International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies

Volume 4, Issue 3, March 2017, PP 7 -12

ISSN 2394-6288 (Print) & ISSN 2394-6296 (Online)
http://dx.doi.org/10.22259/ijrhss.0403002

Representing the Themes of Marginalization and Homosexuality

in Mahesh Dattani’s on a Muggy Night in Mumbai
Dr.G.Menaka
Associate Professor, Department of English, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore
G.Sankar
Assistant Professor, Department of English, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore

ABSTRACT
India is a multilingual and multicultural country which including marginalization and homosexuals are major
problems that threaten the fabric of our society. Factors like caste, religion, community and gender give rise to
social exclusion of marginalized people. The Indian society witnessed this marginalization or social exclusion
right from time immemorial when it was divided on the basis of caste. But now the discrimination against
people in our society on the basis of gender and sexuality is quite visible to the public through the writings of
writers like Mahesh Dattani. His drama “On a Muggy Night in Mumbai,” explored the problems of
marginalization and homosexual faced by the Indian community among the people. He deals with a variety of
homosexual sensibilities, including men and women, showing how they react to societal pressures in the present
scenario; even he portrayed the theme of marginalistaion through his characters like Kamlesh and Sharad.
Keywords: Marginalization, homosexuality, discrimination, sensibilities, materialistic

INTRODUCTION
Mahesh Dattani‘s On a muggy night in Mumbai is the first Indian play boldly dealing with the subject
of homosexuality. It deals with the gay themes of love, homosexual vulgarity among the youths in a
materialistic world, partnership, trust and betrayal. But traditionalists consider such a relationship as
something unnatural, obnoxious and disgusting one. Mahesh Dattani in one of his interview says,
"You can talk about Feminism because in a way that is accepted. But you can't talk about gay issues
because that's not Indian, that doesn't happen here."(50) Therefore Mahesh Dattani boldly poor-
trays homosexuality in his plays like ‘On a muggy night in Mumbai', 'Do the needful', and 'Bravely
fought the queen'.
In the play 'On a muggy night in Mumbai', Kamlesh and Prakash were ardent lover. But Prakash was
suddenly changed into Ed by feeling ashamed of being homosexual. Then he fell in love with Kiran,
who unfortunately happens to be Kamlesh's sister. In due course of time Kamlesh's sexual needs are
being fulfilled by Sharad, still he loves Prakash. Incidentally Prakash once again came in the life of
Kamlesh as a lover of his sister, Kiran. When she came to know this relationship, she showed all
compassion for the gay people and homosexual relations. At one stage Kiran innocently remarks: "I
really wish they would allow gay people to marry".(58)
This is again a burning issue of today which dealt in an adept way by Mahesh Dattani. Every second
person may be a homosexual but fear of ostracism restrains him from exposing himself. Through this
play, Mahesh Dattani has tried to soften the society towards the gay and subtly tried to stir up
compassion for these people.
Mahesh Dattani, the Sahitya Academy Award winner playwright gives the homosexuals of India a
voice to articulate, probably for the very first time in the Indian theatre in his plays like On a Muggy
Night in Mumbai, Do the Needful and Bravely Fought the Queen. He spotlights the crisis that gays
face as they are torn between their true self and what the traditional Indian society thinks and expects
of the gays. Their hidden fears and feelings are carefully portrayed in these plays. Dattani, within the
framework of dramatic structure tries to investigate the identity crisis of the gays who occupy no
honorable space in social order. There issue is invisible in the society about which none publically
talks or writes.
International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies V4 ● I3 ● March 2017 7
Dr.G.Menaka & G.Sankar “Representing the Themes of Marginalization and Homosexuality in Mahesh
Dattani’s on a Muggy Night in Mumbai”
On a Muggy Night in Mumbai is a play that depicts the social space of violence and humiliation faced
by them. First performed at the Tata Theatre, Mumbai on 23rd Nov., 1998 and then adapted to a
film Mango Soufflé, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai is probably the best and the most complex play
that discusses the socio-psychological identity crisis of the gays who are torn between the social
taboos and their personal desires, their conscience and social consciousness. It dramatizes the
conflicts, anguish, dilemmas, insecurities, fears and frustration of the gays in the society. John Mc.
