Question- Write a note on Themes and Techniques in Manjula Padmanabhan's plays.

Answer - 

Manjula Padmanabhan plays deal with various themes such as woman violence, Alienation and Marginalization, Grim and Tragic Predicament and Denumanization of the city people, colonization and communal riots.

1. Woman violent - Since, long time woman has been treated inferior to man. Woman face violence in many ways in their daily lives, people on the roads who are total strangers to them, view them as a sexual objects members of the family, society assign to them a status lower than men. They are compelled to face not merely physical violence but it is more often mental and emotional, subtle and indirect, often insidious and hard to recognize.

The effects of violence on women's psyche are deeply complex hard to understand and even move difficult to overcome. The women playwrights like Manjula Padmanabhan focuses on all these various kinds of violence and abuse that women face. These plays make up a powerful volume focusing on one of the most important and problematic issues of our society. Manjula Padmanabhan's 'Lights out', the daily mystery of heart rending screams from a woman is obvious pain, destroys the fabric of domesticity of a middle class couple, divided in their response to her anguish. The play is based on an eye- witness account. The incident took place in Santa Cruz Bombay in 1982.

The play unveils the presence of crime in the society, where the acts of sexual violence occur frequently and no one comes to the aid of the victim. The title, lights out', itself is very suggestive. It depicts the darkness of fear and ignorance that requires contemporary concern. Padmanabhan intends to show their humans are basically social animals. If people really wish to find solutions to such problems, they can do it effectively, for that, they must pursue their personal interest and look for those with whom they live. It is a tendency of people that they share their emotions, feelings with other people, they help each other, but do not share interests and obligation with others whom they do not meet every day. This tendency results in a breakup in the society.

The notion of controlling the female body shaping, reforming and rerouting its work, movement and space, is a constant and persistent one, it is so deeply ingrained that certain forms of violence such as beating are considered a natural part of woman's life. Imposition of control over the female body through various forms including violence, is such an accepted notion that it becomes a part of everyday life. Padmanabhan makes reader the about the pathetic situation of women.

2. Alienation and Marginalization - One of the principal themes expressed in the modernist literature is alienation. Alienation is the state of feeling of being estranged or seperated form one's milieu, work products of work, or self. Despite in popularity in the analysis of contemporary life, the idea of alienation remains in ambiguous concept with elusive meanings, the following variants being most common: 1. Powerlessness, the feeling that one's identity is not under one's own control but is determined by external agents, fate, luck or institutional arrangements, 2. Meaninglessness, referring either to the lack of comprehensibility or consistent meaning in any domain of action or to a gencralized sense of purposelessness in life. 3. Normlessness the lack of commitment to the shared social conventions of behaviour. 4. Culturalestaungement, the sense of removal from established values in society. 5. social isolation, the sense of loneliness or exclusion in social relations, 6. Self estrangement, perhaps the most difficult to define and in a sense the master theme, the understanding that in one way or another the individual is out of touch with himself.

Marginalization is the outcome of a complex inter relation of social economic and cultural factors, the result of which rendered a large number of aboriginal youth more susceptible to legal process than their non-aboriginal counterparts Poverty is an economical description of marginalization which includes a number of factors which will be discussed seperately at a lator stage. The extreme marginalization of the aboriginal people is in terms of access to the fundamental socio-economic resources such as housing. Income, employment and education. Unemployment has been identified as the one of the major sources of marginalization among the aborignal yooth. Young aborignal people have seen long term unemployment is successive generations of their family and community.

Manjula Padmanabhan has treated the theme of alienation and marginalization her two plays 'Lights Out' and 'Harvest' Bhaskar, Leela, Mohan, Naina, Surinder and Frieda are characters in the play, which are shown on the stage. But the character around the whole play revolves and which is not shown on the stage is the 'victim'. No one knows her name, her caste and class. 'Lights Out's Presents a tragic spectacle of the daily rape of women, watched from distance by the middle class people. According to the spectade victims are prostitutes and not decent woman belonging to dignified society. They treat prostitute totally inferior in comparison with the decent or pious, sacred women.

Padmanabhan's intention to show the attitude of the people towards the women who are prostitutes. Bhaskar and Mohan don't know surely 'whether the victim is a whore or not, put to hide their passivity, their inability, they term the victim as 'whore' According to them, she may be a whore and the act is going on according to her will; such types of act don't have any effect on whores as they are regularly happening to them. They think that a whore is in habit of having such experiences. No one thinks that she is also a human being that she also has mind and self respect. But circumstances, poverty, unemployment impel her to do such acts. People like Bhaskar and Mohan think that their wives or women from upper and middle class have status, they have morality, they are pious, sacred and they possess Sita's virginity. And the lower class women are whores and they don't have virginity. It is partiality true that they can't remain pious as they don't have virginity. It is partiality true that they can't remain pious as they have sexual relations with many; but there are certain reasons behind it. When these women receive ill treatment from the people, they get alienated from the society, People like Mohan and Bhaskar pray to their women on the contrary they curse the whore. Though their business is not morally accepted, it is against the codi; they do not do that willingly. Bad circumstances lack of proper guidance, poor family background, unemployment, illiteracy make them to do it.

