FRACTURED SELVES AND GENDERED SILENCES: A CRITICAL STUDY OF MAHESH DATTANI’S TARA

Abstract

Mahesh Dattani’s Tara is a landmark play in Indian English theatre that interrogates the insidious ways in which gender bias operates within the boundaries of the domestic sphere. The narrative, centered around the surgical separation of conjoined twins—Tara and Chandan—serves as a metaphor for the deliberate division between male privilege and female marginalization. By exploring the psychological, emotional, and moral aftermath of a decision driven by gender preference, the play sheds light on the human cost of patriarchal structures. This chapter examines Tara through the intersecting lenses of gender studies, psychoanalysis, and trauma theory. It argues that Dattani not only dramatizes a deeply personal loss but also stages a broader cultural critique of how silence, complicity, and selective memory sustain systems of oppression. The play’s theatrical language—marked by split timelines, self-reflexivity, and minimalist staging—serves to externalize inner fragmentation and social injustice, making Tara an enduring text in the discourse of gendered subjectivity and performative identity.