Rae writes in a note on the play:
“It is not simply the first play in Indian theatre to handle openly gay themes of love, partnership, trust
and betrayal. It is a play about how society creates patterns of behavior and how easy it is for
individuals to fall victim to the expectations society creates.”(62)
Dattani has made use of multi-level stage to represent the different spaces of household representing
the mental spaces of the characters and the different realities they live in. The dark expensive area
represents the mental anguish and dilemma of the characters while the open space represents the
action in the context of external thoughts. All the action takes place in Kamlesh’s flat that is divided
into three spaces - the living room, the bed room and the non realistic expensive state. The flat is
situated at the Marine Drive which gives the idea of the luxurious life of Mumbai. There is a contrast
between the glorious view of the ‘Queen’s Necklace’ and the isolated flat of Kamlesh which shows
the contrast between the public and private life of the gays. The second is the bedroom of Kamlesh
which is hidden behind the wall which gives it an image of mystery and privacy. The third area is the
space where the characters immediately suspend into the “shoonya” and their innermost thoughts and
feelings come out.
THE SOCIO-POLITICAL PROBLEMS
Kamlesh, the protagonist of the play, has shared an unsuccessful relationship with Ed. The
relationship flounders due to societal pressures of heterosexuality which make Ed believe that he is
somehow wrong and should switch to the normal, heterosexual mode. Kamlesh is unable to come to
terms with the broken relationship. He comes in contact with Sharad who is a very lively, intelligent
and confident person. Both Kamlesh and Sharad live together for some time. But, unable to forget Ed
Kamlesh dumps Sharad. Meanwhile, Ed starts seeing Kamlesh’s sister Kiran on the advice of his
psychiatrist.
Their marriage is fixed and they plan to visit Kamlesh before the wedding. Kamlesh is, however, still
unable to get over his relationship with Ed. He seeks the opinion of his queer friends who advise him
to tell Kiran about his past affair with Ed. When the play opens, we see that Kamlesh has invited some
of his queer friends including Sharad to his place. There are Sharad and Deepali who are extremely
frank and very comfortable with their sexuality and loyal to their partners. There is Bunny Singh, a
TV actor, who clandestinely enjoys gay relationship while being happily married, and presents a
macho, heterosexual exterior.
There is Ranjit who thinks that India is not a good place for queer people; so he has gone abroad. All
these people have found solutions to the societal oppression and opposition in different ways. In other
words, they have employed different survival tactics: Sharad and Deepali by being very upfront and
honest about their identities, Bunny by hiding behind a veil of marriage and becoming invisible, and
Ranjit by escaping to foreign lands. Over all, the play foregrounds the subjectivity of queer people in
a country like India and shows a significant aspect of contemporary Indian subjectivity in terms of its
metropolitan gay society. Gay subjectivity is relatively unacknowledged but is very much a fact as
became evident in a recent media debate following a High Court Judgment and the subsequent
agitation demanding amendments in the Constitution to legalise gay relationships and marriages.
But Kamlesh’s problem is different. He is not ashamed of being a homosexual and is very honest
about it, but Ed is ashamed to own the relationship publicly. Ed sees a psychiatrist who encourages
him to adopt heterosexuality. Dattani uses this opportunity to criticise mainstream psychoanalysis for
being status-quoist. As Foucault suggests with reference to “the techniques of the self”,
psychoanalysis should also open up spaces for allowing a person to be what he/she chooses to be
(119).