Indirectly, Padmanabhan gives the message, that if people try to understand the situation and if they help such women by giving them equal treatment and getting fair job, then no one will become victim. Moreover there is need to change the attitude of people in the metropolitancities. With the changing of time, their attitude is also changed.

The same theme is handled by Padmnabhan in her next play 'Harvest'. The play wright, through creating paradigms of subversive strategies, presents a multicity of perspectives such as the males and the females of the 21st century who lack will of their own. They are facing dangerous issues in their prison like existence like inhospitality, unemployment, the closure of factories, the moral decline and a weakened morale, the lack of privacy, the partiality of parents towards bread winners among their children, the pathetic condition of women, organ donation, human body donation, cloning, artificial insemination and the comprehensive spread of cyberspace. Though the playwright has painted from the realm of fantasy, the spectator gets from the teny outset of the play, a realistic picture of modern times.

Om, the employed frustrated young man is the representative of the modern man. Inability to find job makes him disappointed. Responsibility of family forces him to sign the contact of organ donating and he gets isolated from society. A first world organ receiver provides him all the facilities, but he gets distracted from the society. Thus sense of alienation makes him coward and a slave; Jeetu, Om's brother a male prostitute, is one more alienated character in the play. He also suffered from the grief of unemployed, improper family back ground, moral support from parents and proper guidance. He doesn't become a male prostitute by choice, but circumstances make him so.

Ma is responsible for Jeetu being a male prostitute. She is not presented as a very docile, passive, typical Indian mother. If any society, whether ancient or modern, motherhood is held in high esteem. Typical Indian woman sacrifices anything for her children. But this mother hates her sons. She does not bother at all when her younger son, Jeetu, is taken away for transplantation. Lack of guidance love and care makes Jeetu isolated. Throughout the play, he is shown detached from the family members. Grim and Tragic Predicament and Dehumanization of city people - Dehumanization is a psychological process, where by opponents view each other as less than human and thus not deserving moral consideration. It is a process of demonizing the enemy, making them seemless than human and hence not worthy of humane treatment. This can lead to increased violence, human rights violations, war crimes and genocide. It is the process of stripping way human qualities, such as denying others their individuality and self esteem.

The human predicament in the third millennium is very disquieting and unsetting, precisely because in this era civilization ruthlessly invades man's inner privacy. In order to eke out a living, he is even prepared to ignore his wife, when Om mindlessly signs off his name for organ transplantation, he does the same thing. In the classics like the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, The wives of the heroes stood with them through thick and thin without the slightest murmur of complaint. Padmanabhan has depicted such characters that have no relevance to the above mentioned characters. Lord Rama, Laxamana and Bharata mutually shared fails to inspire the brothers Om and Jeetu in 'Harvest'. Manjula Padmanabhan has broken the ideal concept of brotherhood and made brothers go for each other's throat. Jaya doesn't feel guilty to make love with her brother-in-law Jeetu, in front of her mother-in- law. She cares for Jeetu, offers herself to Jeetu, Jeetu cracks a vulgar Joke

with her when he does not find any privacy in her beehive like apartment, "If we can sit in public, we can just as well screw in public too especially since you're now officially my wife"!

The teenage boy Jeetu has clearly lost all his moral moorings when he says that he will service all - "Cows, pigs, horses for a price". Jaya, by offering herself to Jeetu proves that here is a false marriage "Uhh ! false false false life." Quarrel between mother-in-law- and daughter-in-law is nothing new to Indian people, there is some attachment between them; but Ma and Jaya are totally detached from each other. The sense of futility that pervades in Harvest is based on the chilling response of the character's sudden consciousness of their empty, meaningless life. Their life moves now here and in the beautiful phrase brorrowed from Anita Desai's 'Voices of the city', "enclosed in locked container". In the modern jargon, Jaya with increasing despair tells her brother-in-law, Jeetu, "IF's not really a life any more. We are just spare parts in someone else's Garage".

Padmanabhan has depicted the some theme in 'Light Out' too. The differences is thinks in Harvest, man in detached from the family members and in 'Lights Out' he is detached from society.

