ச. இரமனஜம நடகஙகளல பணகளன சநதனகள / Thoughts on Women in the Plays of S. Ramanujam

Professor S. Ramanujam is a modern playwright. He has very clearly expressed feminist ideas with the intellectual richness of art, literature, customs and beliefs of Tamil culture. Now, Dalits and non-Dalits have composed plays following modern times on Dalitism. In ancient times, various caste and clan divisions were given based on professions such as Merchants (Vaishyas), Agriculturalists (Velalars), Carpenters (Thachar), Blacksmiths (Kollar), and Brahmins (Iyers). At that time, all castes were considered equal due to the understanding of survival. Over time, science developed. Moreover, with the advent of economic prosperity among humans, the idea that the superior and inferior began to emerge and one caste dominates the other caste. Many people think of the Dalit community as broken, crushed, humiliated, disfigured, scattered and without identity. Marginalised people are known to be diverse in nature. Professor S. Ramanujan has highlighted the plight of the marginalised people, their customs, culture, civilisation, etc. He portrayed the problems of the lower-class people in his plays, along with the status of women. He has contributed to the Tamil and Malayalam theatre through his writing, speech, direction and workshops. He has written 17 plays, 33 Tamil plays, 28 Malayalam plays, 6 English plays, 2 Hindi plays so on. The paper studies the ideas of marginalisation in the plays “Maunakuram”, “Sembavalakali” and “Mukhapoli’.