Gulab Shaikh

Department of English, Nutan Mahavidyalaya, Selu, Parbhani, Maharashtra, India

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Abstract:

This research paper aims to highlight the true condition and situation of women as described in the plays of Mahesh Elkunchwar. Elkunchwar is well-known not just in the Marathi theatrical community and is recognized as a very respectable playwright, but he is also active in the field of modern Indian theatre. His plays hold a distinct place in Marathi theatre history. The theatrical skills of Mahesh Elkunchwar place him as the pioneer playwrights for exploring the issues of women and psychological dilemma of women’s world in effectual way. Elkunchwar possesses a literary bent and a superb command of common language. His plays are incredibly readable due to his spontaneity and effective use of literary tropes. Mahesh Elkunchwar, a contemporary Marathi writer, is arguably the most persuasive advocate for social plays. His plays explore the conflict between family relationships and social relationships with realism and emotional force.

Introduction

One of the most well-known playwrights in Marathi literature, Mahesh Elkunchwar (born 9 October 1939), has bravely attempted to depict the conditions of women in patriarchal society. Along with Vijay Tendulkar and Satish Alekar, he is recognized as one of the most prominent and forward-thinking playwrights of the modern era. With the publishing of his one-act dramas, which display a unique fusion of intensity and concentration, Elkunchwar rose to literary fame. He has written more than twenty plays in the Marathi language, including Rudravarsha (1966), Sultan (1967), Zumbar (1967), Kaifiyat (1967), Eka Mhatarachya Khoon (1968), Ek Osad Gaon (1969), Yatanaghar (1970), Garbo (1973), Desire in the Rocks (1974), Party (1976), Raktapushp (1980), Old Stone Mansion (1985), Reflection (1987). Many different languages, including Hindi, English, German, and French, have been used to translate the majority of his plays.

In the patriarchal culture, he concentrates on the pains, anxiety, misery, and tragedies of both men and women. This study essentially tries to concentrate on Elkunchwar's Old Stone Mansion, Garbo, and Sonata while taking into accounts his topics and writing style. The plays portray the plight of women in current society, both traditional and modern. Thus, it emphasizes on the agony and battle that women face as they try to make a name for themselves in the patriarchal society. Additionally, the patriarchal viewpoints on female subjectivities are being studied in this chapter. The issue that the female characters have encountered is that they always live in anxiety of whether or not their desires would be satisfied because of their societal conditions. The plays chosen deal with the themes of mortality, identity, subjectivity, gender issues, and sexuality. Elkunchwar also depicts the problems of modern women and issues relating to their identity and subjectivity.

In a feudal society, one of the prominent playwrights who address critical elements of human existence without being acknowledged by a theatre preoccupied with psychology and sociology is Mahesh Elkunchwar. The Marathi play The Wada Chirebandi has been translated as The Old Stone Mansion. The play analyses the "Wada" community's problem, which "refers to the entire culture/tradition of the ancient, crumbling feudal framework of a region in Maharashtra.

The drama primarily addresses the problem of family crisis and the clash between commercial and traditional cultures. Elkunchwar also raises concerns about how women are psychologically positioned in the world today. Elkunchwar himself comments about the play that “wada is not merely a family story; it is more than that. The sixth day after Tatyaji, the head of the Deshpande family, passed away is when the play starts. Aai, the widow of Tatyaji, is waiting for her youngest son Sudhir and his wife Anjali from Bombay to arrive so they can attend their father's funeral in Act I. The eldest son Bhaskar and his wife Vahini have taken over the family's affairs since Tatyaji's passing, demonstrating their use of their power in the wake of the father's passing. Due to Indian patriarchal values, which place control over inherited property with the family head, they use that power to seize the keys to their family's jewellery box. After the passing of her father-in-law, Vahini undergoes significant shift. She now believes that she may spend her life anyway she chooses. Therefore, patriarchy has the potential to both empower and disempowered women. Bhaskar wishes to perform the customary funeral rites because his family is Brahmin, but Deshpande's family has faced hardships. Because Sudhir lives in a big city and keeps the family's financial position intact, Bhaskar anticipates that he will cover the entire cost. But Sudhir asserts that he also endures a great deal of suffering. The Wada culture in Maharashtra, which was unable to withstand both the test of time and social change in the outside world, is also vividly depicted in the play as declining. The huge joint family with its hierarchical patriarchy, which keeps the tensions in control under a flimsy pretence of authority, is the cause of the "Wada" insularity. The problem that this drama raises pits traditional culture against contemporary culture. Elkunchwar additionally illustrates the generational divide in Indian society. Elkunchwar criticizes families that value pomposity and outward display while also highlighting the typical Indian households that are more concerned with their social standing.

