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Vijay Tendulkar, a great Indian playwright , social critic of traditional India, was born in Gaud Saraswat Brahmin family. his best known plays are Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe (1967) , Ghāshirām Kotwāl (1972). He got several awards Padma Bhushan (1984) and National Film Award for Best screenplay Manthan (1977). Tendulkar's short play 'Kanyadaan' which has only seven Characters deals with the Conflict between upper class and Dalit. In every society there is a hierarchical system whether it is determined by class, caste, or gender. so these are the determinants to divide the society into groups ,upper and lower groups. when interaction within these groups like marriages takes place, problems occur. Karl marks, in Marxist theory, divides the society into two groups the bourgeoisie and the prolitariat. This division is based on economical status but here in this play the division is based on caste because in India only, the division is made on the basis of caste whereas in other countries, it is made either on the basis of colour or on economical status. As the title suggest "Kanyadaan" ( giving the daughter away to the bridegroom with affection and rituals) deals with the theme of marriage. The problem and the consequence of marriage, Vijay Tendulkar shows, is self created. Nath diwalkar is an MLA and his wife Seva is a social worker, Jaiprakash is an MSc student who is 23 year old and Jyoti is an intelligent girl of 20 years old. It shows the need of new religion in which there is no caste, all should be treated equally and humanly. The same has been talked about in Chandalika by Rabindranath Tagore (1933) in which female character Prakriti says," religion that insults is a false religion" (Tagore 154) The play begins with common conversation in Nath's family as mostly it is in Indian families. here Tendulkar shows unique picture of Indian society where workers don't do their work properly. They are so irresponsible for their duty " these people don't know a think about their own bus service...Heaven knows who made him controller" (Kanyadaan p.2) Nath is preparing to leave for Pune. He enquires about Seva's return from Ahmednagar. Jyoti fills the answer. "Ma was saying that if the rally ended by noon yesterday, she'd be here by night,or by 11 o'clock today." (kanyadaan. P.3) Jyoti wants to tell something to Nath with hesitation. here we come to know that her parents do not spend much time with their children. Nath is always busy in addressing the public and Seva too is busy in organising camps and rallies for women. Jyoti has been trying to make a conversation with her parents for the last 15 days. " for the last fifteen days I've been telling myself over and over again that I should speak to both of you together." (kanyadaan p.4) Jyoti makes a decision to marry a young dalit man Arun Athavale doing his BA. He works part time in a Shramik Samachar. She has met him in the socialists' study group. He has been coming there for the last two months. Jyoti tells all this to her family members that she has decided to marry Arun. Seva gets shocked after hearing this and asks more about Arun. here we see a mother's concern of Economic stability of the boy for the well being of her daughter. " what does the boy do?... his parents, what do they do?" (kanyadaan p.9) Marriage is a sacred ceremony in India. Hindus give so much attention in this ceremony in which they consider everything i.e, caste, character of the person, economic status, even the occupation etc. Even though Seva has been fighting against "untouchability" she thinks like a caring mother. she expresses her concerne " Is he trustworthy?" (kanyadaan p.10) "My anxiety is not over his being a Dalit. you know very well that Nath and I have been fighting untouchability tooth and nail, God knows since when. So that's not the issue. But your life has been patterned in a certain manner. You have been brought up in a specific culture. To erase or to change all this over night is just not possible. he is different in every way. You may not be able to handle it"(kanyadaan p.13) Jyoti tells her mother that she will manage. Inspite of being a modern thinker, Seva's character proves to be traditional who takes caste, character, economic status, background of the bridegroom into consideration. Seva convinces Jyoti many times to rethink about her decision of marriage but Jyoti dismisses her mother's natural and good intentioned pleas every time. Seva again shows her concern regarding this relationship. She has fear in her mind regarding Jyoti's sexual relationship with Arun so she enquires Jyoti about this , being somewhat hesitant. " Jyoti, May I ask you a question? [Jyoti signals "yes"]. How close is this relationship? To put it bluntly, how far has it gone?"(kantadaan p.14) Here we see an Indian mother's concern for her daughter's virginity. Anyway , Jyoti clears all doubts or preconceived fears of her mother. Jyoti brings Arun to her house. He gets uncomfortable there and asks Jyoti not to leave him. Here Tendulkar describes the actual feeling of a lower class person's discomfort. He also tries to present the thoughts of a low class person that tha large buildings of the city people or the upper class people are built on the base of the exploitation of the workers or lower class people. And they can gulp them down whenever they want. " if you see my father's hut you'll understand. Ten of us, big and small, lived in that eight feet by ten feet. The heat of our bodies to warm us in winter. No clothes on our back. Here there damn houses of the city people, they're like the bellies of sharks and crocodiles, each one of alone in them!... These large buildings are just like crocodiles and sharks, whenever they want , they can gulp you down."