The Final Solution

The Final Solution

Final Solutions has taken the issues of the majority communities in different contexts and situations. It talks of the problems of cultural hegemony, how Hindus had to suffer at the hands of Muslim majority like the characters of Hardika/Daksha in Hussainabad. And how Muslims like Javed suffer in the set up of the majority Hindu community. This all resulted in communal riots and culminated in disruption of the normal social life, and thus hampered the progress of the nation. The mob in the play is symbolic of our own hatred and paranoia. Each member of the mob is an individual, yet they meet into one seething whole as the politicians play on their fears.  

Mahesh Dattani : 

Mahesh Dattani (born 7 August 1958) is an Indian director, actor, playwright and writer. He wrote such plays as Final Solutions, Dance Like a Man, Bravely Fought the Queen, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai, Tara, Thirty Days in September and The Big Fat City.

Summary of The Play

Act : 1

The play Final Solutions opens with Daksha (or Hardika), a newly married girl, writing her diary (on March 31, 1948). In the diary, she writes about her experience in her new house. She does not have good opinions regarding her in-laws. Though India had gained independence, yet she is imprisoned within the four walls of the house.

She has a good taste for the songs of Shamshad Begum, Noor Jahan etc. She even wanted to become a singer like them but due to the family restrictions, her desires remain unfulfilled.She got a chance to visit a Muslim girl Zarine, who also had a great taste for the songs of Noor Jahan and Shamshad Begum. In the course of time, they became best friends.

The scene now shifts to the present (in a town of Gujarat) and she is an old woman now. An idol of Hindu God is broken down. There are rumours that it is broken down purposely by Muslims and thus due to the tension between Hindus and Muslims, Slogans by mobs of both the communities are heard alternatively.

Smita (granddaughter of Hardika) is talking on the phone to the family of her friend Tasneem as Tasneem has just called and told her (Smita) and probably her own family as well that some bomb has blasted in her hostel. Smita’s father Ramanik (son of Hardika) takes the phone from her daughter and assures the safety of Tasneem to her family and ends the call.

As there is quite a tension outside, Hardika advises her daughter-in-law, Aruna (Smita’s mother) to properly check doors and windows as the dogs have been let loose. Meanwhile, Javed and Bobby, two Muslim boys are in some argument on the side of the road in a nearby area. Suddenly some Hindu men come and start asking them questions and also search them.

Finding a skull-cap in the pocket of Bobby, they at once recognise them as Muslims. As they try to kill them, Javed and Bobby run away and the mob chases them. They reach the door of Ramanik’s house and start knocking at it. Ramanik, at last, opens the door. They rush in and lock the door. They plead Ramanik to save their life.Mob arrives at the door of Ramanik. They warn Ramanik to either handover Javed and Bobby to them or they will break the door and come in. However, Ramanik refuses to do so.

The mob starts throwing stones and sticks on the house and also abuses Ramanik. Aruna does not like Muslims in her house and forces her husband to throw them out of it. Ramanik bitterly refuses. Ramanik starts talking to Bobby and Javed. Bobby is polite while Javed is quite harsh in the conversation. Ramanik asks them about their studies and upon learning that Javed is a school drop-out start talking bad about him. Smita comes and recognises both of them.

Act: 2 

Aruna asks Smita how she knows both of them. Smita tells that Javed is the brother of Tasneem and Bobby is her fiancée. When Ramanik and Aruna start insulting Smita for knowing them Smita defends herself boldly by saying, there’s no harm in that. It is also revealed that Javed does not live with his parents. Ramanik then asks how he can meet his sister. Javed says that unlike them (the Hindus) he loves the people of his community. Aruna gets outraged and Javed apologises. Mob throws stones at the house of Ramanik. Javed scolds Ramanik saying, “Those are your people.” Ramanik tries to defend himself. He also tells how his grandfather was killed by Muslim mob soon after the partition.

