In autumn of 2020, While the United States was in the midst of a pandemic and acting like it was not, the common people of Long Island needed their bread and circuses. I was providing it to them through my minimum-wage job at the local pumpkin patch. Hundreds of corpses, the “overflow” from overtaxed morgues, were still being held in refrigerated trucks in Brooklyn thirty miles away (and would remain for another year). I, along with most of my customers, was still working. There were many cycles of failure that occurred during this time– government to citizen, person to person. But for me, the most dangerous was the one that occurred within myself, passed on from generations, that almost led me to suicide.

“Colocasia esculenta” tells the story of Bhagwati, a young artist struggling under the weight of grief, cultural expectation, and inner turmoil, which, compounded by socioeconomic, racial, and capitalistic dynamics, cause her world to fall apart. Through a Day in her life at her hellish retail job, we explore the unique pressures faced by children of immigrants pursuing non-traditional paths, through one character navigating a world (and a self-perception) that cannot see her for who she is.

In South Asian culture, societal pressures to be the educated, high-earning, obedient, and flawless "perfect daughter" are underpinned by the cultural mantra, “Log kya kahenge”? (“What will people say?”) which creates a panopticon both outside and within, where a person and all who surround them are permitted to scrutinize their every move and boldly proclaim them lacking.