Welcome to The Amazing Flabby-Breasted Virgin & Other Sordid Tales

This is a playful, irreverent and interactive digital performance. It plays with the myths and magical thinking that surround and define the non-masculine, non-heterosexual body. Inspired by the writings of a contemporary Indian feminist gynecologist, it poses surreal and satirical questions about how women's bodies are taught, perceived and practiced within medical education in the urban Indian context. A textbook of forensic medicine in standard use across India today defines the breasts of a virginal woman as “hemispherical, firm, plump and elastic”, while that of a “deflorate” woman as “enlarged and flabby”.

What is this body, and how does one operate it? How do we inherit the stories of the non-masculine body? How do we employ these stories as truth?

This performance is part of an educational arts project on systemic issues in both medicine and education today.

The script was developed under the mentorship of Abhishek Majumdar at The Bhasha Centre Playwriting Programme 2019-20. This version of the show was last performed live in February & March 2022. 

Flabby-Breasted Virgin is supported by Asia Safe Abortion Partnership.