Mother-Daughter Conflict in Mahesh Dattani's Final

Abstract: Filial relationships in the modern Indian family are at crossroads. The traditional icons of fatherhood, motherhood and filial piety are no longer valued as the prized possessions of Indian heritage and culture. Strained filial relationships are a commonplace in many contemporary Indian families in both rural and urban areas and are increasingly becoming potential sources for triggering conflict and brewing animosity in familial relationships. Mahesh Dattani who has earned considerable reputation for depicting family and social issues in a bold new light addresses this pertinent issue which is confronting the modern urban Indian family in some of his plays. This paper critically examines the mother-daughter hostility in Dattani's Sahitya Akademi award-wining play Final Solutions and shows how filial relationships buckle under pressure and tend to get impacted when their ideological differences are brought to the fore due to outside social pressure