Dattani's On A Muggy Night in Mumbai: Towards an Interpretation

of the Same-Sex Relationships as a Community

(Dr. Yoosaph A.K.)
Abstract:
Dattani’s well-known play focuses on the aspect of gay sex and lesbianism in
Mumbai city which has become the symbol of all cities for that matter. It is
highly significant in a taboo-oriented society to discuss the question of marital
affair between the same genders whose relationships are a subject of great
concern in India. Kamalesh, the hero of the play, convenes a meeting of his
friends who stand for the affair between man and man, and woman and
woman. His physical affair with Ed comes to light when he strongly supports
the marriage proposal between his sister Kiran and Ed. The discussion of the
proposal stretches itself into many grey areas of his plans and the total attitude
of homosexuals centered in cities like Mumbai. Thus the analysis of the play
here tries to argue about their concept of a society in which the issues of the
custom oriented distinction are minimized. The play also reveals how an
alternate social order would try to solve problems like the recent atrocities on
women when the human mindset undergoes a drastic inversion.

Dattani's On A Muggy Night in Mumbai: Towards an Interpretation

of the Same-Sex Relationships as a Community
(Dr. Yoosaph A. K., Assistant Professor, Govt. College, Mokeri,
Kerala State, India)
 One of India's coveted and well read playwrights, Mahesh Dattani is
recognized throughout the world in the genre of Indian writing in
English. He has been acknowledged as the writer of social issues by
several critics. All together, Dattani's association with the alienated and
marginalized groups of people is viewed as part of his deviation from
the common and known subjects of literature. In this respect, as some of
his plays deal with the themes of gay and lesbianism, it would be
justifiable to analyse them with a view to look into the aspects that
relate to the postcolonial situation.
On A Muggy Night In Mumbai opens up the twin themes of gay sex
and lesbianism. As is explicit in the statements about the concentration
of those interested in gay and lesbian sex, the play takes Mumbai city as
its background.
John McRae, in the introduction to the play, writes:
It is a play about how society creates patterns of behaviour and
how easy it is for individuals to fall victim to the expectation
society creates. . . . For the fault is not just the characters’ – it is
everyone’s, in a society which not only condones but encourages
hypocrisy, which demands deceit and negation, rather than
allowing self-expression, responsibility and dignity. (45-46)
Larger cities have distinct areas where gay people tend to live or
congregate for entertainment. Gay-identified people often move to major
cities where they can find a larger gay community. They have a
propensity to trust and give preference to each other in personal and
business dealings and derive reassurance in their community because
they experience the acceptance they never found among their family,
church, friends, or classmates.
The out of the way dwellers make it a habit to live an unusual and
unnatural life in cities which are usually inundated or controlled by
them. Dattani tries to microcosmically look at this perverted aspect of
city-dwellers by bringing Mumbai at the backdrop. The curtain rises
with the get-together of gay men who were called together by Kamlesh
at his apartment, the purpose of which was only known to him.
However, at the outset itself the exposition is made in relation to the
participants, that they were engrossed in homosexuality intending to
satisfy their carnal pleasures with men. It is also revealed that they have
formed themselves into a community which solely supports the cause of
gay men. Their discussion sometimes pinpoints the significance of
marriage between man and man, and woman and woman, which also
underlines the intensity of their mutual relationships.
The personal conflict over same-sex attraction feelings creates a
difficult internal struggle. After years of trying to find answers and
little success at trying to change their feelings, some people become
convinced that their same-sex attraction feelings are inborn and
unchangeable and they accept a gay identity which finally ends the
internal struggle that has caused them so much frustration and pain.
Accepting a gay identity has far-reaching implications because being
"gay" includes not only personal feelings, but also describes a social
and political identity. As they associate with other gay people, they
 find a great deal of acceptance and feel—perhaps for the first time in
their life—that they fit in. Since they often feel that the world has let
them down or they feel rejected by the world, they turn to each other
for support. There they feel safe, comfortable, and at home". 1
Deepali represents lesbians in Mumbai. Her personality and
viewpoints are well-defined in her argument in favor of strong
relationships between women and women. What ensues is a discussion
in which the rights of the homos are the subject which has been treated
as a taboo in conventional society. Dattani's attempt to bring them to the
limelight is quite in line with his views on the marginalized community
of hijras living in Mumbai and elsewhere in India, and discussed at
length in one of his plays.
The story centres around Kamalesh, the main character of the play,
who wants to bring Ed, his long time friend, to his apartment in the
pretext of giving his sister, Kiran, in marriage to him. He has the
privilege of finding a new husband to her because he had saved her from
the shackles of her former husband, who ill treated her at every step of
her married life. However, his suggestion spins around bringing Ed as
his brother in law, hiding the true agenda behind the move. His previous
connection with Ed as a homosexual is not unfamiliar to many, and
towards the end of the play, they drag it into the forefront of the
discussion which finds Kamalesh at odds with his friends exposed by
Sharad and his friends and, ultimately revealed to Kiran. However, the
entire gamut of this exposure falls in to light when Kiran happens to
notice the exchange of kisses between Ed and Kiran.
 A. K Chaudhuri observes here that Dattani has adventurously
brought out the inhibited self of every man. In this sense he comments:
Much of ‘mainstream’ society, Dattani believes, lives in a state
of ‘forced harmony’, out of 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. (p.47)

