Planet KHOJ

"My daughter ( 46 years) and grand daughter( 22 years) were walking by the lake. A mad man lift up his lungi and flashed his body parts at my daughter. My daughter was hoping that her daughter didnt see this. She panicked and tried to change her route. He flashed again. She yelled for a security guard from an resident apartment. In the meantime I the mad man ran away.

I told her never to walk there again."- (age 77 years)

It is familiar to most of us. I could hear my mother, father, grandparents, uncles, aunts, friends, all well wishers say. ' just dont go there. '

How many such city spaces will not be accessed because sexual violation was experienced there?

Shabana in Manchester never stepped out alone. She never experienced street sexual harassment either.
and then again Bangalore, Tokyo, Mexico City and other cities have women only public transport.


Blank Noise This Place is building evidence.

We ask you to revisit the site and exact location where you experienced harassment and photograph it. Please send in an account of what happened with a photo of that place. This project is open to women from across the globe, across age groups.

It would be fantastic if you could get others around you involved- more so if you got people without cameras involved and even shared them.

We could organize week long events with small groups of individuals who want to participate in this.

(Amrutha Bhushan and Goonja from Bangalore will be re -visiting their site. I will be doing the same from Kolkata. If you would like to get involved from your city and get others involved too- email us!)

All photographs will be uploaded at :
http://flickr.com/photos/blanknoisethisplace

and put on a world wide map at :
http://flickr.com/photos/blanknoisethisplace/map/

To participate email us and we will add you right here. Email us at blurtblanknoise at gmail.com subject titled BLANK NOISE THIS PLACE!

Also see: http://blog.blanknoise.org/2008/03/blank-noise-this-place.html


Why are we doing this?

• Because our experience of the city is based on fear and mapped with places to 'avoid'.
  
• Because we want to break the myth of site- that sexual harassment takes place only in 'certain places' at certain hours.
• Because we want women to reclaim their city spaces and not fear them.
• Because Blank Noise collects testimonials in different forms of media and disseminates them back in public.
• To build an argument collectively.
• The collective building of evidence will trigger towards social transformation
  
• this could also be 'fun'- something for all of us to do and make more meaning once people have participated.
• for those convinced- please add more!

List of Participants for Blank Noise This Place:

Dianne Sharma Winter
Amrutha Bhushan
Goonja
Jasmeen Patheja

across a low boundary we saw a tangle of steel lying in a large maidan full of rubble. guards were not happy to see us. not allowed at all, they said. we ignored them. as soon as they saw me peer through the viewfinder the guards attacked us with renewed vigor. NOT ALLOWED without permission. and who should we get permission from? they were vague so we walked around. it was going to be broken down soon they explained. it was a refinery for edible oil. the rest of the factory had been demolished and this is the last part left. they are going to subdivide the land and sell smaller plots.



when they realised that they were not going to get rid of us like this, they gave us a number to call for permission. we explained the research nature of our exploration. the person on the phone listened and said not allowed but we insisted and he finally gave in. so that was that.



there are many floors and subloors with all kinds of electric and rotatory machines. the metal structure is strong enough for some exploration though it is rusted and rutted to the extreme. many different stairs and passages connect the different levels.



Two huge rotatory cylinders presumably used for crushing or squeezing out the oil. dont know much about refineries....

Lots of glass wool insulation everywhere. it is coming off in many places and looks almost luxurious in texture. extremely dangerous though! the needles blowing in the wind can cause acute breathing and skin problems.

sahibabad is one of the older industrial areas on the outskirts of delhi. on an exploration trip we saw a large unkempt shed and the gate was open. inside there were 2 workers sleeping on charpai. we slunk away into the back of the factory.





two large connected sheds. empty except for a few monkeys and a few stacks of newspaper.




In the front, in a servant's quarters of sorts, a door was ajar and another man sat inside. we briefly noticed eachother and both choose to ignore the others presence. was a strange moment.



generator.

important: Blank Noise is not anti men. Poster were published on this blog- extending the argument of the previous post- on segregated public spaces.