However after consulting the psychiatrist, Ed starts seeing Kamlesh’s sister Kiran who does not know
about his relationship with Kamlesh. Kamlesh passively lets things happen as he thinks that Ed has
changed and will keep his sister happy. When Kamlesh’s friends come to know of the situation, they
8 International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies V4 ● I3 ● March 2017
Dr.G.Menaka & G.Sankar “Representing the Themes of Marginalization and Homosexuality in Mahesh
Dattani’s on a Muggy Night in Mumbai”
ask Kamlesh to reveal Ed’s secret to Kiran. But since Ed will not tell her and Kamlesh does not want
to tell her, they decide that she should learn the secret herself through a photograph of Kamlesh and
Ed taken together. While Kiran is shocked to learn that both Kamlesh and Ed have been deceiving
her, Ed reveals another secret to Kamlesh that his real motive behind marrying Kiran is to remain
close to Kamlesh and fulfill his homosexual desires clandestinely. This is how the matrimonial
institution of heterosexual society is used for purposes which are entirely at variance with that
institution. This leads to further complications causing psychic injuries to people, extracting a heavy
price from them.
The play ends with Kamlesh rediscovering love with Sharad and a humiliated Ed trying to commit
suicide. The social pressures are so overwhelming that he just cannot think of living normally. To him
living according to the norms of the heterosexual society is a prospect worse than suicide.
HETEROSEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS
Dattani cleverly juxtaposes two contrasting scenarios where there is the gathering of gays in a flat on
one hand, where all the action takes place and of a wedding going on offstage and sounds of
celebration are quite loud and clear. The wedding is the sanctification and endorsement of a
heterosexual relationship and “the whole world acknowledges two people who enter a union pact, so
they have to stick by that.”(72) The society approves of a heterosexual relationship but the
homosexual relations are looked down upon by the majority. The gays present in the party feel the
pressure of the social customs and traditions. They try to gain space and come to terms with their own
identity in contrast to the social norms. Kirin, the heroine of the play says, “I really wish they would
allow gay people to marry.” And she gets a reply from Ranjit, “They do. Only not to the same
sex.”(98)
We see a host of gays at the party in the flat and they represent varied faces of the homosexual
community. They all are complex characters who cannot be understood by their outward gender
preferences only. They have their own fears and fantasies, cares and concerns, conscience and
consciousness, emotions and passions as part of their personality traits like anybody else. They have
different expressions regarding their identity. They have gathered together at the invitation of
Kamlesh who is a ‘recluse’ in the heart of Bombay and is unable to forget his lover Ed/Parkash.
Kamlesh is not a closet homosexual who wants to hide his true self. He himself says, “How long shall
we continue to hide? We can’t hide forever!” (91) But his gay partner Ed has betrayed him and he
feels down and out because of that. He even tries to take the help of a psychiatrist out of the ‘Yellow
Pages’ who pretends to understand his case and tells him about the ‘aversion therapy’ to help him
fight the depression but “He said I would never be happy as a gay man.
It is impossible to change the society, he said, but it may be possible for you to reorient yourself.”
(69) But he was all the more obsessed with the memory of Ed which keeps ‘cropping up’ in his mind
‘like herpes’. He ended up “picking up strangers-bringing them over-hoping to connect” (70) and was
“screwing anything that has a bulge in the pants.” (63). He even indulged in sexual relations with the
guard and the secretary of the society.
It is the failure on the part of Kamlesh to ‘reorient’ but success or at least a pretention of success on
the part of Ed when he pretends to be ‘straight’ because the church and the psychiatrist have helped
him believe that his love for Kamlesh was “the work of the devil. Now the devil has left him.”( 85). It
is not the individuals alone who disapprove homosexuality but the high institutions of society like
church who do not approve and sanctify such relations because relations between same sex, since they
cannot be procreative are seen as unnatural and carnal.