Moreover, the playwright observes the homosexuals having found out a

way of venting their feelings or fulfilling their urges in one way or the
other, if it is not possible in the Indian land. John MacRae notes again
that the tabooed Indian society is sometimes rejected by the gaymen, in
fact, to satisfy their physical urges. He says:
Of the characters, Sharad and Deepali are comfortable with their
sexuality, and they have different habits of being gay. Sharad is
camp, flaunting; Deepali more restrained, perhaps more stable.
Kamlesh is anguished, and Ed the most obvious victim of his
own insecurities. Bunny, the TV actor, is a rather more
traditional Indian gay man - married. (he would say happily)
while publicly denying his own nature, and Ranjit has taken an
easy way out by moving to Europe where he can, ‘be himself’
more openly. (p.45)
Sometimes it may be also observed that they are disinclined to take
notice of the society’s aversion and reaction, thus shunting the
possibilities for a turn back to their natural self. This is evident when
Kamlesh says thus:
"Let them talk! If two men want to love one another, what’s the
harm? " (CP: 91)
In this emphatic question there is also a sense of questioning the social
values and traditions which have been observed customarily, so to say,
in Indian communities which, at present, have turned into a fallacy in its
true sense.
As has been observed by Mac Rae in the note above some are more
engrossed in their conviction and commitment that they even dare to
leave the country for keeping their gay relation and identity unharmed
and safe. The following conversation between Ranjit and Deepali is
evidently an instance of this conclusion:
Ranjit: Call me what you will. My English lover and I have been
together for twelve years now. You lot will never be able to find
a lover in this wretched country! (CP: 71)
This conversation also points out the thoughts of a citizen about India
and its social set up in which, he feels, there plays a hidden pseudo-
morality. It is a placid and tacit verbal rebellion against the wretched
customs that Ranjit opens up in this brief dialogue. It seems that the
playwright is more focused on the homosexuality of unmarried men and
women, while the grave truth reminds us that married men and women
also engage in gay sex in large numbers which are less noticed in the
Indian context.
Deepali is the most beautifully drawn character in the play. If we
analyse the current approach to women as a whole by men, in general,
with all the atrocities taking place in the nook and corner of India against
women, Deepali's ironic remark has great significance. She
unequivocally asserts:
“I am all for the gay men’s cause. Men deserve only men!” (CP:
60)
It seems that the playwright deliberately put these words in her mouth to
justify his observation along with the suffering of women at the hands of
men.
Deepali is quite faithful and content with her lesbian relationship.
She is enraged to know various moods and opinions of homosexuals.
The playwright is not just an observer here where in he finds full
expression of the thoughts of the homosexuals that got the status of a
community like the mainstream society. Thus, they live in their own
world, observe their own codes and values created by them as a parallel
to the so called mainstream society. They live and die, love and hate,
face and solve their problems, etc. in their own limits and limitlessness.
It is at a critical point when a solution could not be found at the corner
that Deepali says, “Tina and I can tell all of you to go jump!” (CP: 71)
which is, naturally, an instance of their deep attachment to their
platform.
 In short, as has been observed by S. Chakrabarti, "the gay matter
in On a Muggy Night in Mumbai is most pervasive, and while the
treatment is radical the denouement is abrasive. Two contrastive
scenarios are conceived to offset each other. In one, Ed, the gay man
breaks down after assaulting his male partner Kamlesh following the
disclosure of their relation from a just recovered tell tale clandestine
photograph and in the other the air of celebration prevails sound of
bursting fire crackers and lusty yells is heard from the wedding below.
This contrastive juxtaposition is a clever dramatic device of Dattani to
focus on the infructuous. (p.45)
Truly speaking, Dattani is addressing one of the most relevant issues
that the world has been actively considering, namely the atrocities
against women. This has a contemporaneity especially in the event of
the Delhi gang rape of a woman whose case has sprouted worldwide
protests and invited varied discourses on the subject of man-woman
relationships in society. Such atrocities perhaps arise out of a biased
attitude of men to women who are looked upon as an object of
enjoyment. Thus, this gender bias forces men to treat women as
something that has to be conquered and subjugated. Even then, women
become the ruled and men as rulers displaying paradigm of a dichotomy
between the colonizer and the colonized. This situation could be up to a
certain limit solved in the affair between man and man, and woman and
woman, where there is no ruler and the ruled and colonizer and the
colonized. The pairs get equal opportunities and no one becomes the
slave of the other and vice versa.
Another advantage of the marriage between same genders is that it
doesn’t encourage fetishes on the part of the opposite sex and it doesn’t
consider the possibilities of either gender being an object of sexual
appeasement. In fact, this merit may reduce the chances of women being
subjugated and physically assaulted. This would therefore bring about a
new social situation where the opposite gender, woman in particular,
would be fully safeguarded. This message, though a little superfluous,
underlies a positive aspect when the whole scenario of gay sex and
lesbianism is derogative in the eyes of the taboo-bound hypocrisies. In
this respect, Dattani’s play is a strong protest against the existing norms
of social ethics and moral hypocrisies advocated by the so called masters
of faith and religion.

