GENDER ISSUES IN MAHESH DATTANI’S ‘SEVEN STEPS AROUND THE FIRE’

Abstract

Mahesh Dattani is an authentic and realistic voice in the arena of contemporary Indian plays written in English. His play Seven Steps Around the Fire was first broadcast by BBC Radio on 9th January 1999 as Seven Circles Around the Fire. It was premiered on stage by MTC Production and The Madras Players on 6th August 1999. The play is a living reflection of Dattani’s abiding interest in the lives and experiences of a sexually marginalized section of the Indian society -- the eunuchs. The main plot of the play revolves around the central character of Uma Rao, a Ph.D. scholar in Sociology, daughter of a Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University and the wife of a Superintendent of Police. Uma, using rather unconventional means, uncovers the hushed up truth behind a murder in the city’s hijra community. The murder victim, Kamla, a beautiful eunuch had been secretly married to Subbu, the son of a wealthy government minister who, in order to avoid scandal, had the young hijra burned to death, and quickly arranged for his son to marry an ‘acceptable’ girl, befitting his social status. The corrupt police department in order to protect the minister from scandal, arrests Anarkali, an innocent eunuch, on the charge of Kamla’s murder. However, Anarkali’ s imprisonment lays bare a wide range of possibilities that offer scope to the readers of the play to inspect the manner in which hijras are treated in mainstream society.