Presentation of the Bonsai and dwarfed maturity in Mahesh Dattanis Bravely Foug - PDF document

��1 &#x/MCI; 0 ;&#x/MCI; 0 ;Presentation of the “Bonsai and dwarfed maturity” in Mahesh Dattani’s BravelyFought the Queen Anindita Chatterje Assistant Professor, Department of English, Sanskrit College (West Bengal Education Service) Kolkata ��2 &#x/MCI; 0 ;&#x/MCI; 0 ;Implementing the techniques of pruning, root reduction, grafting and defoliationsmall trees are grown that mimic the shape and style of full grown trees. In the course of the play the symbol of the miniscule plant or bonsai goes on to assume a profound significance with respect to the lives ofthe characters depictedin the play. The art of wiring and trimming of the plants symbolically allude to the process of control and domination of women by the laws and tenets ofthepatriarchy. The stunted growth thus becomes suggestive of the restrictive life of the women in the play as well as the women of the Indian society in general who are forced to fit into thepreordainedidentities of the mother, the daughter, and the wifethroughout their life. Lalitha being a childless woman attended the bonsais with a maternal love. She trimmed and pruned the saplings with utmost care.She brought one of herselfcreated bonsaias a gift for the Trivedis when she came to visit themto discuss the masked ball event with Dolly Trivedi on her husband’sboss’srequestDolly was amused with Lalitha’s unconventional gift, Alka was merely curious. Lalitha confessed to Alka that it was an art which she had been practising for years. Lalitha: I suppose it comes with a bit practise. In the beginning, you will have a lot of dead shoots on your hands. But then you learn and it…comes. Anyone can do it. You first find a sapling of your choice. It could be of any tree. I myself prefer fruit trees because when they re fully grown (giggles)I guess you can’t call them fully grownbut when they’ve reached their (demonstrates with her hands) dwarfed maturity, they really look bizarre with peasized mangoes or oranges! (Dattani 18)She was devoted in her craft which was her hobby as well her means of transcending the confines of her barren lonely life.When she tried to share her fascination with about how one has to diligently ‘keep trimming the trees as they grow’ (Dattani 19), the restless and impulsive Alks replied, ‘Sounds very tedious.’ (Dattani 19) Alka did not possess Lalitha’s patience or perseverance tdeal with life, hence it was obvious that she was not interested in the creation ofbonsai which required painstaking labour and concentration, as well as her defiant nature was a stark contrast to the image of ordered growth which the bonsai represented. Thus the symbol of bonsai assumes a strategic significance in the playas Dattani also usesit s a dominant metaphor in his exploration of the complex psyche of his characters. The grotesque looking tree was deliberately acclimatised to its environment and forced to adapt its growth accordingly. The trees despite theirshort stature could bear fruit, in spite of their stunted growth and they possessed the perseverance to survive and in a way symbolically hint at the characteristic trait inherent to Lalitha’s identity, who desperately sought to survive in a world where everything else was crumbling and falling into pieces. The bonsai’ symbol representing dwarfish identitythereby expands to become something far more significant in Dattani’s play. It becomes a visual representation of Dattani’s representation of the marginalised consciousness of the women. Dattani observed‘The feminine self in my plays is not a victim. Its subsumed, yes, it’s marginalised but it fights back.’(Datta 233). Asha Kuthari Chaudhuri in her analysis of Mahesh Dattani’s play Bravely Fought The QueenChaudhuri pointedout: The stunted growth, the bizarre shape, the grotesque reality of the bonsai becomes resonant in the existence of all the characters inthe play (Chaudhuri lmost all the characters in the play are made to comment on thbonsai in a deliberate attempt at drawing parallels. Daksha, the spasticchild of Dolly and Jiten, is an obvious parallelto the stunted and dwarfish bonsaia deformed child born in pain due to violence ��3 &#x/MCI; 0 ;&#x/MCI; 0 ;inflicted upon her mother, whereas Alka too appearsconstrained by the patriarchal discourses of society resembling the bonsai born as a result offorced stunting.In Act II of the play entitled “the Men” too we come across the bonsai image, albeit differently. Lalitha’s husband Sridhar had placed a deformed bonsai on his working table. ridhar was an employee at the Trivedi’s officeworking for the ReTee ad campaignJiten and Nitindid not share Sridhar’s enthusiasm or fondness for the art of bonsai which he had acquired from his wife Lalitha, in fact they hardly noticed the object he had placed to render some beauty to his workspace. He was somehow fond of the grotesque, ugly plant on his table, for reasons unknown. It could be because he was fond of his wife Lalitha and thus felt a nondescript attachament towards the plant which hadbeen grown by her. He exclaimed as a word of cautionto agitated Jiten angrily throwing away the papers on Sridhar’s table, ‘Careful, don’t knock the bonsai. He even suggested his other boss Nitin to whom he felt closer than Jiten to offer it as gift to his wifeAlkaNitin. You said you wanted me to take this for my wifeSridhar. YesNitin. Why?Sridhar. I don’t know. I just thought it would make a nice present. I brought it here because I thought it had an interesting shape.Nitin: You called it grotesque.He picked it up from the floor with care and wrapped it in a piece of paper after he saw that that Nitin had brokeit by dropping it on the floor, an action generated by his mental trauma born out of his brother Jiten’s accusations against him. Nitin knew his brother was correct, and that his marriage was indeed a failure andhis wife Alka was a drunkard, but he did not have the courage to leave her. He was caught in a whirlpool of misplaced emotions and his own homosexual inclinationsto left him witha sense of guilt with respect to his wife Alkaand somehow held on to the marital bond with a hopelessness. His act of shattering the bonsai pot is an instance of display ofhisrepressed anger and we realise that almost all the characterin the play are driven by