Bangalore's 'women only' buses. Painted pink.
The women Soumya C. Shekhar of Blank Noise and I spoke with, saw this as an immediate relief, as something convenient.
How do you experience public environments that are exclusively male or female?
Perhaps bloggers and Blank Noise blog visitors from Bombay/ Mumbai who take the 'ladies compartment' in the train will have anecdotes to add!

Also see - Pukar's Gender and Space project

http://www.pukar.org.in/genderandspace/index.html

Stumbled upon this factory quite accidentally. Actually it was probably just a godown and distribution center for alcohol. A corner of the metal gate has been pushed in to allow for a trespass, and the rolling shutter is kept from closing by an old cooler.



It is quite empty inside. and undisturbed by the looks of the cobwebs.





The backyard though is another story. littlerally thousands of bottles are everywhere. all kinds of them, from the typical beer to hard liquor and even Desi ones that look like medicine bottles. Saw an old floral bottle of McDowell single malt. never even heard of it.



There are also different piles of broken glass. one brown, another green and one of clear glass. Surely a glass recyclers paradise.

This time we invite you to laugh.

Laugh out loud. Record it. Email it to us/ or upload it on yousendit.com

3 months from today the Department of Fun and Games will construct devices that will broadcast your laughter through independent radio.



simply put- imagine a street scape filled with the sound of many laughing women!

Here's one Blank Noise recorded in 2006 August. This was played at Delhi's South Ex Subway. (hear)


Simple ways to record on a windows machine:

On a windows machine

1. Plug a microphone to the "sound-in" of your sound card
2. Open Windows sound recorder and hit the record button
Watch the instruction video here:

OR

2. Download a free recording and sound editing software-Audacity is one of the best one's around[download it from here:http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

and use it to record your audio:

Watch the instruction video here:

[more detailed instructions here:

http://info.umuc.edu/de/ezine/how_to/audacity/audacity.htm]

On a Macintosh:

1: Open Garageband

2: Record

watch the instruction video here:

Or read the easy insructions here:http://macaudioguy.com/2007/12/27/how-to-do-basic-audio-recording-on-your-mac-using-garageband-08/

This iconic Campa Cola factory, which lends its name to the area around it, will soon be history. The operations at the factory stopped in 2001 although Campa continues to be manufactured by franchisees in Haryana for the rural markets. A reputed builder has bought all the factories around here and has raised them to the ground and only rubble lies where the DCM complex once stood. The Campa Cola Factory, in perhaps as little as 2-3 weeks, will also be demolished.

Although the guards let us in to the compound but they told us the inside of the factory was off-limits- locked up, they claimed. There front wall is glazed and it must have been quite a sight from the road when the factory was still functioning. There is this really new looking, steel machine inside for making the cola. Apparently it was used only twice in the mid 80s when it was installed. Today no one wants to buy it for they are not sure if they will be able to put it back together once it is dismantled. The German company that made it has shut down.

Behind the factory on one side are thousands of empty bottles sitting in crates. Infact one truck is fully loaded with these although it doesn’t look like that truck has moved in years. On the other side are many ambassadors and tempos, presumably stuck in some legal hassles and sealed as moveable property.

The workers were quite sad at the impending demise of the factory. Some of them had spent there entire adult life working here and soon they will be left jobless and without much prospect for future employment.

Go check out this factory soon if you want to catch a glimpse before they raise it to the ground.

via Fred Miller

LECCO, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian man was given a suspended jail sentence for staring too intensely at a woman sitting in front of him on a train.

A judge sentenced the man in his 30s, whose name was not revealed, to 10 days in prison and a 40 euro fine after a 55-year old woman filed a complaint for sexual harassment.

His lawyer said on Friday he would appeal the sentence. The court will explain its verdict later.

The two met on two separate occasions in 2005 on a commuter train going from Lecco, a town in northern Italy, to Milan.

The first time, the man sat next to the woman but she felt he had moved too close for comfort. The next day, the man sat in front of the same woman and according to her complaint, stared at her for the whole journey.

