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- Title
On a Muggy Night in Mumbai : Themes of Alternative Sexuality.
- Authors
Anand, Kumar Gautam
- Abstract
Mahesh Dattani, the first Indian playwright-director of English plays, is the recipient of Sahitya Akademi Award for Final Solution and Other Plays in 1998. Sahitya Akademi award citation reads,"Dattani's work probes tangled attitudes in contemporary India towards communal differences, consumerism and is a brilliant contribution to Indian drama in English"(1). He has show-cased Indian Theater to the western audience. He has wistfully experimented with the existing dramaturgy to suit post-colonial, socio-cultural themes in the backdrop of Indian myths and rituals. Like many post colonial critics and writers his efforts focus on restoring the humanity of those who were dehumanized. He represents the social change and the question of identity for the eunuchs, bisexuals, homosexuals and transgendered. Though he takes up the themes of gender and sexuality, he keeps himsef away from obscenity. This is what Dattani reiterates in one of the interviews with Pramila N. Phatarphekar at the premier of Seven steps Around the Fire. He spells out his views about the 'peeping audience', "But as a writer-director, I carefully avoid rewarding voyers"(2). Alyque Padamsee calls him one of the "most serious contemporary plywrights"(3). On a Muggy Night in Mumbai he takes up the theme of homosexuality in the changed socio-cultural net work of India.
- Subjects
HOMOSEXUALITY in literature; ON a Muggy Night in Mumbai (Theatrical production); SOCIOCULTURAL factors; GENDER identity in literature; SEXUAL orientation in literature
- Publication
Labyrinth: An International Refereed Journal of Postmodern Studies, 2014, Vol 5, Issue 4, p76
- ISSN
0976-0814
- Publication type
Literary Criticism