Mahesh Dattani's Seven Steps Around The Fire

As the note to the play states, Seven Steps Around the Fire was first broadcast as Seven Circles Around the Fire by BBC Radio on 4 and 9 January 1999. The play highlights Dattani, a master of language and characterization. As a dramatist he was not frightened to work inside a comparatively conventional dramatic structure to tell a story that was bold and dominant without even being histrionic. The stated play beautifully deals with the pathetic dilemma of the hijras, their ways of life, their passionate sense of individual identity in a heartless and unkind atmosphere where a minister had the young hijra burned to death. Mahesh Dattani, a Sahitya Academy Award winner playwright from India, in his play Seven Steps Around the Fire has highlighted

Kamla’s ‘body was found by some passer-by, after four days. The temple priest complained about the stench. It was thrown into the pond after being burned.’ (CP p.17) As the play progresses, the suspicion of murder shifts from Anarkali to Champa to Salim to Salim’s wife and then to Mr. Sharma. Dattani very smartly weaves the net of suspense to keep the audience on the boundaries of their seats. The drama is not only regarding the murder and study of a hijra, but also concerning their social positioning and the social setup where a hijra cannot long for his approach and emotions further than the patterns and limits recommended by the society. These individuals face risk or violence because of their situation in the society. The drama shows the social space of hostility faced by them and the spiteful social responses that they experience. Dattani himself

They are the ‘invisibles’ in the society, the lowest of the low on the steps of social hierarchy. They face a twice risk as they are the victims of natural world as well as of the society. The prejudice against them is even inferior to the class or caste or religious bias. They are not even recognized as the members of the society. There is an atmosphere of disgust and have an aversion to related to them. Their doubts and frustrations are underlined in the drama. They are human beings but voiceless, no sympathies, no love, no justice and most likely no expectation of adequacy in the society. Dattani’s plays do not end. They are just preambles of the advancing complexities that are yet to be faced. Mahesh Dattani’s plays show different attitudes that society has towards anybody who is different or who is at the lower end of the political balance. These subaltern sexualities face threat or aggression because of their position in the society that are often overlooked in registering their lawful claim through literature politically and socially without a voice to be heard. Dattani is narrating the oppose claims of the ‘subaltern sexualities’ in a society that promise more in the name of democracy and freedom. His plays portray the social space of violence faced by