The two did not speak.

(Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Shabana 6 mins 30 sec credits: Dale Copley – project assistant Jamie Finlay- sound editing
(audio link)


This is not about the experience of street sexual harassment.

Translated text: “My name is Shabana. I moved to Manchester from Lahore 20-22 years ago. I got married here and have been staying here since. We do visit Pakistan, but now this place is our home. I think women are safer in Manchester than in India or Pakistan. I don’t think women in Pakistan or India are unsafe, however I think women here are safer. Women have a place in society here. They are respected and taken care of. If someone sees an elderly woman standing, she is offered a seat. This is what I feel. If you are in Pakistan you could belong to any age group, be a little girl or a much older woman, but if you are walking alone, you are bound to find men stalking you or harassing you in public. It isn’t the same here. In Manchester if a woman does not allow it a man cannot even look at her. There is no way he could try touching her. It is 4 pm. I am returning home from work. I will get home and cook dinner. If I need to shop I will go with my husband. We don’t go out on social visits or for fun in the evenings. No. If there is a holiday, like the recent bank holiday, we travel together, as a family, not alone. My children are busy with their games and they do not consider going out much. I have three sons. They are 18, 16 and 3 years old. I always have a phone. Why must I complain about someone harassing me? I have never been harassed or violated. Even when I was younger I was never harassed or bullied on the street. I don’t feel any kind of fear in Manchester. There is no reason to fear. My children fear going to Pakistan when they hear about genocide. I feel safe here. At this point, I am lost. I don’t know my way home! I started my new job yesterday and am lost today.” 10 minutes into meeting Shabana, Dale and I realize she is lost. She pulls out a used enveloped from her handbag which bears the home postal address. Dale locates her address on the map and we soon find ourselves at the bus stop waiting for bus no. 15 Shabana contd. “I used to spend my day at home, sometimes watching tv, doing household chores, talking with friends and gossiping about them.” The bus arrives The phone gives us immense security. It also makes us gossip about each other. We will have to pay for our sins one day. We gossip and we sin. Despite this knowledge we don’t stop talking on the telephone. I know someone who has been warned by the doctors to not use the phone, but she just wont listen. Whenever I phone her I cannot get through. It is always busy. I realized how ignorant I am now that I am out alone. It is a big problem. The fact that I don’t know my way around town is the biggest problem. There is no other problem. I am grateful to God for introducing me to strangers who help, and drop me home. Today is my second day. Someone helped me make a bus pass yesterday. Today you are dropping me home! I used to spend all my time at home before. My children were much younger then. It was a different phase. Now I am in another phase and hence I decided to get a job. I always wanted to work outside home but it wasn’t an acceptable idea for my mother in law and family. They wouldn’t agree to the idea of me going out to work and them cooking for me. I did the cooking. I have been cooking. It is only now that I am doing what I want to do. Working outside home is not culturally accepted. No. It is impossible to see that acceptance come from an Asian mother in law. When it was the right time to learn English, I was busy cooking food for the family. Today I realize that I should have learnt English. I feel the need for it now. I regret not having learnt it. No one let me learn. They told me that I wasn’t going to be out and interacting with others anyways and so I don’t need to learn English. I know what I am doing is courageous but there are many challenges. Not knowing how to speak in English makes it a bigger problem. My sisters live in UK as well.

Am so glad I put this envelope in my handbag this morning. A letter had come this morning. I kept the envelope. I knew this would be helpful if I were to lose my way home. Dale and I met Shabana while wandering through the streets of Manchester. We were looking out for people to interview. She was the only one who agreed to be interviewed. Ten minutes into the conversation we realized that she was lost. She found a used enveloped in her handbag, which had the home address. Dale located her address on the map and we soon find ourselves at the bus stop waiting for bus number 15. Shabana is home by 5 30. She said she would take us to interview her friends. She comes out of her house 10 minutes later to say that the friend whom we were to interview is not at home and goes back inside. We have not been in touch since.

