a Man'

          Introduction

Drama is considered as fine arts; it's afforded pleasure and finds expression in acting with dialogues. Its unique inevitable part of human culture and knowledge coupled with emotions and concerned with expression. A man expresses himself through any forms of art thus the creation of "art of drama". Mahesh Dattani is one of the few leading Indian English dramatist in India. First, who had wrote in Indian English drama in original in English language. He has taken the fame as a modern Indian English dramatist. In addition, he is the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Academy Award, the highest award for literary work in India for his book " Final Solutions and Other Plays". We are talking about Mumbai based playwright, stage-director, screenwriter, filmmaker and dancer.

In 'Dance Like a Man' the story revolves around three generations, their personal ambition, their sacrifices, their struggle and compromises, internal conflict and the way they coup with life and dance being the major topic of discussion in the house as it is a topic of debate between the father and his son and daughter-in-law.

Generation gap in Dance Like a Man

Dance Like a Man throws considerable light on various reasons causing a gulf between different generations. The play powerfully reveals the rigidity in the attitudes of the older generation, whitch seeks to impose its own will and values upon the younger ones, denying them freedom to live a life at their own terms. Jairaj in the play becomes a victim of his father's tradition-bound instincts and values and succumbs to his will. The intergenerational conflict in the play is focused mainly on the choice of profession.

While the younger generation in Dance Like a Man and Where There's a Will suffers due to the oppressive fathers, in Do the Needful,a romantic comedy, Dattani gives a surprising twist to this trend. The younger people, Alpesh and Lata, are clever enough to discard the burden of traditions and social taboos. The study of generation gap in this play is focused on the practice of arranged marriages in traditional Indian society. The parents of both are unaware of the secret agreement between their wards to live a life according to their wishes, and this to liberate themselves from the hold of tradition-bound society.

The playwright tells us how the autocratic father tries to check the movements and manners of his son and his daughter-in-law, although the father is considered as a man of progressive ideas and liberal views. The playwright dramatizes the conflict between the age and the youth through the characters of the old father and the young son. The family ties and marriage discord are highlighted through a series of conflicts among the members of a single family. Amritlal Parekh upholds the traditional values, whereas his son, Jairaj, seeks to overthrow it through his course of action.

Dattani believes ".... there are so many things, tensions, and conflicts that we're dealing with, that's what my inspiration is.... I'm writing because these issues are inspiring to me .... The individual versus society, I guess, is a theme that's in all my plays." While juxtaposing individual with society, Dattani's plays throw light on the complex relationships which a person shares with his family members as well as with society. Dattani not only writes about people in society but also about those who live on the fringes of gender and sexuality, not much spoken about in our culture. To create a greater understanding of humanity, Dattani writes about invisible issues which need to be brought out and addressed. After reading his plays, one finds that the main reason of the pain in people's lives is their unhappy relationships with their families and societies. 

The stage settings are contrived to amalgamate the multiple layers of the societal, the generation gap, familial, the historical contours of such location. Dattani's Dance Like a Man uses the family home as the setting, the existence of three generations. The play travels back and forth between several generations, Amrit Lal, the imperious father and social reformer who is infuriated by Bharatnatyam which is usually and traditionally performed by women. He passes irreparable harm to his son Jairaj and his wife Ratna who is taught the ancient secret of an art by an old devadasi. Lata and young Ratna are to be played by the same actor. As they put on different characters, the resonating sense of time and change illuminate and give newer meanings. Dattani, like Miller, powerfully brings out the huge gap between the aspirations, values and world views of the two generations. Like Miller, Dattani too, assails the excessive materialism, middle class values and hypocrisies of the older generation.

The writer reveals that Dattani reflects a postcolonial condition and his play Dance Like a Man "... is representation of a postcolonial condition, of ambivalent cultural moods, forms, transitions and translations in Indian society." It tends to emphasize the cultural clashes and dismembering of tradition, completely ignoring the effect of these classes and crisis on the nature of human relationships in the play.

The treatment of conflict between the older and the younger generation, representing traditional values, aspirations and authoritarianism. On the one hand and modern sense of individual freedom and inclinations on the other, testifies to Dattani's dramatic credo of enlightening and provoking the mind of the audience by exposing rampant hypocrisies in relationships. Dattani traces them to generation gap, educational differences and changes in the social and cultural milieu, subtly underlining at the same time, the ways of achieving healthy relations based on sensitivity to and respect for the aspirations, inclinations and values of each other. That dramatization of conflict between fathers and sons in Dance Like a Man, caused by an utter indifference of the patriarchs to the aims and interests of their sons, artistically emphasizes the need of adopting a more humane, flexible, tolerant and accommodative attitude by the old towards the younger generation for their happy and harmonious family and personal life.

        Conclusion

Mahesh Dattani is a leading serious dramatist in contemporary era. The 20th century witnessed radical and rapid changes and alteration in number of fields of human interests and investments. There has also occured a radical and rapid shift of values and notions. It demanded urgent need to address the shifting values and self identities in our society. The Indian culture refers to the way of life of the people of India. India's languages, literature, religions, dance, music, food, architecture and customs differ from place to place within the country. The Indian culture often labeled as an amalgamation of several cultures, spans across the Indian subcontinent and includes traditions that are several millennia old.