Colonization The term 'colonialism' may as used to refer to an ideology or set of beliefs used to legitimize or promote this system, Manjula Padmanabhan has depicted the theme of colonialism in her award winning play 'Harvest'. One thing that surprises the spectator the most is the way the youth in the play are ready to accept authority and are anxious to have it laid on the line. All the characters in the play behave as if they knew the direction. No one has objection or revolt against anything. They are too nice to rebel against nothing provokes them into hostility. Om know that his wife has illicit relationship with his brother, but he not at all provoked. He behaves like a dog at the doctor fawning on its master. He lies duw "like a corpse". Jeetu the 17 year old youth, "death's first cousin; with the enormous amount of freedom he gets in the new millennium, he thinks that he enjoys life, but in reality, it coasts a handful of years off his life. Even his mother does not pay attention to him, because her eyes are stuck to the TV screen, not just a couple of Doordarshan channels, but 750 video channels from all over the world.

At first, Jeetu is not ready to accept the dominance of the first world people, later, he is ready to offer any organ of his body to a beautiful phaton seen in a contact module. He does not know whether that person is young or old, whether it is male or female. Jaya makes him see reason. She says, "Jaya : But she wasn't real! But Jeetu retorts," she exists, that's enough for me, she is goddess and she exists, I would do anything for her anything!"

Passivly, he follows the gray guards for transplantation. Like him, even Om comfortably compromise whatever matters, whatever happen to be its fate. The play focuses on people's craze for sophisticated lifestyle and electronic gadget. Om and his family members want to change their pathetic existence from "living day in day out, like monkey's in hot case, "lulled to sleep by their neighbour's rhythmic fasting! Dancing to the tune of the melodious traffic! And starving."

When Om signed the contract, there was no toilet in his flat. There was only one toilet in whole building. To Ginni, the first world Receiver. "It's wrong! It's disgusting! It's unsanitary! Ginni proved everything for the family like jewellary, perfume, flowers and even chocolates to humour Om's people. It is like magic Om's single room apartment is transformed into a sleek residence, with steel and glass, mini gym. TV set, computer terminal, an air conditioner, also a low japanese style dining table. Cosmetics change the look of women.

Ginni, the foreign receiver from America is never shown on the stage. In the beginning the spectator as well as Do not and his family see the face of a young lovely girl. Even the stoical Ma falls in her love and describes her as "an angel" Ma is at a fix to understand when the foreigner loves her son so much only a little later she understands that her beloved son has sold the rights to his organs; "His eyes! His arse!" Om falls in love with her voice and the phantom of her profile and tells her. "Madam! It's our pleasure! Oui duty, I mean! Anything we can do to help......"

Padmanabhan shows the irony of situation that the Indian are not able to decolonize themselves even after some fifty years of the colorizers' exit from India.

All the characters in the play suggest that it is not colonizers that ruled over India, but is Indians that made them rule. Om's unconditional surrender → to the white rich American shows the unmistakable slavish attitude or the 'dependence complex' of the Indians. Ginni knows the weakness of the donors. She is clever enough to entrap the Indians by including them with luxurious thing. But the sympathy she expresses for Om's family members is just skin deep. Ginni increases their disillusionment and they themselves are responsible for their pathetic condition.

3. Communal Riots - Communal violence is carefully planned and executed with political or state support or at least with subtle state connivance. Such violence results in great losses of lives as well as properties. It goes on for a long period of time and is deliberately not controlled unless the stated goal is achieved.

Manjula Padamanabhan's hard hitting monologues under the title of 'Hidden Fires' the result of the Bombay riots and the Gujrat riots. These five monologues reflect the theme of communal riots directly or indirectly. Every monologues has its own message to pass to the Indian people. 'Hidden Fires' presents a sorrowful story of man, who became a victim of riots without any of his fault. The man was living happily with his family, he was a lion in his kingdom. But some people, whom he calls 'red hot coals from ancient fier', Come in his life everyone will do anything to defend it, in the same way when the country is in danger, everyone will protect it. When such type of violence occurs, no one waits for help on calls the police when they see a fire, they stamped it out. The word 'Fire' is used symbolically for a person who disturbs the peace and harmony of the country. The comment, 'if, I don't see immediately from your expression, the clothes your wear, on the style of jewellery around your neck or the color of your bangles on the cut of your blouse that you are one of us, the chances are I will assume that you are one of them. That's how. I used to think (5) shows that people do not change their tendency, till they make discrimination between Hindu and Muslims. Every group wants to dominant the other. By taking into consideration such issues. Padmanabhan wants to focus on the trivial things like caste, religion for which people kill one another India, is a country where people from all castes, Classes, and religions live together. The play Wright's intention is to take people away from such violent issues. She wants to awaken people in her next monologue, 'Know the truth', she has pointed out how T.V. channels add fuel to fire by showing live incidents. They show how politicians make efforts to maintain happiness, contentment and peace throughout the nation, but in reality they do nothing.

