At New Delhi’s Habitat Centre, a young actor has just unleashed a string of expletives in both English and Kannada, drawing gasps from the audience. They have, however, been warned. All of the publicity for the play, Dancing on Glass, carried notices about the amount of profanities it contains. It’s a necessity in a country where bad language on stage is still relatively rare, and where family-friendly Bollywood megastars like Shahrukh Khan have made it clear how uncomfortable they are about swearing on screen.
The Collected Works of Kevin EG Perry 