undercurrents of stress, agitation, anger and repression in some way or the other. Despite the fact that the bonsaiimagery is not woven with the main plot of the play yet it becomes a pertinent symbol in the course of the playpointing at issues which the dramatist seeks to suggest without clearly making any statement or assertion whatsoever. Sridhar and Lalitha’s desperate attempts toprotect the bonsai from all turbulence almost seeks to suggest that despite their personal failures and setbacks they attempted to make their relationship survive. Although there are suggestions that Sridhar too indulged in casual sexual relationships out of sheer frustration, yet somehow it appears that the Laliltha Sridhar conjugalrelationship was better than the other couples, despite its drawbacks and pitfalls. When Lalitha explained to Alka how to create a bonsai in Act I of the play it becomes evident that it was a process that demanded care and constant attention. ‘You plant the sapling intrayyou’ve got to make sure the roots’ don’t have enough space to spread. You have to keep trimming them as they grow.’ In the words of critic Subir Dhar, ‘Lalitha’s passion for growing bonsai is symbolically reflective of her own mindset. The wiring and trimming she subjects her growing plants to may well be what she has done to her own life: control and restriction. The result may be quaint and attractive, but it can also become ugly and grotesque like the bonsai Sridhar keeps on his office table, and which, additionally, is a clear symbol of the deformed relationship the brother share with their wives.’ (Dhar 93)The image of the confined and deliberately structured plant also bears within it images of subjugation and domination to which women were subjected to since time immemorial and continue to suffer even till this day. The vivid descriptions not only doubles up as symbolic ��4 &#x/MCI; 0 ;&#x/MCI; 0 ;accounts of socialisationthrough which the female is made to acquire the necessary attributes for proper and expected behaviour in thecontext of her culturally ascribed roles, but also affect an associative recall of the grotesque practise of footbinding.’ (Mandal 104) Until the twentieth century Chinese women were subjected to intense pain and torture when they were subjected to footbinding process which curbed their ability to move around freely and normally. The symbolic connotations of the metaphor hint alarger reality in which the female is pinned down and deliberately confined under a monolithic edifice of patriarchal injunctions. In the words of Dattani himself, in the play Bravely Fought the Queen, ‘I take up the cudgels for women and depict a picture of the Indian society at once alluring and terrifying, both for the bourgeois characters in the play and for its western audience’. (Walling, 229Weller Embler in an article ontheSymbols in Literature and Artclaimed that a ‘symbol has within its form and being the meaning it is intended to convey. The meaning attached to the object symbol is not arbitrary, nor has it come about merely through long association with what it stands for, so as to be, as it were, a cultural habit. On the contrary in true symbolic expression there is a transcendental parity, a spontaneous and irresistible correspondence between the concrete imageand the thing it stands for…And it is genius of great artists and writers that they have seen these transcendental parities intuitively and expressed them powerfully.’ (Embler 50) Dattani’s use of the image of the ‘bonsaiis an instance of such a powerful symbol which extends beyond the action and setting of the play to hint at greater social and existential realities. In Act III of the play entitled Free For Allthe dramatist prepares an even battle for combat between the world of men and women. He tries to strike a balance between the two different worlds represented in Act I and II of the play respectively. The characters are made to confront to each other and through the agonised encounter between individuals the facades are shattered exposing the ugly realities of their lives. Alka confesses how she was forced to marry her homosexual husband by her own brother Praful and Dolly claimed that the only time she had secureda moral victory over her violent, abusive and sexually promiscuous husband was when she gave birth to her daughter Daksha. As Alka breaks into a dance in the rainbefore she falls into a state of drink induced sleep, Lalitha and Sridhar decide to escape from the troubles space of the Trivedi home. Alka’s dance in the rain in a way signifies her instinctive urge for freedom and individuality. She refused to accept the rigid shackles of the patriarchal society and become the fettered ‘bonsai’ unable to grow or breathe as per her own wish. On their way back home Lalitha and Sridhar pickup the bonsai that Lalitha had brought as a gift for the Trivedis. “I can’t let it die! What a waste of effort!’(Dattani 91), she had exclaimedearlier andhad sprinkled rain water on it so that itwould not die. In the final evaluation as Lalitha and Sridhar embrace each other after the holocaust of the tragedy is over, we cannot but concede that it is they who emerge as the real survivors at the endof the play. In their dreams of a shared household, domesticity and acts of nurturing a form of life in ape of the bonsai they represent the typical Indian middle class family, where ‘adjustmentand acceptanceare celebrated as’ worthy feminine virtues.