Editing assistant- Jamie Finlay- Cornerhouse
Project assistant- Dale Copley

In conversation with women between the age group of 11-80 years, in Manchester, UK.
Groups spoken with include Chinese Women's Centre- Wai Yin Society, Bangladeshi Women's Centre- Ananna, Salford Women's Centre, staff of Cornerhouse and strangers!

Supported by Cornerhouse as a part of Asian Triennial '08, organized by Shisha.

http://ia360908.us.archive.org/3/items/StreetTalesOfHyperWomenBetweenTheAgeGroupOf11To80Years/hyperwomen_64kb.mp3

This time, squeeze them properly. Put your hands inside my T-shirt and squeeze.
Blank Noise Action Hero Janet

Blank Noise Action Heroes
http://blanknoiseactionheroes.blogspot.com archives your inspiring, brave, spontaneous, and even humorous stories of resistance. Write to us how you dealt with being sexually intimidated/ attacked/ violated/ or 'teased' in public. What worked for you? How did you 'deal with it'? How were you an Action Hero?


Share your story now. You can participate if you have a story to share. If you experienced it or witnessed it, or even heard about it! Find out from mothers, grandmothers, aunts, cousins, strangers, colleagues.

You may find this submission form useful to submit your story or you could even email us your story at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com- subject titled Action Hero Online.

If you ever climbed up onto the heap of garbage called the Okhla Landfill, you would see a concrete and steel behemoth. This is the CCI's cement factory. or rather it was. today the factory grounds are used to store empty containers. there is a huge container depot (inland port) just behind it.


i didnt want to encounter any guards so i took a roundabout way through piles of garbage and undergrowth and squeezed through a barbed wire fence to get in from behind. there are huge conveyor belts everywhere. some for feeding the raw materials onto the top of the concrete cylinder and others for taking out the finished product.



Inside the cylinder at the bottom most level.... Its incredibly dusty. some footprints in the undisturbed layers of dust. and many paw-prints of dogs. In one corner there is a limping chair, probably acquired from the sarkari office next door. and a few empty bottles of cheap whisky.



Most of the conveyor belts and stairs have been elaborately fenced off with barbed wire. i found one that led all the way up that was not. i could see a few guards and truck drivers below as i climbed up. they didnt see me though. i was too unexpected to be noticed. no one looks up i guess.



Incredible wind on the top. full of cement dust and the fine decomposed garbage and smoke that flies off the landfill. all the corrugated metal sheets have come loose and rattle constantly in the wind. kilos and kilos of pigeon shit. some places have over 12 inches of it.

One day I took a couple of foreign artists to look at the Okhla Landfill. They were doing an eco-art residency and wanted to know what happens to the garbage in delhi. We checked out a bunch of rag-pickers, very fascinating people from a firangi perspective.... they recycle you know. something we indians are quite irresponsible about unless it is some toxic waste shipped from the North+West.



Well this does not really fit into abandoned buildings per se..... it deals with waste. and an abandoned people and the profession of retrieval from decay.



Here we can see the act of dumping and retrieval happening simultaneously. The kabaadiwalahs queue up as the garbage trucks unload....




The waste is covered up with a layer of earth before new garbage is added. All kinds of gasses build up in this mixture. Some are inflamable and and many are poisonous. Infact the garbage is set on fire so as to increase decomposition.



And believe it or not, some of them actually camp out on top of this rubbish heap. The Okhla Landfill is one of 3 major landfills of delhi. All 3 are currently filling up beyond capacity. And there are more landfills that are being put into our holy master-plan.



Those sacks are full of recyclable stuff being handpicked and taken away. In a small way the kabaadiwalahs are decreasing the amount of trash that gets dumped everyday. And nobody knows or cares about the health hazards. nor are they encouraged in this eco-friendly activity. infact there is a huge mafia here in conjunction with the sarkari officials.

