Name of the Candidate: Suraj Soni

Registration Number: 20PHDENG07

Indian Drama
PhD Coursework
Department of English, Central University of Punjab.

The Issue of Identity in Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest and Mahesh Dattani's Dance

Like a Man. 

Manjula Padmanabhan and Mahesh Dattani are contemporary Indian playwright. They are

known to readers through celebrated works such as Light Out (1984) and Harvest (2003) by

Padmanabhan and Where There’s a Will (1988), Bravely Fought the Queen (1991), Dance

Like a Man (1989), Final Solutions (1993) by Dattani. Padmanabhan won the Greek Onassis

award for Harvest and was made into a film Deham which was released in 2001. Dattani won

the Sahitya Academy award for Final Solutions and other plays. Padmanabhan plays Light

out talks about sexual violence against woman in India and based on a real

story. Harvest primarily deals with organs selling in Indian. Dattani talks about the issue of

gender and identity in his plays. His play Final Solutions talks about the conflict between

Muslims and Hindus that leads to the complexity of human nature. They are crucial writer to

understand the social-political situation in Indian and how does Indian society have its way to

deal with the issue that is nowhere to be discussed explicitly. They challenge certain

dominant aspect of society such as patriarchy, feudalism, gender issue and exploitation of the

poor. There are various themes and subject matter which can be vividly seen in both

playwright but the issue of identity is one of the dominant themes.

My intent to elucidate some elements pertaining to the subjective agency and identity

found in the play of Padmanabhan as well as Dattani. The purpose is to inquire about the

spiritual realm depicted in their playwright. They perfectly illustrate the gentleness and
humanity of India. Padmanabhan and Dattani stores reveal a variety of sketches from all

walks of human. My point, in this case, is to study some of the key element

in Harvest and Dance Like a Man. I will write a detailed analysis of plays and how one play

is related to another play? What are the elements both playwrights talk about in their plays? 

Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest

The play Harvest (2001) is a Science fiction play and deal with the issue of identity and

organ selling in India. It is a futurist play that is set in the year 2010 in Mumbai where

machines will replace human beings. Science fiction, which is also called sci-fi is a

significant genre in the world. The science fiction story is primarily based on stories that

describe futuristic plots usually set in the future. According to Baldick, “A popular modern

branch of prose fiction that explores the probable consequences of some improbable or

impossible transformation of the basic conditions of humans (or intelligent non-human)

existence” (230).  The objective of the science fiction genre is to explore, discover, to

experiment with something about the universe. Science fiction of yesterday influences the

natural environment of today. Most sci-fi movies carry this incredible ability to shape the

reality around us, our identity and extraordinary development in the field of science and

technology. It has inspired the development of technologies in the fields of space exploration,

communication, and other kinds of machines. The impact of science fiction is so much that it

creates tremendous scientific possibilities, and some of them have come true. It is an effort to

predict the future on the basis of known facts and fabricate a story. It is speculative in nature

and themed around intergalactic space travel, artificial intelligence, alien invasion. Through

some science fiction movies, groundbreaking and revolutionary ideas influenced modern

technology. It is an expression of human curiosity.

 The plot of Harvest is about Om who is jobless. He goes out to find a job. His Ma

(Mother) is a selfish woman and wants Om to work. She does not care what kind of work Om

will do. She is jealous of Jaya who is the wife of Om and carrying an unstable material

relationship. Jaya is having a secret affair with her brother-in-law Jeetu. Due to economic

setback, Om, to sustain his family, decides to sell his organs to an international company

called InterPlanta in return for money. It is a company of the west that buys organs from the

third world and transport them to the first world. The company tries to aim poorer country

like Indian or country that comes under Asian and convince them to sell their organs in return

of the small amount of money. It is very exploration of third world county and their people.

If we look at the play Harvest. There are two concepts such as utilitarianism and

panopticons. Utilitarianism is “the greatest amount of good for the greatest number”

(Encyclopaedia). Utilitarianism promotes happiness and moral ethics that produce certain

good or joy in society. One of the founding members of utilitarianism and the panopticons is

Jeremy Bentham. My point, in this case, is to study what are the significate of Utilitarianism

in this play Harvest. There is a problem with utilitarianism ideology which can be seen in

Individuality. It does not focus on the particular individual, instead, it goes with the greater

number. I find it interesting and relatable in Harvest. As you are aware of facts that Om and

his family believe in money-making. It does not matter to Ma how his son will make money

or what kind of a job he will do? Om does not have any insight into his action, he convinced

himself to sell his organs in return for money. His individuality is broken and he thinks of the

greatest amount of good to his family. Utilitarianism does believe in morally right actions

based on moral code and civil obligations but it gives less importance to an individual in a

group. The panopticon is a kind of institutional building. It is a kind of prisoner concept

where prisoners are being watched by a guard but prisoners do not have any idea about

whether they are being watched by someone or not. If we look at Harvest play. This concept
seems to be there as in the case of Ginni, the recipient periodically looks in on Om and his

family via a videophone. They are in total surveillance and their behaviours being modified

by Ginni and the company InterPlanta.

