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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2011
The preoccupation with ‘fringe’ issues forms an important element in Dattani' work – issues that remain latent and suppressed, or are pushed to the periphery, come to occupy centre stage – quite literally. With Dattani, this becomes the only way to actually push these ‘invisible’ issues forward, to create at least an acknowledgement of their existence.
…you can talk about feminism, because in a way that is accepted. But you can't talk about gay issues because that's not Indian, [that] doesn't happen here. You can't talk about a middle-class housewife fantasizing about having sex with a cook or actually having a sex life – that isn't Indian either – that's confrontational even if it is Indian.
(Mee, 1997: 24-25)Much of ‘mainstream’ society, Dattani believes, lives in a state of ‘forced harmony’, out of a sense of helplessness, or out of a lack of alternatives. Simply for lack of choice, they conform to stereotypes like ‘homosexuals’ that in some sense leads to a kind of ghettoisation within society, little spaces to which the marginalized are pushed. The way in which this is tackled, the struggle to be heard and seen are the stuff of the plays.
In terms of gender, Dattani's focus somewhat shifts its perspective:
Gender is a major part of it[…] it has to do with my own comfort with both the feminine and the masculine self in me […] the masculine self is very content; it doesn't need to express itself. But the feminine self seems to seek expression […].
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