( Walsh, 25)Lalitha and Sridhar’s travails and conservatismtheir attempts to give some form of meaning and coherence to the hollow and empty life are generally associated with that mode of existence. The bonsaithus becomes more than a simple dramatic metaphor as it expands in its scope to alludeto one of the primary concerns of Dattani’s playthat of the gender. A study of his play Bravely Fought the Queenshows his awareness and concerns about the multi layered politics of the gendered self, on the one hand through the operations of patriarchyand on the otherthrough the invisible but equally important issues of alternate sexualities. The deliberately structured undersized plantstunted in growth, confined in wiresresembling a ��5 &#x/MCI; 0 ;&#x/MCI; 0 ;‘dwarfish maturity’, go on to represent an image of the contemporary societydeformed, dehumanised to a large extent,yet bearing within it the seeds of life and the potential to survive, fighting against all odds. orks Cited:Mahesh Dattani, Bravely Fought the Queen, (Penguin: New Delhi, 2006). All textual citations have been taken from here. The page numbers are indicated in brackets.Michael Walling, “A Note on the Play Bravely Fought the Queen” in Mahesh DattaniCollected Plays(Penguin: New Delhi, 2000)Sanjukta Das, ed. From Derozio to Dattani(Worldview Publications: New Delhi, 2009)Das refers to Mahesh Dattani’s Interview by Anita Nair published in http://www.anitanair.netMahesh DattanThe Invisible Observera profile by Anita NairThe page was accessed on 29/4.2008)Ketaki Datta, ed. Indo Anglian Literature Past to Present(Booksway: Kolkata, 2008). Datta refers to An Interview of Mahesh Dattani “Of Page and Stage” published in Seagull Theatre Quarterly, August 1999, p 32Asha Kuthari Chaudhuri, Mahesh Dattani, (Foundation Books: New Delhi, 2005)Sagar Taranga Mandaled.Studies in Mahesh Dattani’s Bravely Fought the Queen, (Booksway: Kolkata,Subir Dhar, Where There’s A Willand Bravely Fought the Queen: The Drama of Mahesh Dattani”, The Commonwealth Review, Volume13 Number 2, Special Issue on Mahesh Dattani, Indian Society for Commonwealth Studies, New Delhi. Erin B Mee, “Mahesh Dattani: Invisible Issues”, Performing Arts Journal, 55, Volume 19, No 1, January 1997Judith, E. Walsh, Domesticity in Colonial India: What women learned when Men gave them Advice (Oxford University Press: New York, 2004)Weller Embler, “Symbols in Literature and Art,” College Art Journal, Vol 16, No 1, (Autumn 1956) pp 4758. The page was accessed on April 72008 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/䀀772847 ‘dwarfish maturity’, go on to represent an image of the contemporary society deformed, dehumanised to a large extent,yet bearing within it the seeds of life and the potential to survive, fighting against all odds. orks Cited:Mahesh Dattani, Bravely Fought the Queen, (Penguin: New Delhi, 2006). All textual citations have been taken from here. The page numbers are indicated in brackets.Michael Walling, “A Note on the Play Bravely Fought the Queen” in Mahesh Dattani: Collected Plays(Penguin: New Delhi, 2000)Sanjukta Das, ed. From Derozio to Dattani(Worldview Publications: New Delhi, 2009)Das refers to Mahesh Dattani’s Interview by Anita Nair published in http://www.anitanair.netMahesh Dattani-The Invisible Observera profile by Anita NairThe page was accessed on 29/4.2008). Ketaki Datta, ed. Indo Anglian Literature Past to Present, (Booksway: Kolkata, 2008). Datta refers to An Interview of Mahesh Dattani “Of Page and Stage” published in Seagull Theatre Quarterly, August 1999, p 32Asha Kuthari Chaudhuri, Mahesh Dattani, (Foundation Books: New Delhi, 2005). Sagar Taranga Mandaled.Studies in Mahesh Dattani’s Bravely Fought the Queen, (Booksway: Kolkata, 2009). Subir Dhar, Where There’s A Willand Bravely Fought the Queen: The Drama of Mahesh Dattani”, The Commonwealth Review, Volume13 Number 2, Special Issue on Mahesh Dattani, Indian Society for Commonwealth Studies, New Delhi. Erin B Mee, “Mahesh Dattani: Invisible Issues”, Performing Arts Journal, 55, Volume 19, No 1, January 1997. Judith, E. Walsh, Domesticity in Colonial India: What women learned when Men gave them Advice (Oxford University Press: New York, 2004)Weller Embler, “Symbols in Literature and Art,” College Art Journal, Vol 16, No 1, (Autumn 1956) pp 4758. The page was accessed on April 72008 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/䀀772847 www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 5 January 2012 accounts of socialisationthrough which the female is made to acquire the necessary attributes for proper and expected behaviour in thecontext of her culturally ascribed roles, but also affect an associative recall of the grotesque practise of footbinding.’ (Mandal 104) Until the twentieth century Chinese women were subjected to intense pain and torture when they were subjected to footbinding process which curbed their ability to move around freely and normally. The symbolic connotations of the metaphor hint alarger reality in which the female is pinned down and deliberately confined under a monolithic edifice of patriarchal injunctions. In the words of Dattani himself, in the play Bravely Fought the Queen, ‘I take up the cudgels for women and depict a picture of the Indian society at once alluring and terrifying, both for the bourgeois characters in the play and for its western audience’. (Walling, 229-230) Weller Embler in an article ontheSymbols in Literature and Artclaimed that a ‘symbol has within its form and being the meaning it is intended to convey. The meaning attached to the object symbol is not arbitrary, nor has it come about merely through long association with what it stands for, so as to be, as it were, a cultural habit. On the contrary in true symbolic expression there is a transcendental parity, a spontaneous and irresistible correspondence between the concrete imageand the thing it stands for…And it is genius of great artists and writers that they have seen these transcendental parities intuitively and expressed them powerfully.’ (Embler 50) Dattani’s use of the image of the ‘bonsai’ is an instance of such a powerful symbol which extends beyond the action and setting of the play to hint at greater social and existential realities. In Act III of the play entitled Free For All’ the dramatist prepares an even battle for combat between the world of men and women. He tries to strike a balance between the two different worlds represented in Act I and II of the play respectively. The characters are made to confront to each other and through the agonised encounter between individuals the facades are shattered exposing the ugly realities of their lives. Alka confesses how she was forced to marry her homosexual husband by her own brother Praful and Dolly claimed that the only time she had secureda moral victory over her violent, abusive and sexually promiscuous husband was when she gave birth to her daughter Daksha. As Alka breaks into a dance in the rainbefore she falls into a state of drink induced sleep, Lalitha and Sridhar decide to escape from the troubles space of the Trivedi home. Alka’s dance in the rain in a way signifies her instinctive urge for freedom and individuality. She refused to accept the rigid shackles of the patriarchal society and become the fettered ‘bonsai’ unable to grow or breathe as per her own wish. On their way back home Lalitha and Sridhar pickup the bonsai that Lalitha had brought as a gift for the Trivedis. “I can’t let it die! What a waste of effort!’