Talking of the Yoni [2]

[Continued from the previous post in this thread.]

I was a little puzzled by the fact that the performance was in English, despite the play's title. As a South Asian, seeing "Yoni Ki Baat" written on the Aaina flyer naturally led me to believe that the performance would be in Hindi. So when the actors started in English, I could not help feeling just a bit disappointed. I was so pumped up thinking I would see an edgy play about the yoni in Hindi.... Yes, I do speak Hindi.

On the other hand, there are several very compelling reasons for having it in English - a) keeping it accessible to all Seattleites, b) who in the hell came up with this fallacious notion that Hindi is some sort of universal South Asian language, anyway (did you know that Hindi is the native tongue of less than half of India, and we aren't even talking about the rest of the sub-continent, with its rich linguistic diversity)?

The performance was fabulous in English, but it would also be thrilling to have it in a language from the South Asian sub-continent. Contrary to what is often believed, there are examples (despite the sexually repressive culture) of excellent literature in Indian languages that openly deal with sexuality.

See Part 1 of this post.