Where There's a Will by Mahesh Dattani
Where There’s a Will Short Essay
Introduction:
Mahesh Dattani is a famous Indian playwright, director, and actor. His first play Where There’s a Will (1988) is a black comedy about control, family issues, and change in a modern household.
Hasmukh and His Family:
Hasmukh Mehta is a rich businessman who owns the Mehta Group of Companies. He controls his wife Sonal and son Ajit strictly. Though he is married to Sonal, he is unhappy and secretly loves Kiran, a smart marketing executive. Ajit is not happy because his father controls everything, and he wants to be free.
The Will and Kiran’s Power:
After Hasmukh dies, his soul stays behind to watch his family. The family is shocked by his Will. He leaves everything to Hasmukh Mehta Charitable Trust, making Kiran the sole trustee and director. Kiran must run the company and train Ajit till he turns 45. Only then Ajit will get full rights over the company and the trust will dissolve.
Revelation and Change:
Kiran finds out Preeti had secretly replaced Hasmukh’s medicine to kill him. Kiran forgives her. Slowly, all family members begin to change and grow. Hasmukh’s ghost sees everything and ends up in Preeti’s womb.
Conclusion:
The play shows family problems, control, and change. In the end, the family learns lessons, and Kiran helps them become better.
Where There's a Will by Mahesh Dattani Explanation in Tamil @Banumathi K's Literature Insights 👇
Where There’s a Will Detailed Summary
About the Author:
Mahesh Dattani is an Indian director, actor, playwright and writer. Born on 7 August 1958. His famous works were Final Solutions, Dance Like a Man, Bravely Fought the Queen, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai, Tara, Thirty Days in September 2007 and The Big Fat City. He is the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award.
About the play:
Where There’s a Will is a Stage Play. It has two acts. It is his first drama, staged on 1988. It’s a black comedy that satirizes modern society and its problems. The plot of the play revolves around the life as well as after-life of a man named Hasmukh Mehta and his family.
Characters:
✨Hasmukh Mehta - a Gujarati businessman
✨Sonal - Hasmukh’s wife.
✨Ajit - Hasmukh’s son.
✨Preeti - Ajit’s Wife
✨Kiran – Hasmukh’s mistress
Summary:
Hasmukh Mehta is a rich and successful Gujarati businessman. He is the owner of Mehta Group of Companies. He is very strict with his family members as he treats his laborers in office. He dominates his family. He expects all the members of his family to obey him blindly. He is also a diabetic and cardiac patient with a history of high blood pressure.
Hasmukh Mehta married Sonal, when he was 22. He is not satisfied with his marriage with Sonal. He described his marriage as "the greatest tragedy in my life" . After a year of marriage, their son Ajit was born. He described it as " Tragedy after Tragedy."
Hasmukh Mehta states that Sonal means gold. She was as good as gold when they were married. But soon she turned to be a good for nothing wife to her husband. As good as mud. Sonal ironically comments on the meaning of ‘Hasmukh’ which means ‘a smiling face’. But her husband never smiled, blaming her and her son for all his problems.
Sonal is submissive and devoted wife even when facing challenges within the family. Sonal depends on her servant too much. She cannot handle the kitchen on her own. If the cook takes leave she finds it difficult to manage the situation. She gets upset and some days she even fainted in the kitchen.
Sonal cooks very sumptuous food to pamper her son. Sonal often makes orange flavored halva for Ajit which irritates her husband who is a diabetic. He always quarrels with his wife Sonal and tries to dominate her. Even then, she loves him very much. Sonal too much conscious of his heath. He had a heart attack before and Sonal advices him to stop smoking. She was taking sincere care of him but even though he could not give her a place in her heart.
He quarrels with his family members often his 25 years married life is not successful and happy, He needs an emotional support. So, He keeps Kiran as his mistress. Kiran is a shrewd hard-headed marketing executive. If there was anyone in Hasmukh Mehta's office who had brains to match him, it was her. She is now one of the directors of the company.
Kiran is married to Jonnie Walker, a drunkard. He tortured kiran so, she leaves her husband, and stays in the company apartment, provided by Mr. Mehta. Kiran is known to Mehta before her marriage. she is an unmarried woman in the eyes of Mehta.
Mehta's wife, Sonal, is unaware of his affair. Sonal is dominated by her husband in their marriage and leads her life under the complete influence of her sister over phone. She doesn't have independence.
Twenty three years old Ajit is a managing director of Hasmukh’s factory but he is not allowed to take a single decision. Hasmukh Mehta is always having an eye on his son's every deeds whether he does the thing correctly or not and Mehta keeps on insisting “Do This” “Don‟t do That” as if he treats his son as a child. But Ajit is not happy with Hasmukh’s restrictions, and he desires to become free.
Mehta feels that the status he has achieved is the result of hard work, both his own and his father's. His father is his only role model. Metha tries to treat Ajith the same way his own father treated him, in sustaining the successful business but Ajit refuses to obey his father.
Once Ajit asked his father to give him five lakhs, to modernize factory plant. But according to Ajit's father, Ajit is fit for nothing and denies him the amount what he needs. Hasmukh keeps nagging ajit calling him a big zero.