(kanyadaan p.16) Arun's eloquence on untouchability expresses his mindset. He himself accepts/clears every truth about his way of living. How he has survived and how he has managed things to get done. His words for himself are so fillthy, downgraded that he himself loses his identity in a sense. Not only that, his words, for Brahmins are full of poison, expresses his hate for them. "You must also we thinking what a bore the bugger is! , will you marry me and eat stinking bread with spoilt dal in my father's hut? Without vomiting? Tell me , Jyoti, can you shit everyday in our slums village toilet like my mother? Can you beg, quaking at every door , for a little grass for our buffaloes? Come on , tell me ! (kanyadaan p.17) These words shows his inferiority and hurts Jyoti. she starts sobbing. He apologizes for saying these words full of rudeness. Jyoti laughs and the situation gets normal. She says I am not one of those Touch Me Not creatures. I'm strong enough to bear all this. Now suddenly Arun twists her arm . It gives Jyoti an excruciating pain that she cannot bear. So she tries to blow upon the arm to reduce the pain. He again says 'sorry'. Seva sees everything. She doesn't say anything , reacts normally. She starts talking to Arun about his education, economic background and his family. here we see, Tendulkar presents a picture of the second half of the 20th century Indian society where the declining value of education appears clearly when we analyse Seva's words. " you will have to make a decision. what is the use of a mere BA ? , Now a days No one looks at a BA."(kanyadaan p.20) Seva continues to ask Arun about possible source of income in future. one, you don't even have a house of your own in Pune. Seva tells him a lot of things, one by one, required to run a household. at this Arun gets irritated and replies that he will brew illicit liquor. Moreover, Tendulkar also transmits the bitter truth of Indian society (especially of police) from Arun's mouth when he explains his illicit profession of brewing liquor. " it is a first class profession for persons. the man bribes the police and the wife serves customers. people call her aunty, the more striking the aunty's looks, the brisker the trade..." (kanyadaan p.21) Inspite of Arun's bad behaviour towards her family , she still remains firm on her deision of getting married with Arun. Seva and Jayprakash remain against this marriage from the beginning but Nath takes Jyoti's favour and he praises Arun's physique and his skill of writing poetry , and says a man should be like this...strong ! Tendulkar presents a dirty picuture of the society where people take smoking as a boastful habit and they openly boasts their this habit. And this affects a lot of people of the society. "And today Sonal Mansingh boasts openly , I like cigars." (kanyadaan p.24) Jyoti and Arun get married with Nath's support, but " what follows is a sequence of violence, misery, and disillusionment" (Wadikar 26). Seva feels the behaviour of Jyoti has changed since she got married. Seva remembers the atmosphere of the house before the marriage and now feels depressed. She complains about Jyoti to Nath. He always favours Jyoti . Here does not become biased towards Jyoti. Infact, he does not force anyone to change her decision. He has given freedom to everyone to take their decision about their life by themselves. Here we find women are free from patriarchal verdict system where they are tied to follow whatever verdict passed by their family (patriarchal family). After marriage , Jyoti's life gets changed totally and Arun's behaviour towards her as well. Her tumultuous day start loving her and she becomes a poor , pathetic wife of Arun Athavale who comes home every night taking alcohol and beats his wife, Jyoti. Beating his is mere foolish act that mostly illiterates do in the backward society. She feds up with the daily pain given by Arun and unable to bear it anymore ,she comes to her father's house. she does not want to go back to Arun. When her father tries to know the reason of not going back to Arun, she breaks into uncontrollable sobs. Nath wants to reduce Arun's oppression so he asks his family with the suggestion of Arun's stay with Jyoti in their house but this is rejected by Jyoti herself. Jayprakash and Seva also don't like his stay . for them, he was like a complete boor from the beginning. For Nath, this marriage is an experiment ,a precious experiment. And he does not want it to be a failure so he discusses with his wife, Seva , we must save this marriage. Arun comes to take her with him by saying 'sorry'. he does a lot of melodrama saying I will cut off my hands with the knife When she denies to go with him. Seva enquires the reason of beating, and in answer, as usual Arun says all nonsense , "I am the son of scavenger, I am a Barbarian, a Barbarian by birth." And says that he does not know the non-violent