(Dattani 91), she had exclaimedearlier andhad sprinkled rain water on it so that itwould not die. In the final evaluation as Lalitha and Sridhar embrace each other after the holocaust of the tragedy is over, we cannot but concede that it is they who emerge as the real survivors at the endof the play. In their dreams of a shared household, domesticity and acts of nurturing a form of life in ape of the bonsai they represent the typical Indian middle class family, where ‘adjustments and acceptances are celebrated as’ worthy feminine virtues.( Walsh, 25) Lalitha and Sridhar’s travails and conservatism, their attempts to give some form of meaning and coherence to the hollow and empty life are generally associated with that mode of existence. The bonsai’ thus becomes more than a simple dramatic metaphor as it expands in its scope to alludeto one of the primary concerns of Dattani’s playthat of the gender. A study of his play Bravely Fought the Queenshows his awareness and concerns about the multi layered politics of the gendered self, on the one hand through the operations of patriarchy, and on the other, through the invisible but equally important issues of alternate sexualities. The deliberately structured undersized plant, stunted in growth, confined in wiresresembling a www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 4 January 2012 inflicted upon her mother, whereas Alka too appearsconstrained by the patriarchal discourses of society resembling the bonsai born as a result offorced stunting. In Act II of the play entitled “the Men” too we come across the bonsai image, albeit differently. Lalitha’s husband Sridhar had placed a deformed bonsai on his working table. ridhar was an employee at the Trivedi’s officeworking for the ReTee ad campaignJiten and Nitindid not share Sridhar’s enthusiasm or fondness for the art of bonsai which he had acquired from his wife Lalitha, in fact they hardly noticed the object he had placed to render some beauty to his workspace. He was somehow fond of the grotesque, ugly plant on his table, for reasons unknown. It could be because he was fond of his wife Lalitha and thus felt a nondescript attachament towards the plant which hadbeen grown by her. He exclaimed as a word of cautionto agitated Jiten angrily throwing away the papers on Sridhar’s table, ‘Careful, don’t knock the bonsai. He even suggested his other boss Nitin to whom he felt closer than Jiten to offer it as gift to his wifeAlkaNitin. You said you wanted me to take this for my wifeSridhar. YesNitin. Why?Sridhar. I don’t know. I just thought it would make a nice present. I brought it here because I thought it had an interesting shape.Nitin: You called it grotesque.He picked it up from the floor with care and wrapped it in a piece of paper after he saw that that Nitin had broken it by dropping it on the floor, an action generated by his mental trauma born out of his brother Jiten’s accusations against him. Nitin knew his brother was correct, and that his marriage was indeed a failure andhis wife Alka was a drunkard, but he did not have the courage to leave her. He was caught in a whirlpool of misplaced emotions and his own homosexual inclinationsto left him witha sense of guilt with respect to his wife Alkaand somehow held on to the marital bond with a hopelessness. His act of shattering the bonsai pot is an instance of display ofhisrepressed anger and we realise that almost all the characters in the play are driven by undercurrents of stress, agitation, anger and repression in some way or the other. Despite the fact that the bonsai’ imagery is not woven with the main plot of the play yet it becomes a pertinent symbol in the course of the play, pointing at issues which the dramatist seeks to suggest without clearly making any statement or assertion whatsoever. Sridhar and Lalitha’s desperate attempts toprotect the bonsai from all turbulence almost seeks to suggest that despite their personal failures and setbacks they attempted to make their relationship survive. Although there are suggestions that Sridhar too indulged in casual sexual relationships out of sheer frustration, yet somehow it appears that the Laliltha Sridhar conjugal relationship was better than the other couples, despite its drawbacks and pitfalls. When Lalitha explained to Alka how to create a bonsai in Act I of the play it becomes evident that it was a process that demanded care and constant attention. ‘You plant the sapling intrayyou’ve got to make sure the roots’ don’t have enough space to spread. You have to keep trimming them as they grow.’ In the words of critic Subir Dhar, ‘Lalitha’s passion for growing bonsai is symbolically reflective of her own mindset. The wiring and trimming she subjects her growing plants to may well be what she has done to her own life: control and restriction. The result may be quaint and attractive, but it can also become ugly and grotesque like the bonsai Sridhar keeps on his office table, and which, additionally, is a clear symbol of the deformed relationship the brother share with their wives.’ (Dhar 93)The image of the confined and deliberately structured plant also bears within it images of subjugation and domination to which women were subjected to since time immemorial and continue to suffer even till this day. The vivid descriptions not only doubles up as symbolic www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 3 January 2012 Implementing the techniques of pruning, root reduction, grafting and defoliation, small trees are grown that mimic the shape and style of full grown trees. In the course of the play the symbol of the miniscule plant or bonsai goes on to assume a profound significance with respect to the lives ofthe characters depictedin the play. The art of wiring and trimming of the plants symbolically allude to the process of control and domination of women by the laws and tenets ofthepatriarchy. The stunted growth thus becomes suggestive of the restrictive life of the women in the play as well as the women of the Indian society in general who are forced to fit into the pre-ordainedidentities