Public Obscenities: A Play

by Shayok Misha Chowdhury

A complex and compelling bilingual play that examines the intersections of queerness and Indian-American identity. When Indian-American graduate student Choton travels from the U.S. to his family’s home city of Kolkata to film interviews with the local queer community, he relishes acting as the local expert, especially in his role as interpreter between Bangla and English for his filmmaker boyfriend. Soon, though, Choton starts to question not only what he thinks he knows about queerness in India, but what both queerness and his Indian heritage mean for him. When a rediscovered roll of film reveals surprisingly intimate photographs of Choton’s austere grandfather (taken by whom?), Choton’s understanding of his family, both living and dead, starts to unravel. What follows is a mesmerizing examination of intercultural identity, asking audiences to reconsider what we mean when we call a place home.

Genres: Plays

144 pages, Paperback

Published June 24, 2025

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5, rounded down.

A finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. I actually liked this quite a bit better than the winner (Primary Trust). Although the script is necessarily bulky, since half the dialogue is in Bangla, the native language of Kolkata where the play takes place - and supertitles were provided for the audience which are also in the script - I didn't feel like the play was overly unwieldy - even with a running time of almost three hours.

What DID give me pause is that many of the questions raised remain unanswered - primarily, it is implied that both the main character's uncle and grandfather, like Choton, were also gay (although both married to women) - but that is never satisfactorily explicated. I wish I could have seen the original production, directed by the playwright - given the difficulties inherent in, and expenses needed for, production, I doubt this will get many others.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/th...

[Renee Walden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Misha for letting our drama class have a copy before the official publication you are amazing!!!

[Bibliophiles · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would, perhaps, be less harsh in my critique if this play wasn't a Pulitzer short-listed one.

I realize that playwrights are under no obligation to make their protagonists likeable, but Choton, a quasi-representative for the Bengal-born, US-educated playwright, is simply insufferable. Young, handsome, with an attentive boyfriend and supportive parents, he still manages to be a whiny bundle of neuroses and nerves. His study protocols and interview methods are unscientific and borderline unethical. Eager to call himself "Bangali" despite his limited language skills, he dismisses interviewees who he thinks are too westernized. While he claims he isn't interested in showcasing the trauma of being gay and/or gender-variant in contemporary Bengal, his interest in the vocabulary of his interviewees (baanra/chipti/etc.) seems borderline prurient. The amount of trouble he has in concocting a decent abstract for his thesis makes me wonder if he is genuinely interested in the answers when those don't fit well into his preconceived templates. There's an intensely embarrassing and borderline insulting interlude where Choton meets his "star interviewee", a kothi (transfemme) called Shou, and complains to him about a language barrier between Choton and his American boyfriend Raheem, which is only beaten by a SPH (small .... humiliation) scene in cringiness. Talk about first world problems! I also don't understand Choton's wide-eyed wonder when Shou tells him about their eroticization of a bullying cop - this is a common survival strategy amongst gay men in authoritarian, patriarchal societies. Focus on the hard dick and the shiny leather boots, and maybe you'll forget for the moment that the boot is on your neck.

The twin ciphers in the book - erotic photos of Choton's idealistic grandfather found in an old camera, and Choton's uncle's chats with an anonymous online gamer - are nebulous enough to titillate some readers, but I did not find any evidence in the text that either were secretly gay. Unfaithful in their marriages, maybe, if you squint at it hard enough, but for a 30-year-old gender researcher to be flabbergasted by the fact that his ancestors and relatives have had a non-vanilla sex life seems unrealistic.

Choton's pishimoni (aunt) and his grandma's live-in caregiver Jitenda are excellently drawn. Not enough use is made of his grandmother, who appears in a single scene. Raheem is a genuinely interesting character: mature, even-keeled, and ready to deal with Choton's neuroses. His calling Choton out on Choton's nonsense about his family's desire to see Choton succeed in life is a great little interlude. Choton's father, who makes a virtual appearance via Facetime, is pleasant and unaffected, and one wonders why Choton has such a hang-up on his parents' aversion to sex: bro, if you're gay, then maybe they're aro-ace. Give them the space to be who they are.

Ultimately, this play fails to impress because it is, to use a colorful Hindi expression, "na ghar ka, na ghat ka" (neither here, nor there). It is not an event-driven play because nothing much happens except one slightly sad development towards the end. It is not character driven because other than Raheem, pishimoni, and maybe the kothi Shou, no one else manages to retain the reader's interest. If this were a first draft, I'd be impressed. As a Pulitzer nominee, it begs the question: what were the judges smoking?

Half a star removed for the gimmicky Bengali dialogue in Roman fonts.

[k-os]

Stuck the landing so hard!

[Bobby Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of secrets in this play, very few of which get uncovered. I finished the last page feeling vaguely unsatisfied.

[Zachary Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

He “became a picture.” That’s what we say when somebody dies. Chhobi hoye giyechhe.