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Abstract
Indian drama has long served as a mirror to society’s evolving anxieties, yet few playwrights have challenged the patriarchal foundations of Indian culture as incisively as Mahesh Dattani. As the first Indian English playwright to receive the Sahitya Akademi Award (1998), Dattani occupies a unique position in the landscape of modern Indian theatre. Unlike his predecessors who focused on anti-colonial nationalism or economic injustice, Dattani turns his gaze inwardto the family, the closet, and the female body. Through a careful examination of three of his major works Final Solutions (1993), Tara (1990), and Dance Like a Man (1989) this article argues that Dattani deconstructs gender not as a biological given but as a performative construct enforced through language, space, and ritual. His plays expose how Indian patriarchy disciplines both women and men, while simultaneously offering moments of transgressive possibility.