“Gender and Violence in Vijay Tendulkar’s Sakharam Binder (1972)”

Abstract

In the developmental procedure of culture and civilization, human beings are divided into men and women. Both of them suppress their impulsiveness and spontaneity and lose the real delight of life by adopting the ways of culture and social norms. Man becomes the head of the family. He controls and presides over all its affairs. He becomes the master that in due course leads to the formation of male biased society that oppresses womankind all over the globe.Vijay Tendulkar in most of his foremost plays presents women as victim. Women’s place is of greatest concern to Vijay Tendulkar because of the abysmal difference that women experience in relation to men. Vijay Tendulkar depicts the diurnal humiliations and abasements that women undergo in this male chauvinist society. This paper is an attempt to expose the tyranny or oppressive nature of Gender in the play Sakharam Binder (1972) by Vijay Tendulkar that leads to violence (Physical, Sexual and Psychological) due to social and gender inequality. Tendulkar reveals the dramatic tension among Sakharam and Laxmi and Champa. This play depicts the life in all its nefariousness, ugliness, primitiveness and crudity. It explores the complexities of human nature. This play is a study in human violence, antagonism and terror, in how people try to keep down and oppress one another at the first opportunity. Moreover, Tendulkar reaches into the depth of physical lust and violence in human beings. Tendulkar depicts violence not only in form of physical cruelty and sexual violence but also tries to explore the real causes and deep-rooted sources, which are responsible for such kind of violence.