Theme of Gender reflected in Mahesh Dattani's Bravely Fought the Queen

Journal of Research and Development Peer Reviewed International, Open Access Journal. ISSN : 2230-9578 | Website: https://jrdrvb.org Volume-17, Issue-10(II)| October2025 100 Theme of Gender reflected in Mahesh Dattani's Bravely Fought the Queen Dr. B.N. Ravan Professor and Head, Department of EnglishShripatrao Chougule Arts andScience College Malwadi-Kotoli, Tal. Panhala, Dist.Kolhapur. (Maharashtra) Email - [email protected] Manuscript ID: JRD -2025-171022 ISSN: 2230-9578 Volume 17 Issue 10(II) Pp. 100-102 October 2025 Submitted: 02 Oct. 2025 Revised: 15 Oct. 2025 Accepted: 20 Oct. 2025 Published: 31 Oct. 2025 Abstract: This paper investigates Mahesh Dattani's renowned play, “Bravely Fought the Queen”, from gender point of view. Dattani's plays are the mirror of contemporary Indian society. Family is the most important theatrical space in Mahesh Dattani’s plays including Bravely Fought the queen. The dramatist depicts the battles being fought among the members of same family at home. The play seeks to presents women's exploitation by the male. The play also depicts the issue of homosexuality in a very bold manner and the issue of morality, financial depreciation in the lives of the Trivedi brothers residing in a posh suburb of Bangalore. It portrays the complexity in the husband-wife relationship, mother-son, daughter relationship and brother-sister relationship. The play presents the shifting Indian values and dramatizes conflict between traditional and contemporary cultures. KeywordsGender, patriarchy, society, homosexual, morality, financial burden, conflict Introduction: Mahesh Dattani, actor, director, playwright, dancer and screenplay writer was born in Bangalore on August 7,1958. He studied in the elite St. Joseph's college at Bangalore. He worked primarily as a copywriter and formed his theater Playpen in 1984.Mahesh Dattani frequently takes his subject from complicated dynamics of the modern urban family. His characters struggle for some kind of freedom and happiness under the weigh of tradition, cultural constructions of gender and repressed desire. His plays mirror the aspiration and the frustrations, the conflicts and the compromises that characterize the contemporary middle class Indian's life.Bravely Fought the Queen was first performed at the Sophia Bhabha Hall, Mumbai on 2nd Aug 1991. The play has a multi-layered thematic technique. The play centers on the Trivedi family with its two brothers Jiten and Nitin and their wives Dolly and Alka. The playwright has divided the play in three acts with titles for each. The title of the first act is ‘The Women’, the second act is ‘The Men’ and the third act is ‘Free to All’. Jiten has control over the family both as elder son and brother. Dolly and Alka are sisters. It is a joint family venture in terms of the domestic scenario as well as the advertising business. All the relations are powerfully maintained under the dictates of patriarchy. The third important family in the play that meets members of Trivedi family is that of Lalitha and Sridhar. The first act of Bravely Fought the Queen presents the position of the women and the drawing room of the Trivedi family. This family has a mother, Baa; her two sons, Jiten and Nitin, two daughters-in-law Dolly and Alka and one grand daughter Daksha. The play depicts contemporary life with strong under currents of dark family secrets surfacing through the interaction of characters. Baa is an old woman who has suffered a stroke. She is confined to bed and alternates between the houses of her sons, Jiten and Nitin, whose wives Dolly and Alka look after her by turns. Baa is strong and dominating character in the play. She controls and dictates her sons and their wives -lives through bullying, blackmailing and instigating one against the other. Baa is giving too much trouble to Alka and Dolly because Baa's husband very badly treated her. Beautiful Baa married Quick Response Code: Website: https://jrdrvb.org/ DOI: Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work noncommercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations ae licensed under the idential terms. Address for correspondence: Dr. B.N. Ravan, Professor and Head,Department of English,Shripatrao Chougule Arts andScience College,Malwadi-Kotoli, Tal. Panhala,Dist.Kolhapur. (Maharashtra) How to cite this article: B.N. Ravan, (2025 Theme of Gender reflected in Mahesh Dattani's Bravely Fought the Queen,Journal of Research & Development, 17(10(II)),100-102 Original Article Journal of Research and Development Peer Reviewed International, Open Access Journal. ISSN : 2230-9578 | Website: https://jrdrvb.org Volume-17, Issue-10(II)| October2025 101 with uncouth, rough and loutish person. He married Baa for money because Baa was rich singer. He often beat her up and Baa would plead with him not to hit her on the faces, “Hit me again. The children should see a demon you are. Aah! Jitu ! Nitin ! Are you watching? See your father ! No! No! Not on the face. I beg you. I beg you! Hit me but not on --- aaah!” (Dattani, 2000:278). Face is very important, its mirror which presents the miseries of a person very clearly. But being a woman psychologically she wants to cover her miseries and does not want show anybody. Sujata Sen points out about women in the book titled Gender Studies, “Women tolerate all the torture silently keeping it all within themselves in order to keep the family fabric and prestige intact”. (Sen, 2012:101). Baa's two sons, Jiten and Nitin, were a witness to these ugly scenes. L. Amritashwari Devi writes in “Women as victims in Mahesh Dattani's Bravely Fought The Queen" for Baa, “Baa's husband was a dominating and violent man who had not only prevented her from singing but also used & beat her up time and again. He also ill-treated their sons. His nature towards Baa and their sons was so rude and brutal that she becomes affected even after the death of her husband whenever she recalls him of making her unable to live in the present.” (Devi, 2011:190). Psychologically behaviour, mentality and cruelty of Baa’s husband created hatred, anger, dispute in her mind and that same hatred is continued with their sons. Baa has instilled the feeling of hatred for his father in Nitin right since his childhood. Very strangly Nitin has grown up to be a homosexual and Jiten is rough, boorish and uncouth like his father. Both Nitin and Jiten ill treated their wives. Nitin and Jiten indirectly continued past of their father. Dattani presents a nuanced portrayal of two women Dolly and Alka, who navigate societal expectations and personal desires in a patriarchal setting. Alka is a spirited young woman in her early thirties. She is a wife of Nitin and the victim of patriarchal society. First, she suffers at the hands of her brother, Praful and then her husband and motherin-law's hands. Once annoyed, Praful dragged her into the kitchen and pushed her face in front of burning stove and burnt her hair. She was frightened and tried her best to save her face. Face is an identity of both Baa and Alka. Alka's marriage is adjustment because her husband Nitin keeps homosexual relations with her brother Praful. Alka’s marriage is get pass for both Nitin and Praful to continue this act safely. The play depicts the issue of homosexuality in very bold manner, as well as suffering of the wife due to her husband turning out to be a gay. Alka’s anguish and agony is aggravated when she comes to know that Nitin, her husband, has homosexual relationship with her brother. On account of dry marital life, Alka has become a boozer. She drinks wine to forget all, but in vain; she is completely frustrated and depressed by constant beating and torture of Nitin and threatening her again and again to go out of the house. Alka has lost all her status and identity. Dolly is the victim of patriarchy. Dolly has been married for fifteen years to Jiten who has always ill-treated and beaten her up. Dolly reminds him how, at Baa's instigation, he had beaten her up and kicked her when she was pregnant. As a result she gave birth to a premature and spastic Daksha who is now studying in a special school and wants to be a dancer. Dolly hides the reality of Daksha. In the play Alka says, “Having leach for a husband. A saint for a brother and a leach for a husband.”