Event report:

Ratna and I met at 4:15 p.m. outside Java City on Church Street. We had with us the opinion poll and thumb print pads in red and blue and a bunch of pamphlets. We wanted
to put up the poll at a local paan stall but at the first one we went to, the guy was reluctant, claiming a lack of space. He sent us to another shop owned by his brother but this was a juice shop with not much clientèle. We left some pamphlets there and took the rest to another paan stall at the Premier Book store end of Church Street where the young boy was persuaded to leave them on his counter for people to pick up.

Now the opinion poll. We took it to Temptations, a sort of open liquor store, flanked by a paan stall. The owner was initially reluctant but there was a group of men sitting outside (all middle aged) and they got curious about the chart and began discussing 'eve teasing' and coming forward to leave their thumb prints. This sort of decided that the poll would be left there. After about twenty minutes of discussion with them, and inviting thumb prints, we moved on to Java City. (The opinion poll was later moved to outside Java City half-way through the intervention.)

The rest of the group joined us in bits, stickers were handed out and letters folded and divided up. There were a lot of boys, and Kunal explained to them what kind of documentation we needed.

The place for intervention was Church Street. Our brief was to occupy the space in a manner in which we would indicate that we belonged there and were at home there. We were not to talk to anyone. We could hand out the letters to whomever we felt like. Some of us had whistles which we would blow if anything untoward happened.

We started at 6:30. I think because Church Street doesn't really get very crowded before about 8, the energy was a bit dissipated. There were not as many people as we would have liked using the street. Perhaps if we, as performers, were standing closer together, we would have felt more group energy. We had a fair amount of space between us: we were stretched at reasonable intervals all the way to the first crossroad on Church Street. At a little before 6, Ratna, Kunal and I decided we would do better to move a little way down the street so that we were closer to the eating joints and right at the heart of Church Street. I walked along the street and on the way decided impulsively to go all the way to Brigade Road and occupy the railings.

Personally, I thought this worked better. It was crowded, people stopped to look, pamphlets were distributed and there was a sense of being able to feel the vibe from the rest of the group.

Here is the gist of people's reactions (these notes were taken at at a conversation witht he group after the intervention and then emailed to the group; some have added details to my notes. If you have been quoted here and want to add/subtract, then just email me the details or add to the google document that was circulated amongst the group on email):

Amrutha - My stare gave away everything that I wanted to say, and It seems like i am slowly mastering my body language in public places.

Hemangini - I thought the energy on Church Street was low, and felt a lot better once we shifted to Brigade Road. This time I think what I enjoyed most was just dawdling on the road - staring at things, watching construction workers, noticing people... even just listening. I heard someone drop a coin on Brigade Road and realised how rare it was to actually make out individual sounds in a crowded space where your main concern is your own safety and not just taking in the different ways in which the space can affect your senses. That was special.
Some other things: we needed more pamphlets and our original opinion poll - but these were logistical things which are normally better taken care of, so I'm not too worried about them. I think our support team - of men - need to meet on their own so that they can work independently of us with their own "agenda" so to speak. I hear Delhi dispersed "spies" into the audience just to record what passers-by were saying randomly and I would have loved for us to do that too. We could next time leave two boys just to handle the opinion poll and encourage people to use it.

Lalitha – Experience of meeting people's eyes and people watching. Could feel the gaze of people as they watched. I was actively courting their gaze. It was legitimate for men to look at me. I am always wondering about how anger morphs with age. I seem to be less angry as the years go by.

Swati – I wonder sometimes if I have become immune to street harassment. What is a good response to it? I am so used to looking down and walking; I might mumble and look away, but today I continued looking and smiling.

Varun – I feel we could have had more impact if we were even just joining hands and marching down the road and stating that we were against eve-teasing.

Alka- I usually look down and have never had the guts to have my chin up. I wonder why we weren't allowed to talk to women though; many women came up and wanted to discuss the letters I was handing out, but I couldn't talk to them. I think it would be better if we could interact with them.

Payal Dhar – In Delhi, if you are in a salwar, people think you are “submissive”.

Deepashree – In a group if there are women and men, the women refuse to take the pamphlet that our volunteers were handing out.

