Beyond Biology: Gender Bias and Patriarchal Violence in Tara by Mahesh Dattani

Abstract

Tara by Mahesh Dattani is a thought-provoking dramatisation of patriarchy, disability, and gender in modern India. The play, superficially about the tragic case of conjoined twins who are divided by a complicated surgical procedure, functions as a form of social critique. It shows how society promotes maleness over femaleness. Tara is a powerful metaphor for institutionalised gender discrimination. Dattani shows the entanglements of the interwoven lives of Tara, Chandan, Bharati, and Patel and how patriarchal ideology manifests itself in every facet of their family life, their morality of medical practice, inheritance, and affect. The play also illustrates that violence against women is not only physical but also psychological. This paper uses close reading of the text to make the argument that the dualistic discourse of Tara is a challenge to biological determinism, showing that gender disparity is not a given in nature, but is constructed culturally. It also argues that Dattani reimagines the split body of the twins as a metaphor for a society that seemingly brings in an endless split of the female image on several occasions through discriminatory social practices. As a result, something more than a domestic tragedy, Tara is a powerful feminist denunciation of the exercise of male power.