Ramanik offers them milk. Javed being in thoughts exclaims, “It must feel good being the majority, they have full liberty to do whatever they like with them (Javed and Bobby). Ramanik, still sympathetic, explains how the conflict started. There were rumours that during the Rath Yatra of Hindus, some Muslims threw stones on the chariots that made the idols of God to fall and break into pieces and even Pujari was stabbed to death.

The event led to the imposition of curfew in their town. Smita comes with pillows for Bobby and Javed. When she asks them to sleep on the floor (as they have no extra space for them) Javed answers, “I’m used to it.” At this Smita starts asking him his real motive behind his coming to Amargaon. Bobby says that he came in search of a job.

Ramanik offers him a job at his cloth-shop but Smita warns her father from doing so. When Ramanik inquires about the matter, she reveals that Javed was hired by a terrorist organisation and was thus expelled from his house. She also tells that she came to know about this from Tasneem. Javed condemns her for betraying her friend (as she promised Tasneem that she will not expose the reality of Javed). Smita acknowledges her mistake and, being speechless, runs away. 

Act: 3

Ramanik starts asking Javed about his involvement in terrorism in a teasing manner. Javed becomes furious and yells hot words. Ramanik angrily slaps Javed and Bobby rushes to calm them down. Bobby then tells when they were young, Javed happened to touch a letter of his Hindu neighbour who abused the former badly. Javed got angry and after some days threw pieces of beef meat in his house. That person came to Javed’s house and abused him harshly.

Telling the story, Bobby adds that Ramanik’s community is partially responsible for making him so because prior to that incident, Javed was the hero of his locality. Bobby and Javed decide to leave. Ramanik, desiring to make Javed accept his job at any cost, threatens them by saying that he will call the police. Javed first burst into the laugh and then tells that he was ordered to kill the Pujari in the name of Jihad. He reached the chariot and tried to stab Pujari but the latter begged for mercy and thus he became still. 

Both of them then go away. A little later Ramanik tells Hardika how he, his father and his grandfather burnt the shop of Zarine’s father to buy it at a reduced price (in the name of communal hatred) and now he repents over his past deeds. He desires not to visit his shop again. Thus the play Final Solutions ends without any solutions to these communal issues that have remained in the society since ages. 

1.)What is the significance of the subtitle "The Final Solutions"?

The play moves from the partition to the present day communal riots. It probes into the religious bias2 by examining the attitudes of three generations of a middle-class Gujarati business family, Hardika, the grandmother, is obsessed with her father's murder during the partition turmoil and the betrayal by a Muslim friend, Zarine. Her son, Ramnik Gandhi, is haunted by the knowledge his fortunes were founded on a shop of Zarine's father, which was burnt down by his kinsmen.

Hardika's daughter-in-law, Aruna, lives by the strict code of the Hindu Samskar and the granddaughter, Smita, cannot allow herself a relationship with a Muslim boy. The pulls and counter-pulls of the family are exposed when two Muslim boys, Babban and Javed, seek shelter in their house on being chased by a baying Hindu mob.

Babban is a moderate while Javed is an aggressive youth. After a nightlong exchange of judgements and retorts between the characters, tolerance and forgetfulness emerge as the only possible solution of the crisis. Thus, the play becomes a timely reminder of the conflicts raging not only in India but in other parts of the world.

Mahesh Dattani's 'Final Solutions' is that rare look at a socio-political problem that defies all final solutions… There is not any particular solution to the problems going on in society but whatever is happening it's only solution.'Final Solutions' touches us, and the bitter realities of our lives so closely.

So, throughout the play, we find examples of problems and the playwright has not given any solution. Instead, he has let the audience decide. Hence, the final solutions are, in reality, no solutions to these communal problems. We people need to know what makes us hate others. 

2.)Do you think Mahesh Dattani’s “The Final Solutions” makes any significant changes in society?