of the mother, the daughter, and the wifethroughout their life. Lalitha being a childless woman attended the bonsais with a maternal love. She trimmed and pruned the saplings with utmost care.She brought one of herselfcreated bonsais as a gift for the Trivedis when she came to visit themto discuss the masked ball event with Dolly Trivedi on her husband’sboss’srequest. Dolly was amused with Lalitha’s unconventional gift, Alka was merely curious. Lalitha confessed to Alka that it was an art which she had been practising for years. Lalitha: I suppose it comes with a bit practise. In the beginning, you will have a lot of dead shoots on your hands. But then you learn and it…comes. Anyone can do it. You first find a sapling of your choice. It could be of any tree. I myself prefer fruit trees because when they re fully grown (giggles)I guess you can’t call them fully grownbut when they’ve reached their (demonstrates with her hands) dwarfed maturity, they really look bizarre with peasized mangoes or oranges! (Dattani 18)She was devoted in her craft which was her hobby as well her means of transcending the confines of her barren lonely life.When she tried to share her fascination with about how one has to diligently ‘keep trimming the trees as they grow’ (Dattani 19), the restless and impulsive Alks replied, ‘Sounds very tedious.’ (Dattani 19) Alka did not possess Lalitha’s patience or perseverance to deal with life, hence it was obvious that she was not interested in the creation ofbonsai which required painstaking labour and concentration, as well as her defiant nature was a stark contrast to the image of ordered growth which the bonsai represented. Thus the symbol of bonsai assumes a strategic significance in the playas Dattani also usesit s a dominant metaphor in his exploration of the complex psyche of his characters. The grotesque looking tree was deliberately acclimatised to its environment and forced to adapt its growth accordingly. The trees despite theirshort stature could bear fruit, in spite of their stunted growth and they possessed the perseverance to survive and in a way symbolically hint at the characteristic trait inherent to Lalitha’s identity, who desperately sought to survive in a world where everything else was crumbling and falling into pieces. The bonsai’ symbol representing dwarfish identity’ thereby expands to become something far more significant in Dattani’s play. It becomes a visual representation of Dattani’s representation of the marginalised consciousness of the women. Dattani observed‘The feminine self in my plays is not a victim. Its subsumed, yes, it’s marginalised but it fights back.’(Datta 233). Asha Kuthari Chaudhuri in her analysis of Mahesh Dattani’s play Bravely Fought The QueenChaudhuri pointedout: The stunted growth, the bizarre shape, the grotesque reality of the bonsai becomes resonant in the existence of all the characters inthe play. (Chaudhuri 54) lmost all the characters in the play are made to comment on thbonsai in a deliberate attempt at drawing parallels. Daksha, the spasticchild of Dolly and Jiten, is an obvious parallelto the stunted and dwarfish bonsaia deformed child born in pain due to violence www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 2 January 2012 Presentation of the “Bonsai and dwarfed maturity” in Mahesh Dattani’s BravelyFought the Queen Anindita Chatterjee Assistant Professor, Department of English, Sanskrit College (West Bengal Education Service) Kolkata. In an interview with Anita Nair, Dattani observed, “Theatre to me is a reflection of what you observe. To do anything more would be to become didactic and then it ceases to be theatre. Theatre is a collective experience and the audience have to finish in their own heads what the playwright began.”(Das, 245) Dattani’s Bravely Fought the Queenis a dark domestic tragedy set in the urban background of Bangalorewhich goes on to raise a series of questions on contemporary society. Dattani claimed that his plays focus on the issues, ‘concerns and challenges of the urban Indian society’; since he himself is a part of that mileau and also stated that his plays were geared to cater to the upper and middle class audience of urban Indian society. (Mee, 19) Despite the fact that he foregrounds social issues in his plays, yet henever posits pat solutions. His plays make the audience think. The play Bravely Fought the Queenopens into the world of the aristocratic and prosperous women living in joint families in which Lalitha arrives as an intruder. She peeps into their caged world and through her eyes we find a glimpse of their everyday life where a woman’s daily activitiesconsistof catering to family needs, with occasional indulgences in beauty regimes, social gatherings, planning ball dances, wearing facial masks or listening tothumris. The first act entitled ‘the women’ reveals the fissures of tension beneath the façade of the perfectly regulated lives of two uppermiddleclass women of Trivedi family, namely Dolly and Alka. The women expressed their repressed frustration and loneliness to Lalitha and also confessed how they had found respite from their tedious life through surreptitious activities like alcoholism or forging extra marital relationships. At the outset of the play Lalithais projected as a modern Indian woman quite unlike Dolly or Alka. She claimed that she was a cosmopolitan woman who engaged herself in freelance writing for an occasional woman’s column for the Times. She reviewed cultural events, practised meditation, indulged in poetic compositionsand shared a passion for growing bonsais. By the end of the play it becomes evident that most of thewomen were either tormented figurescaught in loveless or troubled marriage relationships, abused and ill treated beyond measure by the patriarchal worldor they were rendered as passive entities safely ensconced and marginalised within the protective confines of their husband’s world. Most of themwere victims of domestic violence, deception, loneliness, and boredomand sought escapesfrom their mundane life in rious waysDolly shared the surreal fancy of a secret and passionate relationship with her cook Kanhaiya to escape from her purposeless and meaningless marital lifewith her adulterous husband Jiten, Alka found respitefrom her frustrating marriage to mosexual Nitin by drowning herself in