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Abstract
Mahesh Dattani stands as a colossus in the landscape of modern Indian English drama, not merely for his linguistic choice but for the unflinching social scrutiny that defines his work. Born in Bangalore in 1958, Dattani’s journey to playwright was not immediate; he worked in his family’s business and explored dance and advertising before finding his true calling in the theatre. This background in diverse forms of expression perhaps equipped him with a unique sensitivity to the nuances of performance—both on stage and in society. His plays, written predominantly in the late 1980s and 1990s, excavate the hidden pathologies of the urban Indian middle class, a world cloaked in respectability but riven with secrets, prejudices, and silences. Dattani’s paramount contribution is his dedicated mission to give voice to the subaltern—those figures pushed to the margins by dominant narratives of family, gender, sexuality, and normality. Through a dramatic oeuvre that is both psychologically astute and socially urgent, he stages a theatre of protest, bringing the whispers from the periphery to the center of the audience’s conscience. This paper will argue that in plays like Final Solutions, Tara, and Dance Like a Man, Dattani employs the family as a microcosm to dramatize the struggles of the subaltern, challenging the audience to confront the systemic violence of normalization and the redemptive power of giving voice to the silenced.