Basically the play, 'Final Solutions' was written in 1992 during the time when there were many social and religious riots going on and the purpose behind this or any play is to give some kind of message to the society and the people of the society. This particular play talked about religious riots and the mentality of two groups towards each other.

 The final Solutions opens with the image of five masked individuals dressed in black. Dattani has named them Mob - Chorus. Each member has two masks one is of Hindu and other of Muslim. They remain on the

top of a large crescent shaped ramp for most of the time in the play. Below the ramp is the home of Gandhi's, a middle class family. The Gandhi family comprises the elderly survivor of the partition of India and Pakistan, Hardika, who was earlier known as Daksha, her son Ramnik, her daughter in law, Aruna and her grand-daughter Smita. On another level of the stage is Daksha's room in 1948. Thus the play

is into three spaces one, the mob, two, the Gandhi family and three, the memory of Daksha. At various points of time these three separate worlds interact and overlap with each other.

The action of the play is set in motion by the recent destruction of the chariot and images of Hindu dieties of a Rath Yatra while travelling through a Muslim neighbourhood of the city. Riots had broken out in Amargaon and curfew had been imposed in the city. The local Hindu and Muslim communitites, represnted

by the Mob/Chorus are blowing each other for the riots. The communal violence between these groups brings back Hardika's memories of partition and her life, life as a new bride on 31 March, 1948. Her memories are expressed

through the character of Daksha who is habituated to write a diary and in present time she was reading this all and memorized everything. The Gandhi family is safe within their home and although Smita is worried about the safety of her Muslim friend, Tasneem.

The family is having a peaceful evening but it is disrupted when Bobby and Javed two young Muslim men arrive at their doorstep begging to take them inside. The Mob/Chorus with Hindu masks are after Bobby and Javed and are threatening to kill them. Despite the objection of his mother Ramnik opens the door of his

house to protect the two. An interaction occurs between the Gandhis and Bobby and Javed throughout the course of the night.

 The mob is constantly speaking, 

। ना हम मूर्ति तोड़ते हैं, ना हम मूर्ति पूजते है।

This is the inner voice of Smita. 

The play is about how Gandhi family judge to the Muslim basis of their past experience with another Muslim people. Smita, quite a young girl who believes that everyone has the right to live a life. Ramnik who is able to accept people and their reality at the end when he came to know that whatever he had done was wrong and now he gave the shop to Javed.  

3)How are the beginning and the end of the movie? Do you feel the effect of communal disturbance in the movie?

 

Play is in flashback and present mode. Movie opens with the character Daksha- she was writing a diary about the day 31 March 1948. She was just confused about what to write and how to start , and then suddenly a present came up in which a crew of people were talking about the current situation of religious riots. At that time we got an Idea about what was happening. Daksha and her granddaughter both had friend of Muslim community but their mentally was quite different about them. That's how the movie open.

At the end of the play Smita became friend of Javed and Bobby and they develop mutual understanding but the mother of Smita and Daksha don't. Ramnik also wanted to give Chance to them but Daksha and Aruna refused. Aruna is more religious and traditional and Daksha has bad experiences with Muslims but at the end we came to know about her experience which was only one sided because reality is something else. 

At the end Daksha came to know that the shop which Ramnik runs is actually not of Ramnik but it's of Javed and their family. Ramnik realized that whatever he did during that time with Javed and their family was not good and now he was ready to handover the shop to them. But play ends with no conclusion and solutions but we can interpret it like wherever is going on that's the final solution nobody can change it. 

4.)The movie comes up with many different symbols and colors. Write about any two symbols which caught your attention. What does it signify?

Movie open with the image of Hardika - she is reading dairy which symbolises the memory and experience of past and present. The room of the Hardika where she put the frame of her favourite singer which shows her interest in music and love for it. 

The movie talked about religious riots and crisis but they didn't use the particular name of the religion instead they used colour to signify the religion. They show orange colour for Hindu religion, use of white colour for peace, and green colour for muslim religion. 

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