Abstract
Theater plays a crucial role to represent the life and manners of a particular society. It acts as an informal tool for developing consciousness and promoting empowerment through education. Contemporary theater in India is no exception to this. It has the efficacy to build critical awareness among common people in general and women in particular. It critiques the social inequality and opens up the scope for bringing consciousness about gendered violence prevalent in contemporary Indian society. From 1970s onwards, the emergence of urbanization and industrialization had offered various opportunities for people irrespective of gender differences. Yet, it could not suppress the ‘other side’ of violence in Indian society. Mahesh Dattani, a pioneer in the world of modern Indian English Theater, is highly regarded as a social critic of contemporary urban life and manners. He sincerely presents dysfunctional families, individual dilemmas and societal problems, and gender issues including forbidden issues in his plays. As a conscious dramatist, Dattani reveals childhood maltreatment in his plays which focus on physical and mental illnesses among victims. He tries to sensitize the common people by representing the impact of discrimination on health as it is seen to be fatal in women. The present paper intends to analyze the impact of gender bias on women’s health as represented by Mahesh Dattani in his plays – “Tara” and “Thirty days in September.” In doing so, it embraces the educational implication of dramas through theater.
Highlights
Education is one of the crucial factors of women empowerment because it motivates them to react to the challenges, to reorganize their stereotypical role and modify their life
Famous persons like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, Jyotiba Phule, and Baba Saheb Ambedkar emphasized on formal education as the necessary tool for women's education in India
The present paper focuses on the role of theater to promote health education for women by critically studying the impact of gender difference on health in two select plays of Mahesh Dattani – “Tara” and “Thirty days in September”
Summary
Education is one of the crucial factors of women empowerment because it motivates them to react to the challenges, to reorganize their stereotypical role and modify their life. Committed and gender conscious dramatists can represent women’s issues by the fruitful use of theater and can stimulate awareness among masses for social change encouraging empowerment of women. The role of theater as an informal means of developing consciousness among women is not touched so far in detail.
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