Pretti is the daughter-in-law of Hashmukh Mehta. Hasmukh Mehta introduced preeti as “That’s my daughter-in-law, Preeti, pretty charming, graceful and sly as a snake.” Her aim in the family is to get all the wealth and fame after the death of her father-in-law.
At the end of the first act Mehta dies in the bed, where his wife discovers his dead body a few minutes later after his death. When Mehta dies his soul lingers at home and responses all the reactions and conversation of his family members and the soul of Mehta can hear and see his family members where as Mehta is invisible to them.
Mehta family was surprised when they came to know about a ‘Will’ prepared by Hasmukh Mehta before his death. By writing the ‘Will’ Hasmukh dismisses all legal rights of the whole Mehta family over his property. In Hasmukh Mehta 's view, no member of the mehta family is trustworthy.
Mehta has formed a charitable trust named ‘Hasmukh Mehta charitable trust’. Metha has donated all his property, finances, shares and including the house where they are living in, to the trust. Hasmukh Mehta has made Kiran Jhaveri, as the sole executor (trustee) of the trust named Hasmukh Mehta Charitable Trust.
When Mrs. Kiran enters Mr.Mehta's home everyone get shocked of seeing Mrs. Kiran. Kiran introduces herself to the family members of Mehta. Kiran accepts her secret relationship with Mehta to Mehta's family members.
There were some instructions in the ‘Will’. Kiran then explains about her duty in Mehta's house and industries according to the Will. Kiran's duty is to run the group of Mehta's industries on behalf of Ajith Mehta until he turns forty-five. After that, Ajit will become the sole heir with full right to use and utilise property and money as per his wish. But until that, Kiran has the authority to make all the decisions in the interest of the companies and she has to train Ajit Mehta as a fine and experienced administrator.
As per the Will, The members of the Mehta family will receive only a regular allowance from the trust. Ajit has to attend the office every day at nine a.m. and he can only leave at six p.m. and he even has to have lunch there. No new business project of Ajit should be sanctioned.
As per the will Kiran has to stay with the family members but when they deny her to do this she tells them, As the trustee of the Hasmukh Mehta Charitable Trust, she had the right to declare that since the recipients of the trust, were not complying with the rules set down by the deceased Hasmukh Mehta, the holdings of the trust would be divided between certain charitable institutions recommended by the founder, which would mean that they wouldn’t ever get to see even a single rupee.
The trust will be dissolved when Ajit Mehta turns forty five. If Mehta family will not follow these terms and conditions, the trust will donate its funds to certain charities mentioned by Mr. Mehta.
All these instructions are mentioned in the Will. The instructions Kiran receives through Hasmukh Mehta's solicitor. Hasmukh was very cautious about the validity of his ‘Will’ and to avoid any challenge he took precautionary steps in advance. His first witness of ‘Will’ was a trained doctor and Hasmukh attached his sane mind certificate given by their family physician, Dr Jhunjhunwalla. By these steps, Hasmukh made sure that no one could challenge his ‘Will’. He had done this to control his family members.
In the WILL all the conditions Mehta specified against his son. Ajit says that “everything she tells me to do is exactly what he would have wanted me to do. We are all living out a dead man's dream”.
As per the Will, Kiran stayed with the Mehta family, the members began to change and started following Kiran's words. Kiran Jhaveri teaches them everyday new lessons at home as well as office.
When Ajit is in need of migraine tablets and searches in the cub board he finds out a bottle behind Preeti's saris with full of tablets. He asks his wife Preeti then she replies that it is a vitamin tablets and she hides it from him so the doubt raises but she manages her husband by saying that doctor has asked her to stop taking the tablets over phone, so he is supposed to believe his wife.
After Ajit leaves the room she throws out all the tablets through window, it is being noticed by Kiran. They are the pills for the blood pressure of Hasmukh which Preeti had replaced by the pills of vitamins because they were quite similar and could not be easily distinguished.
Immediately Kiran enters the room of Preeti, where the pregnant Preeti is resting. Kiran wakes up preeti and enquires about the changing of the tablets. Preeti accepts her plan of silent killing her father-in-law by changing his tablets. As kiran discloses this mischief, Preeti requests her not to tell anything to Ajit. Kiran forgives Preeti and didn't reveal it to anyone.
All the deeds of Kiran and Mehta's family has been watched by Hasmukh Mehta as an invisible to others but he responses whatever they converse with each other. The ghost of Hasmukh is also shocked to know that, in fact, he has been murdered and so his soul now enters the womb of Preeti and through the child he kicks violently.
At the end of the play preeti becomes calm and tries to be kind to her family members. It shows her sensible thinking which makes her thoughts positive.
Mrs. Mehta who had lived and suffered so long under the dominance of her husband and her sister, is shown to come into her own at the end of the play with the help of Mrs. Kiran.
Ajit feels emasculated by his father’s will and struggles to prove himself worthy.
Kiran genuinely wants to help the family, even though her presence causes tension.
Themes:
✨Patriarchy and Control
✨Family Conflict and Dysfunction
✨Generational Clash
✨Self-Realization and Empowerment
✨Gender Roles and Identity
✨Wealth and Materialism
✨Power Dynamics
✨Tradition vs. Modernity
✨Manipulation and Deception.
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