Mahesh Dattani's Tara

ENGLISH ASSIGNMENT:
1) To what extent does the playwright establish an imbalance in the family of the Patels?

Through various elements including dialogue, theme, plot and setting, Mahesh Dattani skilfully highlights the social evils occuring in the contemporary world in his play Tara. He has clearly portrayed the imbalance prevailing in the house of the Patels as the mother is depicted as an irrational person. Imbalance is nothing but the lack of equilibrium in the family which is due to gender bias, Oedipus complex, guilt and the illogical decisions taken that then have a great impact on the lives of the family members.The general theme of the play is the gender bias that prevails in the family of the Patels and in the outside world.

Patel urges Chandan to accompany him to work and surrepititiously avoides Tara. The heat of the arguement is broken by the entry of Roopa, a friend of Tara. She states the ground of the argument to Roopa as: “ The men in the house were deciding on whether they were going to go hunting while the woman looked after the cave.” The above statement is metaphorised to create an imagery regarding the status of the two genders in a typical conservative society of the present times. This creates an imbalance as Tara is not given equal opportunities and priorites as Chandan. This again highlights the partiality demonstrated to the male child.

The imbalance is again staged, when Tara has to undergo a kidney transplant. Bharathi immediately wishes to be the donor, for which Mr.Patel openly refuses. He gives his justification as: “Because I do not want you to have the satisfaction of doing it.” This is again causing an imbalance in their relationship. Mr.Patel does not want to give his wife the contentment of donating her kidney as she is doing it out of guilt. She is trying to shed of her burden of guilt by showing an overdose of maternal love and caring to her daughter. Mr. Patel is against this donation as Bharathi intends to play mind games in the mind of Tara and to stress her moral superioity over her husband. The situation and tone is grave as Mr. Patel tries to protect his daughter from the imbalance. This

The situation gets heated up when Chandan refuses to go to college without Tara. Chandan argues with his Father and in turn Mr.Patel immediately accuses Bharathi of turning the children against him. This is because Bharathi aims at having an influence over her children by showing extra love towards them, particulary Tara. Mr. Patel clearly states this in the dialogue: “Look at the way you treat Tara. As if she is made of glass.” Tara is compared with glass to show the delicate treatment she is receiving. There is an imbalance in the love given, as there is no instance where Chandan gets this elite treatment on a day to day basis from his mother. The comparsion to glass shows the degree of protection, fake love and inequality prevailing in the