Weiting – I am wondering why today is any different. Shouldn't you always be like this? Maybe the presence of so many women is acting as a sort of safety net. Why aren't we always comfortable with our bodies?

Ratna – I don't feel as violated now as I used to before. I think maybe I have internalised the spirit of an intervention into my everyday life. There are also lots of differences in the way women are looking at you and judging you.

Joseph – When I was handing out pamphlets, the women were always reluctant to take it. It seems like women lose a lot of their spontaneity through their defensiveness. Older women seemed less defensive.

Surabhi – Sometimes it is just pleasurable to have solidarity in a group; there is something good in that feeling. These moments are precious also.

We invite you to engage with our new project- Blank Noise This Place.

The site is a witness and your photograph is your testimonial.

Blank Noise This Place will archive photographs that you send of public places and locations you have been sexually assaulted in any degree that you consider sexual harassment/ violence.

To participate we ask you to revisit your site of violation with a camera. ( any camera will do- quality is not important as much as your act of revisiting and documenting). Please email it to us at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com with an account of -
what occurred- what time-which country.city it took place in
Please add in details such as your age and name

Your contributions will be put on a world wide map that will specifically identify each participant's site of sexual assault. www.flickr.com/photos/blanknoisethisplace/map/

If you do not wish to have your name up- do tell us.

You are further requested to get others involved! Do introduce this idea to friends peers and all the women you know! In true spirit, cameras could be borrowed, shared, collective trips could be made to each person's site of violation. Organisations and groups are also invited to participate. We hope to hear from you. Let's Blank Noise This Place!

(ongoing project)

http://blanknoiseactionheroes.blogspot.com archives your testimonials of resistance.

Tell us how you dealt with street sexual harassment. How did you fight back?

Tell us if you know of someone else who had the presence of mind to flip the situation around.
Was it funny? empowering? inspiring? normal? an everyday mastered technique?

Men/boys are encouraged to participate by sharing what they witnessed or heard!
Share the Action Hero experience right here.

You may find this submission form useful to submit your story or you could even email us your story at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com- subject titled Action Hero Online.

An Action Hero is a woman who has dealt with street sexual harassment/ violence/ 'eve teasing' by confronting and challenging it.

Stories sent in do not have to be 'original', they could be tried tested and successful ideas. The emphasis is on how your reaction made you feel like an Action Hero. If you are sending in someone else's story, it could be an account of how it 'wowed' you.

We ask you to extend this by initiating conversations with people around you. We ask you to take this idea to a non blogging audience- for instance - have a conversation with your bai/ 'domestic help', or the stranger in a bus, or the fruit vendor, or your grandma, any one could be willing to share. Everyone has atleast 1 Action Hero story.

Be fearless. Be an Action Hero. Share your story, now.

I never asked for it is an ongoing project. Over the last couple of years many many volunteers have collected clothes from friends, family, peers, associated and sent them in. These are clothes that people wore when they were sexually violated/ 'eve teased' in public. This blog post is a reminder, stating that we are still at it. Wherever you are, who ever you are, you can make this happen. It's simple- ask yourself and others around you to remember that one garment you wore when you were made to feel that you 'asked for it'.

Collect one, two or twenty, be the Blank Noise Action Hero from your city. town. locality. Over the next 1 year we propose to install these clothes on the streets of your city. You can make this happen.
Each garment is a testimonial and a witness to the violation.

Suren Vikash participated in this event by bringing back a bag filled with clothes- belonging to his sister, cousins, and relatives. This is to say that men can participate in actualizing this as well!

• There will be a contact person per city.
• If you wish to collect clothes on behalf of Blank Noise from where you are based, email us. We would be thrilled to have you taking on this responsibility!
• The mailing address will be shared on email and will be city specific.
• Please attach a note about what exactly took place.
• Please attach the age of the person who experienced it.
• Your identity will not be revealed if you do not want it to.
• You could also photograph the garment and send it to us. We will share it on the blog.
• If you have any other ideas on how you can participate- actualizing the event, fund raising, seeking permissions etc, write in now!
• If you have already discarded that one garment to this project- we will be adding your name to this list below. If you have not been mentioned, please email us and we will add you right away!
  

important: where ever you are, however you chose to participate, act now.