Elkunchwar chooses to focus on patriarchal households in the play Old Stone Mansion because, if one were to analyze the characters as subjects, it would be clear that, although they would behave freely, their freedom was being constrained by the social and cultural systems in which they were raised.

The play's characters are shown to have failed in their duties. A crisis can be found here to strengthen the family's weakening bonds. Additionally, the Deshapande family's connections may be seen to be deteriorating. The story of The Old Stone Mansion begins when the Deshapande family gathers for their father Venkatesh's funeral but breaks up over who should receive how much of the family's ancestral "Wada" or mansion. Elkunchwar chooses to focus on patriarchal households in the play Old Stone Mansion because, if one were to analyze the characters as subjects, it would be clear that, although they would behave freely, their freedom was being constrained by the social and cultural systems in which they were raised.

The play's characters are shown to have failed in their duties. A crisis can be found here to strengthen the family's weakening bonds. Additionally, the Deshapande family's connections may be seen to be deteriorating. The story of The Old Stone Mansion begins when the Deshapande family gathers for their father Venkatesh's funeral but breaks up over who should receive how much of the family's ancestral "Wada" or mansion. But can't everyone share in the expense? Vahini asks Aai in their conversation. He wasn't everyone's father, was he? Or is upholding the Deshpande name our exclusive responsibility? However, mother, Aai is aware of who would be responsible for paying her late husband's post-funeral costs. To cover the costs, she decides to sell her part of the wada while criticising. "Do you all think I don't know what's going on?" she asks. But when he was alive, things were different. Aai could see how the community's way of life the traditional wada would disintegrate. Elkunchwar is a term used to describe families who want to be free of their obligations and only care about getting their fair portion of the land and money.

Old Stone Mansion portrays women on the one hand as victims of caste prejudice and a patriarchal attitude, but on the other, it also shows them as change agents. Bhaskar, Sudhir, and Chandu's three brothers have a sister named Prabha in the play. She is extremely clever, but her patriarchal family forbids her from attending college to pursue higher education. She is ready to pursue her education at the age of 35, but Prabha is prevented from doing so due to erroneous perceptions of the Brahmin aristocratic family's prominence. Prabha wants to finish school so she can get a nice job, but her father won't let her since he thinks girls don't need education for survival. It demonstrates her father's mindset toward women. However, Prabha is an intelligent woman who is aware of her rights. The patriarchal system oppresses her. Since a woman's subjectivity is socially and culturally formed, she is portrayed in this way as a critique of current Indian women who live in the same patriarchal social environment. Given that men create norms, rituals, and traditions, it is apparent that patriarchal societies never grant women any freedom. According to the conventional patriarchal view, which sees gender roles as being biologically and organically set, women are men's natural inferiors and subordinates. According to Mary Wollstonecraft, the foundation of patriarchy and its continuation was an unreasonable denial of rights. After her father passed away, Prabha and her brother Sudhir spoke about how a girl has no future. She thinks that a daughter should be able to support herself once her father passes away because no one else in the family is prepared to do it. Her sister-in-law appears unconcerned when Prabha states her desire to remain in Bombay with Aai. She informs her about urban life in big cities:

PRABHA: This time I’ll go with you to Bombay.

ANJALI: Won’t Aai need someone here with her?

PRABHA: Let’s take her along too. It would be a good change for her. Didn’t you see? Vahini waited for Aai to take her money. If she stays here alone, they’ll eat her alive.

ANJALI: Speak to your brother. It’s not for me to say. Whatever he decides . . .

PRABHA: You’re quite under my brother’s thumb, aren’t you!

ANJALI: You know his temper. He’s Deshpande through and through . . . You think it’s all fun and games for us. But let me tell you, only we know how to manage. Pull the sheet over your head and your feet are uncovered. Cover your feet and the head’s uncovered. First it was a battle to find a two-room flat. Now its battle to pay off the loan. Al least here you own the roof over your head . . .

PRABHA: Don’t give me that sob story of your poverty, please. Nobody is going to visit you, all right? You are a proper Konkanastha, aren’t you? (Elkunchwar, 149)

Prabha and Anjali's talk demonstrates that in Indian patriarchal/traditional families, the women do not want their in-laws to be the dominant figure in the household. Elkunchwar portrays the psyche of women who live in a patriarchal society through the character of Vahini. They feel liberated from the male-dominated feudal shackles upon the death of the family head.

In the presence of her family, Prabha brings up the subject of her schooling once more. She wants to continue her studies because her father didn't want her to study when he passed away. Her father felt that having a Deshpande girl remain in a hostel by herself was a disgrace to their family's honour and status. Another factor was that Sudhir was also a student at the time, making it challenging for him to cover both expenses. In a patriarchal society, boys are more often studied than girls.