alcohol. Baa shouted at her daughterlawsto give vent to her displaced anger which had accumulated due to years of exploitation, violence and torture to which she was subjected in the hands of her abusive husband, whereas Lalitha cultivated bonsais to fulfil the emptiness of her childless life. She claimed that she and her husband Sridharwere childless by choice since they were saving money to buy a flat, however the truth of her remark remains questionable. Lalitha’s passion for growing bonsais has a symbolic significancein the playThe small plants reared with utmost care were integral to Lalitha’s identity. Traditionally bonsai implies a Japanese art of gardening where plants are grown in miniature forms on trays or small pots. www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 1 January 2012 www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 5 January 2012 www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 4 January 2012 www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 3 January 2012 www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 2 January 2012 www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN 2278 – 9529 Vol. I. Issue. I 1 January 2012 ‘dwarfish maturity’, go on to represent an image of the contemporary society deformed, dehumanised to a large extent,yet bearing within it the seeds of life and the potential to survive, fighting against all odds. orks Cited:Mahesh Dattani, Bravely Fought the Queen, (Penguin: New Delhi, 2006). All textual citations have been taken from here. The page numbers are indicated in brackets.Michael Walling, “A Note on the Play Bravely Fought the Queen” in Mahesh Dattani: Collected Plays(Penguin: New Delhi, 2000)Sanjukta Das, ed. From Derozio to Dattani(Worldview Publications: New Delhi, 2009)Das refers to Mahesh Dattani’s Interview by Anita Nair published in http://www.anitanair.netMahesh Dattani-The Invisible Observera profile by Anita NairThe page was accessed on 29/4.2008). Ketaki Datta, ed. Indo Anglian Literature Past to Present, (Booksway: Kolkata, 2008). Datta refers to An Interview of Mahesh Dattani “Of Page and Stage” published in Seagull Theatre Quarterly, August 1999, p 32Asha Kuthari Chaudhuri, Mahesh Dattani, (Foundation Books: New Delhi, 2005). Sagar Taranga Mandaled.Studies in Mahesh Dattani’s Bravely Fought the Queen, (Booksway: Kolkata, 2009). Subir Dhar, Where There’s A Willand Bravely Fought the Queen: The Drama of Mahesh Dattani”, The Commonwealth Review, Volume13 Number 2, Special Issue on Mahesh Dattani, Indian Society for Commonwealth Studies, New Delhi. Erin B Mee, “Mahesh Dattani: Invisible Issues”, Performing Arts Journal, 55, Volume 19, No 1, January 1997. Judith, E. Walsh, Domesticity in Colonial India: What women learned when Men gave them Advice (Oxford University Press: New York, 2004)Weller Embler, “Symbols in Literature and Art,” College Art Journal, Vol 16, No 1, (Autumn 1956) pp 4758. The page was accessed on April 72008 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/䀀772847 Galaxy accounts of socialisationthrough which the female is made to acquire the necessary attributes for proper and expected behaviour in thecontext of her culturally ascribed roles, but also affect an associative recall of the grotesque practise of footbinding.’ (Mandal 104) Until the twentieth century Chinese women were subjected to intense pain and torture when they were subjected to footbinding process which curbed their ability to move around freely and normally. The symbolic connotations of the metaphor hint alarger reality in which the female is pinned down and deliberately confined under a monolithic edifice of patriarchal injunctions. In the words of Dattani himself, in the play Bravely Fought the Queen, ‘I take up the cudgels for women and depict a picture of the Indian society at once alluring and terrifying, both for the bourgeois characters in the play and for its western audience’. (Walling, 229-230) Weller Embler in an article ontheSymbols in Literature and Artclaimed that a ‘symbol has within its form and being the meaning it is intended to convey. The meaning attached to the object symbol is not arbitrary, nor has it come about merely through long association with what it stands for, so as to be, as it were, a cultural habit. On the contrary in true symbolic expression there is a transcendental parity, a spontaneous and irresistible correspondence between the concrete imageand the thing it stands for…And it is genius of great artists and writers that they have seen these transcendental parities intuitively and expressed them powerfully.’ (Embler 50) Dattani’s use of the image of the ‘bonsai’ is an instance of such a powerful symbol which extends beyond the action and setting of the play to hint at greater social and existential realities. In Act III of the play entitled Free For All’ the dramatist prepares an even battle for combat between the world of men and women. He tries to strike a balance between the two different worlds represented in Act I and II of the play respectively. The characters are made to confront to each other and through the agonised encounter between individuals the facades are shattered exposing the ugly realities of their lives. Alka confesses how she was forced to marry her homosexual husband by her own brother Praful and Dolly claimed that the only time she had secureda moral victory over her violent, abusive and sexually promiscuous husband was when she gave birth to her daughter Daksha. As Alka breaks into a dance in the rainbefore she falls into a state of drink induced sleep, Lalitha and Sridhar decide to escape from the troubles space of the Trivedi home. Alka’s dance in the rain in a way signifies her instinctive urge for freedom and individuality. She refused to accept the rigid shackles of the patriarchal society and become the fettered ‘bonsai’ unable to grow or breathe as per her own wish. On their way back home Lalitha and Sridhar pickup the bonsai that Lalitha had brought as a gift for the Trivedis. “I can’t let it die! What a waste of effort!’(Dattani 91), she had exclaimedearlier andhad sprinkled rain water on it so that itwould not die. In the final evaluation as Lalitha and Sridhar embrace each other after the holocaust of the tragedy is over, we cannot but concede that it is they who emerge as the real survivors at the endof the play. In their dreams of a shared household, domesticity and acts of nurturing a form of life in ape of the bonsai they represent the typical Indian middle class family, where ‘adjustments and acceptances are celebrated as’ worthy feminine virtues.