The idea- When women experience sexual violence/ harassment/ or are 'teased' they are made to feel guilty for experiencing it. We are taught to blame ourselves for being 'dressed provocatively', for being in the wrong location, at the wrong time. Public perception and blame also assumes that a certain female stereotype gets assaulted for the 'right reasons'. The truth is that we have been receiving all kinds of clothes- school uniforms, saris, short skirts, asexual-shirts, jeans, salwar kameez. No matter what you wear, a no means NO. There is no such thing as 'asking for it'

Blank Noise challenges notions of time, place , dress and person. With I never asked for it- we challenge the notion that women actually 'ask to be sexually assaulted'

We take a stand and urge you to do the same. I never asked for it. Yes we want 1000!

reference:
Our last street action on international women's day, March 8 asked Blank Noise Action Heroes from across the country to come wearing the garment they wore when sexually assaulted.
also see:
Cheap girls and this.

List of participants: I NEVER ASK FOR IT

Abigail Crisman

Annie Zaidi

Anusree M Jois

Chinmayee Manjunath

Hemangini Gupta

Pallavi Sen

Ratna Apnender

Suren Vikash

photographs and text from Blank Noise Lucknow is yet to come.

Stay tuned.
'Coming soon'.

Thank you for your patience

photo documentation: Abhishek Baxi and Jasmeen Patheja
They ran around-
Printing of stickers, photocopying letters- Aienla
Whistles and pamphlets - Chandrashekhar Bhattacharya

Blank Noise Action Hero, Atreyee Majumder shares her experience:

The March 8 intervention evoked in me a feeling I had forgotten about. A feeling that is a mix of power, amusement, cheekiness. Facilitated primarily by the act being a performance, as a group, though spread out. I have been in interventions before to know that the next time I am standing around in a crowded market, and a man comes really really close, I will still feel threatened. Coz that is my real life, with no sticker, no pamphlet/testimonial, no performative posture. So the intervention is invariably for me a treat- my day out for fun- I feel like saying out loud to those threatening shopkeepers giving me '' u think you re liberated? Let me show you...." looks that today if they mess with me, I have enough recourse to resort to. So I can stare back. Tomorrow I will again walk away with greater vigour.
Rest of my thoughts are still jumbled, will add to this soon.



Blank Noise Action Hero, Annie Zaidi shares her experience:

I had not been able the wear the exact garment I wore when I was last harassed, because this was in December-Jan and I was dressed in wollens. I high-neck sweater, jeans, a longer woolen jacket and sports shoes. To get an approximation in which I would not die in this weather, I had worn a full-sleeved, loose-ish shirt and jeans. Wearing that garment, I didn't feel much. I was as covered as covered could be, but I did realise that if I had been wearing anything less - maybe a sleeveless shirt - or a skirt or even a saree, I would have been wondering whether it was because of my clothes, because the idea is just so deeply rooted in my head that somehow, I must be responsible. I had been to two other interventions in Sarojini Nagar so was familiar with some of the dynamics of that space and was partially correct. What I was surprised by was the reactions from the men, which was only possible because our volunteers were mingling with them and eavesdropping on what the men said. Some of it was predictable stuff, but I was taken aback by some of it. I guess, I had assumed that the people who looked on and watched would at least feel apathetic, not hostile. The hostility was something I do not understand, because the only thing you can put it down to is malice and perhaps, a mixture of guilt and misogyny?Engaging with the street: well, I have to confess I was a little bit distracted because we were in a clothes market and I was also looking around. But it was interesting too, because a lot of the shop-keepers around seemed hostile. Was it because they thought our activities would hurt their business?Standing around was difficult because it was so crowded and there really was no place for cycles and bikes and carts and stalls to move between us. The letters worked, I think. They usually do, and if nothing, they break the taboo and silence surrounding sexual harassment, and that is the first step.