Mahesh Dattani's Dance Like a Man

The plot of Dance Like A Man (1989) revolves around Bharatanatyam dancers named Jairaj

Parekha and his wife Ratna and their ambiguous, sacrifice, gender issue and dance. The story

starts with Viswas and Lata talking to each other. Viswas comes to Lata’s home to meet her

parents. His parents Jairaj and Ratna concern about Lata performance and her future dance

career whether her husband would allow her to dance or not. Jairaj used to be a dance but not

anymore. The play goes back to the time of young Jairaj and Ratna and how does Jairaj father

Amritlal discourage Jairaj to take his career as a dance. Amritlal tries to stop Jairaj and tells

me to become more like a man. According to Amritlal, dancing is for woman, not for man. It

is not a man’s job. Amritlal says “A woman in a man’s world may be considered as being

progressive. But a man in a woman’s world is pathetic” (50). It is seen that Amritlal is a very

conservative man. He has his own set of idea and rules. He does not want anyone in his

family to do what they want to. I think, it is a kind of feudal world where the family has no

collective right. Family is governed by a single man and that man is the only ultimate

decision-maker. Amritlal seems to belong to the pre-modern era and he will do anything to

stop his son from purse his career as a dance. Amritlal thinks about reputation. He comes

with an idea that he should talk to Ratna about his son Jairaj. He says to Ratna, I will allow

you to pursue your career as a dance, but you should stop Jairaj. She started ditching Jairaj

and making him realise that he is not a good dancer. Viswas belong to the modern world, and

when Lata parents ask Viswas about Lata career, he says: 

 I admire your courage. Look, I don’t mean I object to her dancing. It is her passion

and it would be fair for me to… all I am saying is that… What am I saying? (Thinks.)

Yes! That it really isn’t necessary to make it so… you know. At least I don’t think so.

Of course, you may think so. But I don’t. And I don’t know what she thinks about it

so… (60)

That is what Viswas thinks about dancing. But eventually, at the end of the play, we

see that Jairaj no langer a dance. Ratna and Jairaj both believe that they are failed at a dance.

Issue of Identity

The issue of identity is very prominent in both plays. The play Harvest and Dance Like a

Man  have certain identity characteristics that are very crucial in understanding contemporary

society. According to Matsumoto, Identity is “the way individuals understand themselves and

are recognized by others” (244). There are different kind of identity; personal, cultural and

relative. The play Harvest does pose the question of identity and individuality. In the case of

om, we see that he sees himself as a materialist that can be sold to market. He has no concern

whatsoever happening. He goes out to take a job. In that process, he did not ask Interplant

company what kind of job and what work needs to be performed. He looks himself rather a

materialist. When Om returned home, he says to his Ma:

Oh – there was some pamphlet they gave us to read, right in the beginning. Just to tell

us to be relaxed and to do whatever we were told. In that it said that once we were

selected, each man would get special instructions. That we would be monitored

carefully. Not just us but our . . . lives. To remain employed, we have to keep

ourselves exactly as they tell us (220).

It is seen that Om was doing what he told to rather than what he wishes to. It makes

him more of the machine, not a human who you can modify own your will. How characters
transform through the cause of narrative: Om somehow remains static from the beginning to

the end except for the moment when guards come to take him away to ‘harvest’ his organs.

He resists for his life and hides in a washroom. In the case of Ma, we can see a wilful

submission towards the modern technological world where people are seen as passive

consumers of the goods produced by the capitalist. In the case of Jaya, who always find a

clear cut distinction between human and machine. She tries to understand the world she is in.

She is very outspoken and rebellious against modern technology. It is her who denied getting

pregnant when Vigil, An American man, asked her to, she said I’d rather kill myself, instead

gets pregnant. Virgil tries to control her body and use her in a way so that she can bear a child

for him. Om, Ma, and Jaya are struggling between life and modern-day technology and how

does it would affect their life if they don’t submit to first world country. It is the issue of the

identity of the third world and as well as individual in the third world. How does west see

you? The materialist point of view of the west is destroying third world people and making

them sell their organs in return for a limited amount of money.

Dance Like a Man, the title itself suggests that identity is very crucial in society.

Throughout the play, we see that Jairaj was told not to behave like a woman. The play

questions the stereotype role, as in the case of Jairaj, who wants to pursue his career as a

dancer. Amritlal challenges the aspect of identity throughout the play. He keeps telling Jairaj

how a man should behave. What is the role of man in society? Jairaj is a dancer, unaware of

the facts that traditional society sees a man from a different perspective. In the case of Ratna,

who is selfish, has destroyed her husband career. The personal ambition of Ratna leads to

harm her husband. Identity is who you are, how you see yourself. There are personal things,

and they play a role in your life. As in the case of Jairaj, he knew from the very beginning

that he wants to be a dancer, but eventually, the reality created by Ratna somewhat makes

Jairaj question himself which leads to distraction of one’s life.    

 Works Citied

Dattani, Mahesh. Dance Like a Man. Penguin Random House, 2006.

Padmanabhan, Manjula. Harvest. Postcolonial Play, edited by Helen Gilbert, Routledge,

2001.

Matsumoto, David. The Cambridge Dictionary of Psychology. Cambridge University Press,

2009.

Baldick, Chris. Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms, Oxford University Press, 1991.

Driver, Julia, "The History of Utilitarianism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy  (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),

https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/utilitarianism-history