One of the most path-breaking plays in recent times, 'The Vagina Monologues' finishes 100 episodes this month.

Jayati Bhatia, one of the five protagonists in the play, cheers the way it has changed women's lives... hers too the theme of 'The Vagina Monologues' (TVM) is to spread the word about 'vaginas'. Why do you think it is necessary for people to talk about it?

People, and more so women, are so quiet about these issues.

I don't see why. It's a part of you, isn't it? When people laugh about something, they become more open about it. Like when you laugh at yourself, it endears you to people. They warm up to you.

It tells them that you know what you are all about and they accept you for who you are. In the same way, when people talk and laugh about the issues that are discussed in 'TVM' - women, pubic hair, orgasms, rape - they are coming out in the open with these issues, they're sharing their psyches, their understanding of these situations. A simple example: There's a piece on a man who loves looking at his lover's pubic hair. Women have gone home and spoken about this guy to their husbands... how they've never met anyone like him and that he has such a refreshing point of view. This way, men and women discuss their innermost feelings, topics they've never discussed before... and once couples do that, they're at peace.

Do you think women directors bring anything extra to the table by the simple virtue of being women?