Sharad Kapoor and Nitin Sarin were our 'spies', disperesed in the public observing public reaction and making a note of it. Here's what they literally noted down-

* On being asked what you all were doing "yeh jo ladkion ke chedakhani hai unke lie kuch hai, hona kya hai insab se bhaisaab hindustan main, aaj tendulkar kal dhoni " ( these things come and go and no one pays heed to them)

* " Kyun bhai aurat nhn kar sakti kya yeh sab, unke lie bhi kuch hona chahiye "- ( don't women harass men on the streets? We need a campaign 'against' women as well.)

* A girl took the letter and just tore it part. ( we will address the why some women chose to tear and throw away the letter- what causes that reaction. Also note the reaction below).

* We noticed one of the girl who was given a letter, started laughing after reading the letter and said " pta nhn kya karte rehte hain, what's this shit"?

* A shopkeeper had a plaster on his hand and said" mere ko bhi saza mil chuko hai is cheez ki, aap hi karoge apko bhi yahan photo lagegi" showing me the pamphlet.

( he said- i have been punished for harassing women- pointing to the plaster on his hand. He told Sharad that if you sexually harass a woman, your photo will be printed on the pamphlet.)

Content:

The pamphlet being referred to is here

The three letters given to strangers were selected from participating blogger's testimonials from the 2006 blogathon. Annie Zaidi selected them.

Dear Stranger
I used to carefully calculate my outfit before leaving the house - I had to make sure my shirt wasn't too tight, my bra strap was safely invisible, my jeans weren't too low, my skirt wasn't too short - and despite the (positively oppressive) precautions I took, I still got pinched, poked, grabbed. Day after day after day.
No more.
Now I wear what I want because it doesn't make a difference. I didn't ask for it, I don't ask for it. I never will ask for it.
If you know what I am talking about, come stand with me anytime between 5 30- 6 30 pm this evening.
Today, I am wearing the clothes I wore when I had been sexually harassed/ violated/ ‘eve teased’ on the street.
There is no such thing as ‘asking for it’.
Sincerely,
( signed by the Action Hero).


Dear Stranger
In Delhi, I was warned against wearing shorts to the gym so I wore my track pants the first day. I almost passed out from the heat while working out and resolved to wear my shorts the next day onwards. I wasn’t about to let fear of being harassed interfere with something as mundane as a good workout. I came up with a theory that if I appeared confident and unafraid, no one would harass me. I glared at any men who came too close and sure enough nobody harassed me.
This gave me the confidence to venture out alone to Connaught Place. I wore a knee length skirt, hailed an auto rickshaw and made my way to meet my friends in CP. On my way there I noticed a man on a motorcycle driving beside me and staring. I didn’t give it much thought and just looked away. When I got off the man also got off his bike and accosted me. He asked me for my number. I was taken aback but thought he was on of those “I would like to be friends with you” guys. I walked in another direction but he wouldn’t go away. I was zigzagging through cars trying to get away. He shouted at me “What do you think you are? I know exactly what you do!” I was too confused to react. What did that guy mean? What give him any indication of “What I am?” I looked around at people thinking if they would protect me if he tried anything funny. Fortunately I spotted my friend and walked towards her. As I was telling her about the incident the man disappeared. She told me that while she was waiting for me in front of the Wimpy’s an uncle-ji tried to feel her up. She even pointed him out while we walked away.
On my way back I kept watching out for any motorcycle that stayed with us for more than a couple of miles. Nothing had changed since I was a fourteen year old girl afraid to walk home from my bus stop after school.
We weren’t asking for it. No matter what we wear, we NEVER ask for it.
If you know what I am talking about, come stand with me anytime between 5 30- 6 30 pm this evening.
Today, I am wearing the clothes I wore when I had been sexually harassed/ violated/ ‘eve teased’ on the street.
There is no such thing as ‘asking for it’.
Sincerely,