Mahesh Dattani play ' Where There is a Will'

             "WHERE THERE’S A WILL"

-        Mahesh Dattani

     

                    The play ‘ Where There’s A Will’ by Mahesh Dattani. In 1986, he wrote his full length play ‘where there’s  a will’.

                In play ‘where there is a will’ we can see there are many characters. Characters like   Hasmukh   Mehta  , his wife Sonal  Mehta, his son Ajit and his daughter-in-law priti , Kiran Jaweri (mistress of Hasmukh Mehta). It is a Gujrati play. The story started the death of Hasmukh   Mehta and he appears as a ghost. The family member  the all are busy with own life. In the play ‘where there is a will’ mainly concentrate in the social issue.

                As the play opens Ajit is on the phone talking to a friend about his frustration as his father does not give him Rs.5 Lakhs to modernize the factory. Here, we can see the relation between father and son. Always Hasmukh Mehta keeps commenting on Ajit’s irresponsible and crackpot schemes. And also we can find the confrontation between Hasmukh and his son Ajit. The more he claims his right to prove his worth , Ajit is  taunted by his father as a good for nothing saying,

“I am not trying to humiliate you. I m trying to put some sense into you. Trying to fill up empty space”

            We can say that Ajit exposes his father’s selfish motives due to depravity in childhood.

“Anything I do is wrong for you! Just because you are a self-made man and had a deprived childhood…. Nothing I do will ever seem intelligent to you . you are prejudiced”

            Here, we can find that Hasmukh keeps nagging ajit calling him a big zero and affirms that he would ever remain so. The argument and counter argument between the due end up with the father sleeping and ajit for disrespecting him.

         However, in the play ‘ where there is a will’ Mahesh Dattani also focus on the female character who are always busy for work and preparing for dinner. Sonal and priti are always busy with the making dinner. Sonal also makes orange flavored halva for ajit which irritates her husband who is a diabetic. From the interaction of the characters it is evident that they have no deep familial relationship.

         In the play ‘ where there is a will’ Dattani also focus the comically scene. Sonal and priti talking with each other  at that time sonal ironically comment on the meaning of ‘Hasmukh’  which means ‘a smiling face’. But here we can see her husband never smiled, blaming her and her son for all his problems.

          In the second part of the play, the scene shifts to husmukh’s death. Here Dattani applying magic realism, Dattani has very deftly brought in the scene to establish the protagonist’s patriarchal hegemony even after death.

“I am dead. I can see my own body lying still on the bed . looking peaceful , but dead”

           At the ends with the arrival of Kiran, husmukh’s mistress, who has come to stay in the house being named the executrix of the will. Because they all are fighting  with will. Kiran establishes her indispensability as she has come to assist them  as per hasmukh’s will.  By trying to establish supreme control over his family through his money and will, husmukh was only perpetrating the filthy tradition inherited from his father. Somewhere the hegemony had to stop. Ajit revolts against patriarchy and establishes his final victory.

           At the end , they all are join hands being victims of the same male domination and ruthless patriarchy. Dattani has successfully explored like Ibsen some of the problem faced by patriarchal societies that need purging of the ghosts of the past.

          May conclude my point Dattani through light on  the gujrati family and in our today life we can see the   currant problem in the 21^st century.  Though written in the backdrop of a gujrati family, ‘where there is a will’ is applicable to join-family system prevalent in several part of India. Also we can say at the end of the play Kiran’s assessment of extreme patriarchal control in husmukh as a substitute for his inadequacy as a man, finally resolves the conflict among the characters and bring them together to derive benefit from the Husmukh Will.