The drama The Old Stone Mansion, which is about a family, highlights the plight of women in the patriarchal system. Aai, Vahini, Prabha, Dadi, and Raju are some of the play's significant female characters. Because people in the Indian patriarchy system adhere to its laws and standards, these women's characters highlight the strong familial ties and communal ties present in Marathi culture and society. Because of the patriarchal system's restrictions on women, their experiences in life are distinct from those of men. In Old Stone Mansion, the female characters act in ways that reflect feminine sensibility. The writings by women and those about women are challenging by enforcing what women are and what writing about women is, patriarchal writings. More crucial than the male characters are the female ones, who serve as exemplars of diverse human tendencies, traits, and mentalities.

The tragic drama Garbo was written by Mahesh Elkunchwar in 1973. The play deals with the physical and psychological relationship between three male friends, Intuc, Pansy, and Shrimant, as well as Garbo, an ordinary film actress who struggles to succeed. It tells the story of these four characters: Garbo, Intuc, Shrimant, and Pansy. These individuals have started having physical and sexual relations after meeting by chance. Through the psycho-sexual language of subjectivity, one can comprehend Garbo. Hours had passed while the trios awaited Garbo's arrival. Her persona elicits annoyance as well as empathy. Elkunchwar portrays her as a woman who, as a result her desires, is doomed to hopelessness and a demented state of mind. Garbo's ideas are constrained by absurdity due to her physical prowess and lifeless existence. Her rage is the cause of her loneliness. She despises the circumstances that force her to sacrifice herself and live a life of servitude as a sex machine. Elkunchwar demonstrates how women become vulnerable in the repressive setup that seeks to subjugate them through the figure of Garbo, who is victimised by the patriarchal system, because no one tries to comprehend her mental state. Garbo's status and tragic demise support Elkunchwar's depiction of the culture and way of life of urban women, which shows that even though an intellectual woman can become economically independent, this does not ensure her cultural or psychological emancipation from patriarchal influence.

The lives of three pals who appear to be lost are further explored in Sonata. Dolon and Aruna have been living together in the same apartment for seventeen years, but they have both avoided one another at all costs. There are a few factors at play. Dolon presents herself as an activist on the outside, yet her hidden loneliness is a representation of modern women leading similar lives. Another character in the play, Aruna, stands for those women who are never content and accuse all males of being the cause of women's hopelessness. Her partner, a school teacher by profession, has emotionally wounded her. Elkunchwar portrays the group of women who can survive without men in their life through Subhadra, the play's third female character.

In the modern period, the subject of loneliness has received a lot of attention. Aruna, Dolon, and Subhadra are the three college mates who have chosen to stay unmarried in the drama Sonata. Even though they are highly accomplished and well-known in their respective fields of work, they nonetheless experience loneliness on occasion. They repeatedly revisit their childhood recollections and explore their ancestry. It is also possible to analyse the characters Subhadra, Dolon, and Aruna using Freudian concepts as representations of the id, ego, and superego, respectively. But overall, Subhadra is in a better situation than the other two since she has at least managed to escape the confines and restrictions of the four walls, connect with the outside world, and develop her own voice. Although she goes back to Sangram at the end of the play. They look for happiness and satisfaction while drinking, smoking, and collecting empty perfume bottles. Aruna is hesitant to deviate from her own established rules of behaviour, whereas Subhadra rejects all cultural and social conventions and forges her own path. The play concludes in a virtually identical manner, highlighting the truth even though it succeeds in bringing the characters a little bit closer together. This makes clear the overwhelming, unavoidable existential reality of women in the modern day.

Conclusion

The characters in the above discussed plays Prabha, Vahini, Aai, Garbo, Aruna, Dolon, and Subhadra examine many facets of Indian subjectivity. Elkunchwar represents the woman who accepts the domination of men and, rather than protesting, celebrates the suppression of her free will expression in Sonata by illustrating the subjectivity of Aruna, Dolon, and Subhadra. Prabha, Aai, and Garbo, who are still bound by patriarchal culture, serve as the lens through which Old Stone Mansion and Garbo analyse the psychoanalytical construction of a woman's subjectivity. Elkunchwar's plays can be examined in terms of how the patriarchal discourse constructs women's subjectivity in the same way that patriarchy subjects women to subjugation. Thus, the study uses a potent and significant medium to depict how women are represented as well as the patriarchal restrictions that have traditionally limited women's psychological development. The most important feature of his plays to be note down here as his plays carries a sensibility of Maharashtra culturally form women who are jeopardized in multiple ways as sexism, racism and classicism. The psychological banding of women resulted out of cultural and societal patterns are aptly explored through the plays of Mahesh Elkunchwar.

References

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