End Note:
1. For a detailed discussion on the gay identity and its characteristics, this
website article can be referred to:
http://www.samesexattraction.org/gay_identity.htm

References:

Chakrabarti, Santosh. “Gray Areas: Dattani’s World of Drama” in The

Dramatic World of Mahesh Dattani A Critical Exploration, edited by
Amarnath Prasad, New Delhi: Sarup Book Publication Pvt. Ltd., 2009.
Dattani, Mahesh. Collected Plays, Penguin Books, New Delhi 2000.

Kuthari Chaudhuri, Asha. Contemporary Indian Writers in English:

Mahesh Dattani, New Delhi: Foundation Books Pvt.Ltd.Cambridge
House, 2005.

McRae, John, “A note on the play”, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai, in

Collected Plays, Mahesh Dattani, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2000.

Online resources:
http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/2092/10/10_chapter

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1. Declaration: This is to inform whosoever concerned that the article

entitled “Dattani's On A Muggy Night in Mumbai: Towards an

Interpretation of the Same-Sex Relationships as a Community” is an

original work prepared by me and it has not been published before or

sent to any other journal for publication.

2. A brief bio-note:
Dr. Yoosaph. A.K., Assistant Professor, Postgraduate Dept. of English,

Government College, Mokeri, Kerala State. (Calicut University)

Contact: 0091 4962248555

Email: yoosafak@yahoo.com

Address for communication:

Dr. Yoosaph. A. K.

Niranganpara House

Kayanna Post, Perambra

673526, Kerala State

Publications:

1.Book: The Plays of Asif Currimbhoy: A Reading in Postcolonialism.

Published in January 2012 from U.K, USA and Germany by Lambert

Academic Publishing Ltd.

2. Several articles in international and national journals.

3. Translation of short stories from English to Malayalam in Malayalam

weeklies and dailies.

4. Published English poems at international level.

5. Proposed publication of a collection of Arabic short stories in

translation.

6. Proposed publication of an anthology of English poems.