( Walsh, 25) Lalitha and Sridhar’s travails and conservatism, their attempts to give some form of meaning and coherence to the hollow and empty life are generally associated with that mode of existence. The bonsai’ thus becomes more than a simple dramatic metaphor as it expands in its scope to alludeto one of the primary concerns of Dattani’s playthat of the gender. A study of his play Bravely Fought the Queenshows his awareness and concerns about the multi layered politics of the gendered self, on the one hand through the operations of patriarchy, and on the other, through the invisible but equally important issues of alternate sexualities. The deliberately structured undersized plant, stunted in growth, confined in wiresresembling a Galaxy inflicted upon her mother, whereas Alka too appearsconstrained by the patriarchal discourses of society resembling the bonsai born as a result offorced stunting. In Act II of the play entitled “the Men” too we come across the bonsai image, albeit differently. Lalitha’s husband Sridhar had placed a deformed bonsai on his working table. ridhar was an employee at the Trivedi’s officeworking for the ReTee ad campaignJiten and Nitindid not share Sridhar’s enthusiasm or fondness for the art of bonsai which he had acquired from his wife Lalitha, in fact they hardly noticed the object he had placed to render some beauty to his workspace. He was somehow fond of the grotesque, ugly plant on his table, for reasons unknown. It could be because he was fond of his wife Lalitha and thus felt a nondescript attachament towards the plant which hadbeen grown by her. He exclaimed as a word of cautionto agitated Jiten angrily throwing away the papers on Sridhar’s table, ‘Careful, don’t knock the bonsai. He even suggested his other boss Nitin to whom he felt closer than Jiten to offer it as gift to his wifeAlkaNitin. You said you wanted me to take this for my wifeSridhar. YesNitin. Why?Sridhar. I don’t know. I just thought it would make a nice present. I brought it here because I thought it had an interesting shape.Nitin: You called it grotesque.He picked it up from the floor with care and wrapped it in a piece of paper after he saw that that Nitin had broken it by dropping it on the floor, an action generated by his mental trauma born out of his brother Jiten’s accusations against him. Nitin knew his brother was correct, and that his marriage was indeed a failure andhis wife Alka was a drunkard, but he did not have the courage to leave her. He was caught in a whirlpool of misplaced emotions and his own homosexual inclinationsto left him witha sense of guilt with respect to his wife Alkaand somehow held on to the marital bond with a hopelessness. His act of shattering the bonsai pot is an instance of display ofhisrepressed anger and we realise that almost all the characters in the play are driven by undercurrents of stress, agitation, anger and repression in some way or the other. Despite the fact that the bonsai’ imagery is not woven with the main plot of the play yet it becomes a pertinent symbol in the course of the play, pointing at issues which the dramatist seeks to suggest without clearly making any statement or assertion whatsoever. Sridhar and Lalitha’s desperate attempts toprotect the bonsai from all turbulence almost seeks to suggest that despite their personal failures and setbacks they attempted to make their relationship survive. Although there are suggestions that Sridhar too indulged in casual sexual relationships out of sheer frustration, yet somehow it appears that the Laliltha Sridhar conjugal relationship was better than the other couples, despite its drawbacks and pitfalls. When Lalitha explained to Alka how to create a bonsai in Act I of the play it becomes evident that it was a process that demanded care and constant attention. ‘You plant the sapling intrayyou’ve got to make sure the roots’ don’t have enough space to spread. You have to keep trimming them as they grow.’ In the words of critic Subir Dhar, ‘Lalitha’s passion for growing bonsai is symbolically reflective of her own mindset. The wiring and trimming she subjects her growing plants to may well be what she has done to her own life: control and restriction. The result may be quaint and attractive, but it can also become ugly and grotesque like the bonsai Sridhar keeps on his office table, and which, additionally, is a clear symbol of the deformed relationship the brother share with their wives.’ (Dhar 93)The image of the confined and deliberately structured plant also bears within it images of subjugation and domination to which women were subjected to since time immemorial and continue to suffer even till this day. The vivid descriptions not only doubles up as symbolic Galaxy Implementing the techniques of pruning, root reduction, grafting and defoliation, small trees are grown that mimic the shape and style of full grown trees. In the course of the play the symbol of the miniscule plant or bonsai goes on to assume a profound significance with respect to the lives ofthe characters depictedin the play. The art of wiring and trimming of the plants symbolically allude to the process of control and domination of women by the laws and tenets ofthepatriarchy. The stunted growth thus becomes suggestive of the restrictive life of the women in the play as well as the women of the Indian society in general who are forced to fit into the pre-ordainedidentities of the mother, the daughter, and the wifethroughout their life. Lalitha being a childless woman attended the bonsais with a maternal love. She trimmed and pruned the saplings with utmost care.She brought one of herselfcreated bonsais as a gift for the Trivedis when she came to visit themto discuss the masked ball event with Dolly Trivedi on her husband’sboss’srequest. Dolly was amused with Lalitha’s unconventional gift, Alka was merely curious. Lalitha confessed to Alka that it was an art which she had been practising for years. Lalitha: I suppose it comes with a bit practise. In the beginning, you will have a lot of dead shoots on your hands. But then you learn and it…comes. Anyone can do it. You first find a sapling of your choice. It could be of any tree. I myself prefer fruit trees because when they re fully grown (giggles)I guess you can’t call them fully grownbut when they’ve reached their (demonstrates with her hands) dwarfed maturity, they really look bizarre with peasized mangoes or oranges! (Dattani 18)She was devoted in her craft which was her hobby as well her means of transcending the confines of her barren lonely life.When she tried to share her fascination with about how one has to diligently ‘keep trimming the trees as they grow’ (Dattani 19), the restless and impulsive Alks replied, ‘Sounds very tedious.’ (Dattani 19) Alka did not possess Lalitha’s patience or perseverance to deal with life, hence it was obvious that she was not interested in the creation ofbonsai which required painstaking labour and concentration, as well as her defiant nature was a stark contrast to the image of ordered growth which the bonsai represented. Thus the symbol of bonsai assumes a strategic significance in the playas Dattani also usesit s a dominant metaphor in his exploration of the complex psyche of his characters. The grotesque looking tree was deliberately acclimatised to its environment and forced to adapt its growth accordingly. The trees despite theirshort stature could bear fruit, in spite of their stunted growth and they possessed the perseverance to survive and in a way symbolically hint at the characteristic trait inherent to Lalitha’s identity, who desperately sought to survive in a world where everything else was crumbling and falling into pieces. The bonsai’ symbol representing dwarfish identity’ thereby expands to become something far more significant in Dattani’s play. It becomes a visual representation of Dattani’s representation of the marginalised consciousness of the women. Dattani observed‘The feminine self in my plays is not a victim. Its subsumed, yes, it’s marginalised but it fights back.’(Datta 233). Asha Kuthari Chaudhuri in her analysis of Mahesh Dattani’s play Bravely Fought The QueenChaudhuri pointedout: The stunted growth, the bizarre shape, the grotesque reality of the bonsai becomes resonant in the existence of all the characters inthe play. (Chaudhuri 54) lmost all the characters in the play are made to comment on thbonsai in a deliberate attempt at drawing parallels. Daksha, the spasticchild of Dolly and Jiten, is an obvious parallelto the stunted and dwarfish bonsaia deformed child born in pain due to violence Galaxy Presentation of the “Bonsai and dwarfed maturity” in Mahesh Dattani’s BravelyFought the Queen Anindita Chatterjee Assistant Professor, Department of English, Sanskrit College (West Bengal Education Service) Kolkata. In an interview with Anita Nair, Dattani observed, “Theatre to me is a reflection of what you observe. To do anything more would be to become didactic and then it ceases to be theatre. Theatre is a collective experience and the audience have to finish in their own heads what the playwright began.”(Das, 245) Dattani’s Bravely Fought the Queenis a dark domestic tragedy set in the urban background of Bangalorewhich goes on to raise a series of questions on contemporary society. Dattani claimed that his plays focus on the issues, ‘concerns and challenges of the urban Indian society’; since he himself is a part of that mileau and also stated that his plays were geared to cater to the upper and middle class audience of urban Indian society. (Mee, 19) Despite the fact that he foregrounds social issues in his plays, yet henever posits pat solutions. His plays make the audience think. The play Bravely Fought the Queenopens into the world of the aristocratic and prosperous women living in joint families in which Lalitha arrives as an intruder. She peeps into their caged world and through her eyes we find a glimpse of their everyday life where a woman’s daily activitiesconsistof catering to family needs, with occasional indulgences in beauty regimes, social gatherings, planning ball dances, wearing facial masks or listening tothumris. The first act entitled ‘the women’ reveals the fissures of tension beneath the façade of the perfectly regulated lives of two uppermiddleclass women of Trivedi family, namely Dolly and Alka. The women expressed their repressed frustration and loneliness to Lalitha and also confessed how they had found respite from their tedious life through surreptitious activities like alcoholism or forging extra marital relationships. At the outset of the play Lalithais projected as a modern Indian woman quite unlike Dolly or Alka. She claimed that she was a cosmopolitan woman who engaged herself in freelance writing for an occasional woman’s column for the Times. She reviewed cultural events, practised meditation, indulged in poetic compositionsand shared a passion for growing bonsais. By the end of the play it becomes evident that most of thewomen were either tormented figurescaught in loveless or troubled marriage relationships, abused and ill treated beyond measure by the patriarchal worldor they were rendered as passive entities safely ensconced and marginalised within the protective confines of their husband’s world. Most of themwere victims of domestic violence, deception, loneliness, and boredomand sought escapesfrom their mundane life in rious waysDolly shared the surreal fancy of a secret and passionate relationship with her cook Kanhaiya to escape from her purposeless and meaningless marital lifewith her adulterous husband Jiten, Alka found respitefrom her frustrating marriage to mosexual Nitin by drowning herself in alcohol. Baa shouted at her daughterlawsto give vent to her displaced anger which had accumulated due to years of exploitation, violence and torture to which she was subjected in the hands of her abusive husband, whereas Lalitha cultivated bonsais to fulfil the emptiness of her childless life. She claimed that she and her husband Sridharwere childless by choice since they were saving money to buy a flat, however the truth of her remark remains questionable. Lalitha’s passion for growing bonsais has a symbolic significancein the playThe small plants reared with utmost care were integral to Lalitha’s identity. Traditionally bonsai implies a Japanese art of gardening where plants are grown in miniature forms on trays or small pots. Galaxy