ways of brahmins like you. he also says, drinking and beating is common to his family as his father also does the same. Jyoti comes out and feels embarrassed and says to Arun, in bracing tones, "we are leaving." Here we see the husband and wife relationship between Hindu and dalit families just as describe by famous dalit critic Kancha Ilaiah. " man woman relations among dalit bahujans do not go beyond natural relationships. for those who not come in touch with letter, for these whose spiritual wisdom is primitive but natural because it has not acquired the character of manipulation and exploitation, the human touch is still retained in these societies, begernonic relations in the forms that are visible among the Hindus are absent. here even sexual intercourse is an organic need of the body but not a pleasure of the heart. this undefined love retains its naturalness among the dalit-Bahujans. Among the Hindus the man-woman relationship is condition by manipulation and receptivity. DalitBahujan relationships on the other hand are based on openness."(Kancha) Another Indian critic finds that in contemporary Indian literature, the image of women has changed to a Greater level. she observes : " No more is women considered or portrait as a week person, or falling at the feet of her husband or trying to please him always... Modern writers have tried to transform this image of women as seen in the myths by portraying them in a more realistic manner. one surch writer is Vijay Tendulkar." (Veena) Nath proves to be the follower of ideals in his life. he does not believe in God. Now there is a discussion between Seva and Nath. she tells him that Jyoti is pregnant in her sixth month and is admitted in the hospital , she is bleeding. she explains the reason behind it , is Arun and his violence. he even kicks her on her belly. Both Nath and Seva remain shocked. Jayaprakash comes and talks about the Jews as the exploited and the murders. he wants to say that those who were once tortured , exploited, are now the victimizer. He tries to refer to Arun as the victimizer. here we see the oppression of the oppressed. Arun comes to invite Nath to give a speech on his autobiography that is going to be published. When Nath denies , Arun reminds him of the defamation as he has already got his name printed in the posters and invitations. what will the people say? the rise of the son-in-law could not be endured by the father-in-law. Nath understands this blackmailing and gets puzzled. Seva says, you will have to deliver the speech and praise the book just for the sake of our daughter, not for Arun. Nath, greatly enraged, loses his control and says that Arun's visit has polluted his house. " His visit has polluted this drawing room, this house , and this day... it stinks , Seva - you know - you see - I feel like taking a bath. like cleaning myself! clean everything! this furniture, this floor... all this... he has made them filthy, dirty , polluted! why did I have to come into contact with a man like this? A man like this...why?" (kanyadaan .p57) Here we come to see Nath's perception of dalits which he has buried in his heart for years. He somehow agrees to deliver the speech on Arun's autobiography with the consent of his heart. This makes Jyoti feel bad that how can her father be so hypocrite in his speech? She visits her maternal house to know the reason. she is very angry. When Nath asks her who will take care of her during the delivery. She harshly replies that she is not a widow, she has her husband to take care of and also says "I am not Jyoti yadunath devalikar now. I am Jyoti Arun Athavale, a scavenger."(kanyadaan p.70) Jyoti leaves the house saying never to return. She was so enraged that she stops her father not to even touch her. Nath tries hard to end caste based society but this proves to be an Illusion and life takes him to the reality that "Apples are apples and oranges are oranges" (Rao 651).

Vijay Tendulkar's Kanyadan has drawn the attention of researchers and a number of works have been done on it from various perspective, the most notable among them are as follows - 1. "Study of Feminine Sensibility and Female Psyche with Reference to Vijay Tendulkar's Kanyadaan and Sakharam Binder" by Babasaheb Ramdas Kangune published in Studies in Indian Place Names UGC Care Listed journal , vol.-40- Issue-89- March-2020. 2. "Father-Daughter Relationship in Vijay Tendulkar's Kanyadaan" by Dr Meenakshi Choubey published in JETIR, February 2019, vol. 6 , Issue 2. 3. "Oppression of the Oppressed: A Study of Vijay Tendulkar's kanyadaan" by M. Gayatri and Dr. S. Subbiah published in Language in India ,2019.

1. Tendulkar, Vijay. Kanyadaan. Gowri Ramnarayan. Trans. New Delhi: Oxford University press: 1996. 2. Ilaiah, kancha. Why I am not a Hindu : A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, culture and political economy. Calcutta:Samya, 1996. P.33-34. print 3. Noble Dass, Veena. "Women characters in the plays of Vijay Tendulkar." New directions in Indian drama. Sudhakar and Freya Barua Pandey (Eds). New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1994. Print 4. Wadikar, shailaja B. Vijay Tendulkar: A Pioneer Playwright. New Delhi : Atlantic, 2008. Print. 5. Rao, N. Susheela. "Indian Review", World Literature Today", p 651-652 6. Tagore, Rabindra. 1950. Three plays, Madras : Oxford University Press.