Things They Wouldn't Let Me Say

Aditi Mittal on stage is highly animated, shifting mid-sentence between English and Hindi while taking aim at the heavy social taboos confronting modern Indian women. She compares being a single, thirty-year-old woman in India to a forgotten piece of Tupperware lingering at the back of the fridge, and skewers the quiet, public shame attached to purchasing sanitary napkins. Her physical expressiveness carries the set, whether she is mocking the awkwardness of Bollywood-inspired catcalls or poking fun at the male preoccupation with body parts.\n\nFilmed at Whistling Woods in Mumbai, the special arrived on Netflix in the summer of 2017. Its release served as a quiet counterweight to a major industry shift earlier that year, when Amazon Prime Video signed an all-male lineup of fourteen Indian stand-ups for solo specials. Mittal’s hour made her the first female comic from the country to secure a global streaming exclusive. While celebrated for breaking this glass ceiling, the show drew some criticism for relying on material Mittal had already toured for several years, making some segments feel slightly dated to seasoned comedy fans.