Ed has left him because he wants to hide his gay identity and therefore he intends to marry Kiran who
is Kamlesh’s sister. He wants to remain in touch with Kamlesh through Kiran so that nobody suspects
his identity. He says, “Nobody would know. Nobody would care…I’ll take care of Kiran. And you
take care ofme.”( 105)
He sees no future in open gay relationship. He does not want himself to be branded publically as a
gay. He defends himself of his intentions of pretending ‘straight’ in the arguments in the party when
he says,
“Look around you. Look outside.There are real men and women out there. You have to see them to
know what I mean. But you don’t want to. You don’t want to look at the world outside this- this den
of yours. All of you want to live in your own little bubble.”( 99)
International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies V4 ● I3 ● March 2017 9
Dr.G.Menaka & G.Sankar “Representing the Themes of Marginalization and Homosexuality in Mahesh
Dattani’s on a Muggy Night in Mumbai”
Deepali is a ‘sensible’ lesbian among the group. She feels sympathetic and concerned of Kamlesh and
has an affinity towards him which is reflected in her conversation with Kamlesh, “If you were a
woman, we would be in love. If you were heterosexual, we would be married.”( 65) She is vocal of
her sexual inclinations in her arguments at the party and says, “It’s not shame, is it? With us? Of the
corners we will be pushed into where we don’t want to be” (89) and of the gay cause, “I am all for the
gay men’s cause. Men deserve only men!”( 60)
The guard who does odd jobs for the people at the party is also a homosexual who is seen putting up
his clothes in front of Kamlesh just at the beginning of the play. Ranjit who wants to hide his gay
identity in India has his gay partner in England.
IDENTITY DISCOVERY OR IDENTITY CRISIS
The whole play revolves around the identity crisis in Edwin Prakash Matthew alias Ed but it is just
not Ed who is facing this crisis. All the gays in the play are facing this crisis. We have another
example of the like of Ed as Bunny Singh who admits that what he is doing, he is just trying to
“Camouflage! Even animals do it. Blend with the surroundings. They can’t find you. You politically
correct gays deny yourself the basic animal instinct of camouflage.” (70). He is a Sardar who has cut
his hair to hide his outer religious identity and has married to hide his inner gay identity. But he is a
success in the TV program ‘Yeh Hai Hamara Parivaar’. The title of the program and its success
suggests that India has a traditional society and social setup. He is a wonderful ideal middle class
Indian towards whom everyone looks up to: the ‘ideal husband and father’.
Ed is also trying to ‘camouflage’ in the same manner as Bunny Singh is doing. He is under immense
psychological pressure and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. On one hand he is in conflict with
Kamlesh whom he leaves because he was ashamed of his relationship with him and he did not want to
be branded as a gay in the society and on the other hand he is in conflict with Kiran from whom he
hides his true identity but tries to use her to remain in touch with Kamlesh. Sharad is the antithesis of
Ed who is vocal of his gay identity. “Let the world know that you exist. Honey if you flaunt it, you’ve
got it”( 70).
He himself admits that “I am not bisexual. I am gay as a goose.”( 100) and teases Ed with his speech
on ‘Macho Man Syndrome’ that Ed tries to feign: You see, being a heterosexual man a real man as Ed
put it I get everything. I get to be accepted-accepted by whom?. Well that marriage lot down there for
instance. I can have a wife, I can have children who will all adore me simply because I am a hetero. I
beg your pardon a real man. Now why would I want to give it all up? So what if I have to change a
little? If I can be a real man I can be king. Look at all the kings around you, look at all the male power
they enjoy, thrusting themselves on to the world, all that penis power! Power with sex, power with
muscle, power with size. Firing rockets, exploding nuclear bombs, if you can do it five times I can do
it six times and all that stuff. (Thrusting his pelvis in an obscene macho fashion.) Power, man!
Power!” (101).
Ed tries to be the ‘king’ in the society by pretending being ‘straight’ but cannot hide his true self as he
has a past and that past haunts him. Sharad pinpoints the crisis in Ed’s mind through the gay anthem
that he sings in the beginning and the end of the play which is the English version of Charles
Aznavour’s ‘Come ills dissent’ ‘What Makes a Man a Man’:
So many times we have to pay
For having fun and being gay…. (55-56.)
I ask myself what I have got
And what I am and what I’m not…( 111).
“To be or not to be” identified as a gay “is the question” that Ed and other gays in the play face.
