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Girish Kamad, one of the most outstanding playwrights, deals with modem themes. In Naga-Mandala, there is an artistic blend of myths, rituals and folktales to depict the condition of woman in patriarchal social set-up. It is well known that sex is the creation of God and it is essential that there must be sexual differences for procreation. But gender is not something pre-established. It is a socio-cultural construct. The disparity between male and female becomes more critical in a traditional patriarchal society.
The word patriarchy literally means, "The rule of the father or the 'patriarch', and originally it was used to describe a specific type of 'male-dominated family'- the large household of the patriarch which included women, junior men, children,slaves and domestic servants all under the rule of this dominant male. Now it is used more generally to refer to male domination, to the power relationships by which men dominate women,and to characterize a system whereby women are kept subordinate in a number of ways." (Kamla 3) This power by male is institutionalized and men's superiority is asserted as natural which women too have accepted. All the social institutions, including family, are designed to reduce woman to the other of man and deprive her of her freedom to live her own authentic life. This results in the denial of reciprocal relationship and harmony between the two sexes. Kamad's play is an incisive critique of this unequal relationship bringing out the predicament of a woman in patriarchal social structure.
In patriarchy, a woman' life is defined through male constructed ideas, concepts and myths denying her even the right of her individual self, and through different ideological interpellations, her conscious and subconscious minds are conditioned so completely that she sees herself and the world around only in the way man would like her to see.
Rani, the protagonist of Naga-Mandala, is a typical Indian girl who believes in all the values invented by patriarchal social set-up. She fits in the image of an ideal daughter and ideal wife. She has been an ideal daughter to her parents. She marries Appanna as her parents wanted her to. In patriarchal social set-up, a girl is often granted no right to choose her partner. A girl's consent is not considered...