The Vagina Monologues is an award-winning episodic play written by an American writer and feminist activist called Eve Ensler, who had a sexually abusive father, in 1996. This unique script was written after interviews she conducted with 200 women about their views on sex, relationships, and violence against women. These interviews started as casual women Talk with her friends, who then brought up anecdotes they themselves had been told by other friends; this began a barrage of referrals. It had its instant success in Manhattan New York, at one of the off-Broadway theatres. It circled on the theme of the response to the guilt and embarrassment that many women still connect with their bodies or their sexuality. The Vagina Monologues has been translated into 35 different languages and performed world-wide. Hollywood celebrities who have starred in the play include Oprah Winfrey,Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon & Glenn Close.
The playwriter wrote the piece to “celebrate the vagina,” which defines a vagina being superior to the penis because it had the clitoris, which the monologues describe as the only body part in entity that has the sole purpose of giving pleasure.It has been defined as a tool of empowerment through which a woman can achieve total femininity and individuality. Later on it changed from a celebration of vagina and femininity to a movement to stop violence against women.
Even in the United States, it had its own perils. Advocates of equality,pro-sex feminists protested by branding it anti sex as it had lot of focus on brutal sexual encounters compared with consensual or harmonious sexual encounters They also alleged that it had negative portrayal of male-female sexual relationships.
The conservative Republicans revolted by urging students and parents to protest causing protests as a result performances were canceled at sixteen Catholic colleges. They strongly denounced it as “a piece replete with sexual encounters, lusty, graphic descriptions of masturbation & lesbian behavior”.

The Vagina Monologues has been playing in India since 2003. It was a bold title in an extremely conservative society. The organisers wanted to name it in Hindi by calling it ” Ch**t ki suno” or ” Ch**t ki bakwas” (vagina is called ch**t in hindi) but were not convinced of its impact and were also scared of their own safety for the fear of being skinned alive. Finally it was Shabana Azmi who suggested to maintain the original name for the play as in the west. She argued that only English was a suitable language to describe a vagina as all local languages of India made it sound like an abuse. A pilot show was launched in Mumbai and the sex starved lecherous crowd went berserk buying the tickets in frenzy. They thought that India was being finally liberated and they could officially hear Vagina talking live on a stage. It is alleged that Mahesh Bhatt, a notorious film maker known for his appetite for vulgarity, himself was among the first 10 people in the line to buy entry cards when the ticket sales started. Not to mention other 9 were his own brothers and cousins. The show was Indianised with a story about an elderly Parsi woman and a young Maharashtrian woman. Naturally the front benchers and the audience which got lured in by a “freak-out” name were disappointed and were totally pissed off. They saw two sorry looking women chatting and chatting about a part of their anatomy which sounded more like a finger or something else as the English used was hybrid and beyond the reach of a common man. The irate mob burnt down the theatre in anger for being made fools of and blatantly misled. Bollywood story writers advised the organisers to improvise the play by adding jhatkas and matkas in to it to make it a super hit in a country of over 1 billion. They are considering to make this show in Hindi as well. Afraid of its explosive potential in sex starved nation,Chennai has banned it totally(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3501034.stm).

Encouraged by the success of this play the organisers have patented another name in New York for a sequel to be launched under the name ” Perils of Penis”. As a safety net a second name has been registered as ” Penis Dialogues” !