The Optimal Erotic: Performative Intervention and Spectacular Reform in Viccha Mazi Puri Kara

Abstract: In the 1940s, a new moral panic emerged in western India; it centered on tamasha —a popular, subaltern performance form—now deemed to be excessively obscene and in urgent need of systemic oversight. This obscenity crisis was mitigated by reforming tamasha to be optimally, but not excessively, erotic. This essay argues that the quest to find and fix an optimal erotic was spearheaded by a popular comedy, Viccha Mazhi Puri Kara (Fulfill My Desires, 1965). Through its strategic deployment of metatheatricality, parody, and improvisation, this play posited tamasha reform as an always incomplete project premised on the elision of caste.