Overwhelmed by the circumstances and social pressures, Ed twice tries to commit suicide in the play.
His attempt to suicide shows that he is the weakest of all the homosexuals in the play because he is
suffering the most from this identity crisis. The other characters in the play have this crisis also but
they have some faith and belief in their identity also and they are articulate about it at least in their
‘bubble’. But Ed does not want his true identity to be revealed even to his close friends and to his
girlfriend also. He breaks in the end when his gay identity is revealed to the society and to his fiancé
through his photograph with Kamlesh where both are hugging each other naked. He is in a dilemma
as to what to do: “Where do I begin? How do I begin to live?”( 111).
10 International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies V4 ● I3 ● March 2017
Dr.G.Menaka & G.Sankar “Representing the Themes of Marginalization and Homosexuality in Mahesh
Dattani’s on a Muggy Night in Mumbai”
Kiran is the only heterosexual in the play. She is an attractive and beautiful girl in her thirties with
‘exquisite bone structure’ and having right color and fabric. The ‘scars’ of the troubled marriage have
not left her. She divorced her husband because she wanted “To escape from those fights at night…The
humiliation of expressing to friends and neighbors…that the black eye was from banging my head
against the door. Or the broken rib was from the fall…It was the cigarette burns on my arms I
couldn’t explain”( 77).
She feels the humiliation of being branded a ‘divorcee’ as she says: “Being divorced doesn’t help.
Everyone seems to know all the details. Or think they do. At that party, I felt their stares, as if they
were saying ‘That’s Kiran. The one whose husband dumped her.’ Kamlesh, take my advice. Don’t let
people know about you. You will spend your whole life defending yourself. If I had the choice, I
would stay invisible”(91). Kamlesh had introduced her to Ed whom she now loves dearly but
assumes that he is not a gay. She is planning to shift to Mumbai after marriage with Ed. She comes to
know about Ed’s identity at the party. She says, “If there are stereotypes around here, they are you and
me. Because we don’t know any better, do we? We just don’t know what else to be?” (107).
Dattani has beautifully used the symbol of a photograph to highlight the identity crisis in the play. It is
a photograph where Kamlesh and Ed are hugging each other ‘cheek to cheek, pelvis to pelvis, Naked’
It is the only photograph left with Kamlesh as he has returned all the other similar photographs to Ed
along with the negatives. He was hiding this one in particular in the bathroom, behind the mirror
which Sharad discovers and takes out to show it to other friends. Kamlesh finds it beautiful but Ed
calls it ugly and a piece of filth. Ed’s calling it ugly shows that he was not ready to leave any proof of
his gay identity with Kamlesh. He also tries to commit suicide when he comes to know that Kiran and
other people at the party and the wedding have seen the picture and his gay identity that he wanted to
hide was revealed to the people. Kiran who is ‘frozen’ to see the picture at first but then replaces the
picture of her and Ed in the frame with that picture symbolizing that she considers an open gay
relationship as a better choice than a hidden one. So the picture is the most powerful and vital symbol
depicting the identity crisis used by Dattani in the play.
The entire experience of crisis, predicament and dilemma that the homosexuals in the play regarding
their identity can be summed up in the speech of Bunny Singh in the third Act when he makes his
confession in front of his gay friends and especially to Kiran when he says:
“I have denied a lot of things…you all hate me for being such a hypocrite. The people who know me
are the people who hate me. That is not such a nice feeling. I have tried to survive. In both the worlds.
And it seems I do not exist in either. I am sorry, Kiran, I lied to you as I have lied to the rest of the
world. I said to you that I am a liberal-minded person. I am not them but I accept them. Actually, it is
they who are liberal-minded. They have accepted me in spite of my letting them down so badly. I
deny them in public, but I want their love in private. I have never told anyone in so many words what
I am telling you now I am a gay man. Everyone believes me to be the model middle-class Indian man.
