Mallika Taneja’s one-woman performance Thoda Dhyan Se turns the familiar instruction “Thoda dhyan se rehena chahiye”—“You should be a little careful”—into a question about who is made responsible for women’s safety. In the performance, precautions escalate into satire of victim-blaming; nudity is a deliberate staging choice within that argument, not the work’s only subject. The account below draws on Malini Nair’s 20 March 2017 profile in Scroll.in, alongside a 2020 scholarly reading in Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture.
What is Thoda Dhyan Se about?
The title means “a little carefully,” echoing advice often directed at women in response to the risk of sexual violence. Taneja’s performance asks what that advice implies: rather than confronting the violence or the social conditions that enable it, it can make women’s conduct and precautions seem responsible for their safety.
In Nair’s 2017 account, Taneja begins in underclothes and adds layers of clothing and protective items, building toward a comic figure armored against the male gaze. The accumulating precautions make the logic of “be careful” visible by pushing it toward absurdity. The satire targets victim-blaming, not the idea that people may take practical precautions for themselves.
Why does the performance use nudity?
Nair describes a later version that begins with Taneja standing silently unclothed before she speaks. The report says the opening silence lasted about six to seven minutes. Taneja explained the choice to Nair this way: “I was tired of hiding.” She also said, “The way I see it, once you are past the idea of a naked body you can get on with the job of making your point.”
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That staging asks spectators to notice their own response to a woman’s body, then consider the expectations and judgments surrounding it. Sudhanva Deshpande, an actor and director with Jan Natya Manch, described the image as refusing to dare or perform for the audience: “The simplicity of just standing there, ordinarily, without making a statement, not daring anyone, not showing off…the stance just said ‘this is a human body, no different from yours, how you look at it is your problem not mine’.”
Theatre does not automatically make spectatorship safe or neutral. Taneja told Nair, “No matter how protected the space and how sacred the stage, there is always the threat of violence, isn’t it?” Nudity, in this account, is part of the performance’s confrontation with looking and vulnerability—not a claim that exposure itself resolves either one.
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How did the performance change across versions?
| Version described in the 2017 profile | Staging | What the staging emphasizes |
|---|---|---|
| Earlier act | Taneja starts in underclothes and adds clothing and protective items, developing a comic, heavily guarded figure. | The absurd escalation of precautions women are told to take. |
| Later version | Taneja begins unclothed and silent, then speaks. | The audience’s encounter with nudity and the argument that follows it. |
These are different staging approaches to related questions, not evidence that one version was more effective. Nair reports that the first fully nude version was performed at a Zurich theatre festival on 15 August 2015. The profile later describes a performance for a large Indian audience at the International Theatre Festival of Kerala in Thrissur, and says the first ticketed, unfiltered audience for the revised act was at Delhi’s Studio Safdar in February 2017. Some performances kept phones outside and did not permit video, according to the report.
What influences and audience encounters did Taneja describe?
Taneja told Nair that the 2004 protest at Kangla Fort by 12 Meitei women, following the rape and killing of Thangjam Manorama, had stayed with her. The profile also discusses Sabitri Heisnam’s performance as context. These references place Taneja’s artistic thinking alongside protest performance; they do not make the works identical.
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Nair’s profile records sharply different audience situations. Taneja recalled a collective “Aiyyo!” from an audience of about 300 at the Thrissur festival. She described teenagers giggling through a Paris performance as humiliating. These are her reported recollections, not representative audience research or evidence of how spectators’ views changed.
What can be said about the work’s impact?
A 2020 article in Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture reads the performance through feminist performance theory: a woman’s body can direct attention back toward the audience’s gaze and the social rules imposed on women. The article also raises a complication. A performance intended to challenge voyeuristic looking may still be consumed voyeuristically, and a theatre audience’s encounter does not, by itself, establish broader social change.
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Nair reported that Taneja had performed Thoda Dhyan Se more than 100 times by the time of the profile on 20 March 2017, after touring with the short act for more than three years. That is a historical figure reported in the profile, not a current performance total. Neither the 2017 account nor the 2020 scholarly discussion establishes a measured effect on audience attitudes.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Is Thoda Dhyan Se currently touring?
The cited profile is from 2017 and does not establish whether the performance is currently touring, where it may be staged, or whether tickets are available. It is useful as a record of the work’s staging and reception at that time, not as a current show listing.
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