Finally, in invocation, the names of ordinary people are used to create a memorial for those killed by violence through no fault of their own innocent victims whose names sometimes have been the sole cause of their death. Monologues makes us aware of the importance of name in man's life people who become victims of riots are not admired kike soldiers who die in war, these victims of violence pass out of our memory as if their deaths were of no account.

The Playwright suggests that instead of invoking Gods by reciting their names, we should invoke those people who are innocent victims.

Manjula Padmanabhan's technique in 'Harvest': Manjula Padmanabhan's Harvest presents a distopion vision, where in the inherent imperialist tendencies of science have created a polarized world, divided unequally between the first world receivers and third world donors. This economic gulf is not gendered in any obvious way; the third world men and women are equally subject to the first world control and exploitation. The ways in which gender determines the relationship between women and science is made evident through the operation of the politics of desire the play opens with an Author's note that clearly establishes its science fiction credentials.

"The year is 2010. There is significant technical advances, but the cloths and habits of ordinary people in the 'donor' world are no different to those of third world citizens today. Except for the obviously exotic gadgets described in action, household objects look reasonably familiar".

By linking together the temporal future (the year 2010) with significant technical actvanees, Padmanabhan appears not only to achieve the requisite cognitive estrangement of science fiction, but also to accept the ideological implications of a progressive science that underlie this literary stratagem. Both of these, however, are immediately problematized by the statement : "The cloths and habits of ordinary people in the 'donor' world are no different to those at the Third world citizens today."

The progressive notion of science applies only to the 'receiver' or the first world. Third world citizen are totally distanced from that. The entire play does undoubtedly represent a "what if" scenario, the emotional charge of this possibility is very clearly differentiated for the first and third worlds. What is the role of science in the "Third world"? A quick overview of the play's plot premise of the play will make this clear. Om, a Third world inhabitant, is 'employed' by a multinational firm called inter planta services as an organ donor for a first world inhabitant. Om's entire family, his Ma, his wife Jaya and his brother Jeetu is kept under strict electronic survellance by the receiver. In a way third world becomes the supplier of laboratory specimens the raw material, required for scientific experiments to be conducted in the first world. As the first world people will have this Donor material it needs to be well preserved; so certain amount of technology has to be transferred to the third world.

Thus is representated in the play by the household products supplied by the inter Planta services to Om's family. The installation of these new products requires a complete removal of all third world equipments from Om's flat. Modern technology had destroyed all existing modes of knowledge used in the third world. For third world audience, the technological invocations remain "exotic gadgess" that are not different from the magical devices. By this seperating science from technology, Padmanabhan undermines the simple science-fictional connection between the technological innovation and progress. The first world experiences a seamless connection between science, technology and developments the third world has a disjointed experience, where technology is linked neither to the increased scientific knowledge nor to the development as measured by the security of life and liberty. The first world receiver in Padmanabhan's play is an old man, Virgil, who requires both a young male body and a fertile young woman who can carry his child. But he appears to Om and his family first as Ginni, a beautiful white skinned woman "exuding a youthful innocence and radiant purity" and later in the body of Jeetu, a young attractive man ready to fulfill Jaya's sexual and material desires. Together, Virgil and Ginni/Jeetu embody the Janus faced science that creates "laboratory state", where science acts as the modern man's 'gaze'.

As a representation of this" laboratory state", 'Harvest' goes a step further and reveals the ways in which science engenders the third world through its gaze. In the play, this gaze is embodied in the contact module that not only allows the first world receiver to monitor every aspect of the Donors lives but also allow the Donor's to see and interact with the receiver. The gaze thus controls the native not only through the power generated from knowledge but also through the power of desire. On the one hand the contact module transforms Om's flat, and by extention, his entire life as well as that of his family into "human gold fish bowls', where Virgil Ginni can observe every activity, every sneeze and every belch of the donors and convert this to plethora of data into a controlling manipulative system of knowledge. The contact module allows Virgil to appear first as the desirable Ginni to Om and Jeetu and later as the desired Jeetu to Jaya. Ginni, "the computer generated wet dream", fascinated both Om and Jeetu.

The outstanding feature of Padmanabhan's play is her use of the 'contact module', It is mediator between first world and third world. The first world people always try to win over third world by using, such devices. Though there are some characters that are conquered by them, Jaya resists to surrender. She refuses to be a slave of the receivers. She has self pride and she tries to maintain that if it is a battle between the first world and third world, directly or indirectly third world won, as Jaya resists bowing down. before Virgil.

So Padmanabhan, the playwright with multiple ideas and innovative technique has always managed to take her audience situp and listen with such involvement that they even begin to forget that they are, infact, watching a play. Along with her experimentation with language and structure of the play, she handles the techniques of the use of contact module a scientific device, to connect the first world people with third world people, the futuristic setting and monologues very skillfully.

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