I was chosen for the part in the serial because I fit into common perceptions of what a family man
ought to look like. I believed in it myself. I lied- to myself first. And I continue to lie to millions of
people every week on Thursday nights”( 102-).
It is just not the denial of the true identity by Bunny Singh but the speech encompasses the entire gay
community that is under tremendous pressure as how to hide their true identity and be a hypocrite so
that the people of the ‘acceptable world’ should not hate them. All of them trot ‘survive in both the
worlds’. But they end up with a sense of belongingness to none. John McRae puts it as:
“the fault is just not the characters’- it is everyone’s, in a society which not only condones but
encourages hypocrisy, which demands deceit and negation, rather than allowing self-expression,
responsibility and dignity”(155).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Contradiction
This experience of contradiction between the self and the society leads to the identity crisis which has
been beautifully dramatized in this play. The play is a vindication of rights of the gays who need at
least some social space to overcome their identity crisis. The play ends with ‘Fade out last on the
picture of Ed and Kamlesh, Kiran and Kamlesh holding each other’ implying the acceptance of gay
identity by at least one heterosexual and revelation to the rest of the society and the picture depicts
that the reality will always exist howsoever or whosoever tries to deny it.
International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies V4 ● I3 ● March 2017 11
Dr.G.Menaka & G.Sankar “Representing the Themes of Marginalization and Homosexuality in Mahesh
Dattani’s on a Muggy Night in Mumbai”
Sexual Desires and Experiences
Dattani makes use of very bold words in the dialogues of this play; words that a conservative Indian
society does not relish publically. One does not have to look for gay connotations between the lines.
Words and phrases like, bulge in the pants, coconut friend, buggery, dickhead, love bites, pelvis to
pelvis, nerds, faggot, pansy, gandu etc. have been used without any restriction. These words have
been taken from the gay vocabulary and used here to make the dialogues crisp and functional. Dattani
makes the characters speak loud and long of their sexual desires and experiences in the play. There are
quick exchanges between the characters and sometimes long monologues are used wherever and
whenever necessary. Dattani realizes the needs of the theatre and he fulfills those needs in his own
bold style. It is attributed:
Dattani is intrinsically a theatre person, rather than a writer, is evident in the way he is able to
structure the stage mechanism effectively and how at times allows the text to speak for themselves
and to look at their own workings and methodology. He employs a language that is often pungent,
clear and sharp, pushing the spoken word to its limits and interfering them with pregnant silence and
that only someone with an intimate inwardness with theatre can.
CONCLUSION
To conclude, we can say that Mahesh Dattani’s On a Muggy Night in Mumbai, is a play that raises
eyebrows but also raises many questions regarding gay identity and acceptability that middle class
society would prefer to sweep under the carpet and maintain silence on the topic. He delves deep into
the minds of the individuals and unveils the layers of complexities in human relationships and their
social positioning thereby deconstructing the taboo subject of homosexuality in such a way that the
invisible clutches of the society on the psyche of an individual are revealed. Mahesh Dattani never
tries to sound didactic but the audience is made to think whether society should expect gays to change
what they can't? They just expect society to accept and respect them for who they are and will always
be.
REFERENCES
[1] Chaudhuri, Asha Kuthari. Contemporary Writers in English : Mahesh Dattani. New Delhi:
Foundation Books Pvt. Ltd., 2005. Print.
[2] Dattani, Mahesh. Collected Plays I. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2005. Print.
[3] Das, Bijay Kumar. Form and Meaning in Mahesh Dattani’s Plays. New Delhi: Atlantic
Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd., 2008. Print.
[4] Delany, Samuel R. Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. New York: New York UP, 1999.
Print.
[5] McRae, John. “A Note on the Play”, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai in Collected Plays Mahesh
Dattani. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2000. Print.
[6] Mercy Leethiyal,S. “Marginalization of Gays: A Study of Dattani’s On a Muggy Night in
Mumbai,” Language in India, Vol. 13,Issue 8 August 2013.Print.
[7] http://www.gaytoday.com http://www.queerculturalcenter.org

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