(Dattani, 2000:300). Her husband has no time for her. He is always busy doing fruitless things and involved in outside women for physical satisfaction. Her dilemma is sharply presented by Alka,“Poor Dolly, sitting by herself, looking pretty and ... wastes. With only a half-dead mother-in-law for company.” (Dattani, 2000;208). To involve herself and to overcome on trouble she takes interest in listening Naina Devi’s thumari, Dolly and Alka also create an imaginary character. Kanahiya as her lover. Both Dolly and Alka tells false story to Lalita. Daksha the third generation of Trivedi family also suffers because of patriarchy. The future generation has to suffer because of the conflicts and frustrations of the elders. Baa repents as she leaves her property in the name of her grand daughter and makes Praful the trustee. As Nitin gets to know this he is disappointed at being disinherited. Jiten has been totally dehumanized at the hands of the system and violence has become an integral part of his life. Dattani’s use of the bonsai is an interesting trope in the play. On the one hand it reflects on the nurturing aspects of Lalitha. On the other it also unveils the attitude of a power ridden society towards women. The women in the play are creations like Lalitha's bonsais. Their desires are constantly cut so that they spread any to a particular level. They don't have any scope to spread. This is also the case with the women in this play. They too are trimmed in different ways to create desired effect. Alka, Dolly and Lilitha are all bonsais each of different kind. The past of a person affects his/her life badly. But when it is the past of a women it affects her more than a man. In the case of Dolly and Alka same thing happened. Their father was not living with their mother. He deceived her and lived with her former wife and four children. At the time of marriage of Dolly and Alka Praful told that his father was dead. But after marriage accidently, Baa came to know about the reality of their father. Baa became angry and insulted Dolly and Alka by calling them the daughter of a mistress or a keep. In the words of Baa, “Your mother is a keep --------- a mistress! My sons have married the daughters of whore!" (Dattani, 2000:311).Baa used this dirty word and insulted all women.Dolly suffered a lot because of this lie matter. Baa tells Jitu, “Throw out her as well. Whore" (Dattani, 2000:311). Baa forced Jiten to bit Dolly during the pregnancy. Alka is thrown out form the house by Nitin after the revelation of her family secret. Journal of Research and Development Peer Reviewed International, Open Access Journal. ISSN : 2230-9578 | Website: https://jrdrvb.org Volume-17, Issue-10(II)| October2025 102 Sridhar is uncomfortable with the approach of the Trivedi brothers. He tried his level best to defend the rights of the consumer. Sridhar is probably torn between the two and is unable to gauge the new nuances of the situation in which, like Dolly, and Alka he too is a puppet. Dattani's choice of the advertising agency as a patriarchal construction, the sale of products for women, and most of all women as targets for the male gaze is apt. Lind L. Lindsay presents the plight of women in her home through a proverb, “Men have careers, women have jobs. Men are breadwinners, women are bread bakers. Men are Sexual Leaders, women are sexual followers. A man's home is his castle!” (Lindsey, 2011; 241). Dolly and Alka both are rich, they are living their life according to the desire, wish of their husbands. In the eyes of Jiten and Nitin, a woman is a commodity and an enjoyable thing. Men can never think women as human as they are always victimizing them; because they are showing their superiority over them. Conclusion : The suffering of women at the hands of men is an age old suffering. In the modern context the suffering of women may be different from the suffering of Baa, Dolly, Alka, Daksha, Lillita, Dolly and Alka's mother, but women have been suffering continuously in the patriarchal structure. L. Amritashwari Devi minutely remarks, “The subjugation, the torture or the way our women suffer maybe different but the age old system of dominance over women by men will never end and they are and will always be victims in our male chauvinistic society!" (Devi, 2011:196). References 1. Dattani Mahesh Collected Plays, New Delhi: Penguin Books 2000. 2. Devi L. Amritashiwori, “Women as Victims in Mahesh Dattani's Bravely Fought the Queen,” Journal of Literature, Culture and Media Studies 3.5/6 (Jan-Dec,2011)188-96. 3. Lindsey, Linda L. Gender Roles: A Sociological Perspective, New Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.2011. 4. Multani Angelie (Ed), Mahesh Dattani's Plays Critical Perspectives, Pencraft International, New Delhi, 2007. 5. Sen, Sujata, Gender Studies. New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley Pvt. Ltd.2012.