30.4.06

NOT GLARING SUSPICIOUSLY AT EVERY PASSER BY CAN BE INTERPRETED AS AN INVITATION


NOT GLARING SUSPICIOUSLY AT EVERY PASSER BY CAN BE INTERPRETED AS AN INVITATION- (click here to hear)

This audio piece was created by Rehaan Engineer with actor Ayesha Raza. The piece was created after the Blank Noise blogathon in March 2006. This was performed at Kitab Mahal recently.

Thankyou bloggers for participating, for sharing, confronting, healing.

Thankyou known turf for the title.

Thankyou Ruchi Mehta for the photo.

Blank Noise would also like to thank our very own Smita Jain for coming up with the blogathon in the first place!

29.4.06

DELHI EVENT POSTPONED

Hello,
Mangs has been unwell and the
Delhi event has been postponed to saturday may 6th.
Please mark 6th May for Blank Noise.
Apologies for inconvinience caused.
here's wishing mangs a speedy recovery.
thankyou.

contact: blurtblanknoise@gmail.com

27.4.06

At Mumbai: kitab mahal








Blank Noise Project was invited to participate in Ek Aur Level Chalte Chalte, an event put together by Gabriel Sirosis and Srimoyee Mitra on April 20th and 21st. A part of the clothes received from the DID YOU ASK FOR IT, project were installed, along with a video performance that questioned passive news consumption. ( the clothes project is still on. We wont stop until there are a 1000 and we will then install them on your streets.)

Rehaan Engineer gave a new form to the blogathon with actor Ayesha. The blogathon was revisited, scripted and heard out loud to the audience at Kitab Mahal. Rehaan's audio piece titled, " Not glaring suspiciously at every passerby suspiciously can be interpreted as an invitation"

( thanking all bloggers for participating in the blogathon. Thankyou all!!

Sincere apologies to those who showed up on saturday at Kitab Mahal and could not find me, I had to run to Carter Road.)

Thank you Rehaan! Thankyou Ayesha!

23.4.06

Mumbai- Carter Road: Y R U LOOKING AT ME








Thank you -

Avni
Ashok
Aparna
Archana
Hirawaman
Indu
Jasbir
Ketan
Leela
Mini
Ms Duseja
Milind
Namita
Naveen
Nisha
Pearl
Priti
Pranita
Pallavi
Rajvi
Rashmi
Shruti
Sangeeta
Shefali
Savita
Sheila
Saran
Trishala
Tejus

For being at the intervention on Saturday, April 22 on Carter Road. More photos and narrative will be posted soon.

19.4.06

that one night stand







thanking participants:

Ratna, Arpita, Chitra, Soumya, Yamini, Tanusree, Maithilli, Molly, Pooja, Pritesh, Pramada Abhishek, Joshua and Balaji!

Some statements we heard that one evening:

“ Why else would you come to brigade road?”

“ I can stare because Im a man. Ofcourse I will stare.”

“ You were staring at me, so I thought maybe you are interested.”

“ He came upto me and asked me if I was waiting for someone, then offered me a ciggarete.”

“ He has been smiling at me, I feel like I look available to him.”

“ The collective staring worked best for me, I cant belivee that he actually moved away!”

“ Taking a photograph without permission is illegal! “

“ Street sexual harassment is also illegal.”

“ If I want I can break this camera of yours in 5 seconds!”

“ It was hard for me to stand straight, walk straight without moving my shoulders and giving way. Im so conditioned to it.”

“It was the first time i walked on brigade road without feeling violated.”

“I am a man , I’m not a hermaphrodite, I will stare”

18.4.06

ilona granet


I was recently introduced to the works of Ilona Granet, a New York based artist, who started her career as a sign painter.

Granet is still working in the streets, trying to make them more tolerable for women. In 1986 she became infamous for her Emily Post Street Signs, "regulations" for etiquette in public places. The injunctions are written in English and Spanish: "No cat calls, whistling and kissing noises" or "Curb your animal instincts."

12.4.06

Calling 30 women on April 15th! (bangalore)

( from a performative experiement conducted in 2003 with a group of nine participants.)


“Sometimes we just love to walk, stand around, hang around, without looking ‘avaliable’.”

30 or more women will get onto the street and through a very simple act, we transform the nature of the place. criteria: participants should be dressed in a garment they would not wear otherwise , but have always wanted to wear! It could be anything really!

  • ALL PARTICIPANTS MUST MEET AT COFFEE DAY, BRIGADE ROAD(on Planet M side of the road) at sharp 4 pm, 15th April, Saturday

To participate email us at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com subject titled ‘intervention’ and we will add you on our participating list! Or call blank noise at 98868 40612


30 women team currently includes:

1.Soumya C

2. Poonam D

3. Rachel

4. Chitra B

5. Rupa S

6. Praveena

7. Arpita

8. Sanhita

9.Alka

10.Ratna

11. Aditi

12.Jayalakshmi

13. Arpita

14. Maitree


15. Yamini

16. Pritesh

17. Priya

18. Pramada


Arpita, Pritesh, Ratna are bringning along 2 or more people each which makes us 24!? SEE YOU SOON!


10.4.06

Please to read

'And another girl, barely 17 years old. She is buying bangles from a kerbside stall when a hand snakes up and grabs one breast, twisting it brutally, in full view of about a hundred onlookers. Seconds pass, frozen, endless, agonizing. The crowd titters. No one comes forward to help as the girl struggles to escape, trembling with rage and humiliation. Then he vanishes, leaving her to pick up the pieces of her dignity.
That girl was me. Now, why on earth would I choose to publicly rake up my own, forgotten, sordid little secret? Precisely because I am vexed by the fact that it has taken me 20 years of hesitation, one marriage, two kids, and the psychological armour of respectable matronhood to do it. '



'Incidentally, whoever coined that absurdly quaint term was obviously a man, most likely an Indian man. Because, admit it or not, “eve-teasing” is India’s unique national sport, probably why an Indian masseur was recently in the spotlight for “teasing” a staffer at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.'



The lexicon of lewd - Farah Baria

9.4.06

Mumbai - Meeting/ intervention

Thank you – Rajvi, Deepa, Shruti, Maya, Pallavi, Shriya and Tejus – for attending the Mumbai meet. It was great to get a heterogeneous group of people who brought in different perspectives and ideas. Wonderfully lively discussion and so much enthusiasm to get things done. Very heartening, indeed!



Coming up in Mumbai – an intervention within the next week. We’re in the process of working out details so if you want to be a part of it, please email blurtblanknoise@gmail.com with Mumbai/intervention as the subject line.



We would love to have as many on board as possible.

7.4.06

Calling 30 women in Bangalore!/ MEET UP ON TUESDAY EVENING!



“Sometimes we just love to walk, stand around, hang around, without looking ‘avaliable’.”



Calling 30 women to participate in this street intervention. This idea is really simple but we need numbers to make this work.



The plan: 30 or more women get onto the street and through a very simple act, we transform the nature of the place.



  • Location: brigade road, bangalore
  • Date: not fixed- by april 15th.
  • Time spent doing the intervention: 2 hours.

To participate email us at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com subject titled ‘intervention’ and we will add you on our participating list!



(Ps: we are not an all woman group, this intervention however needs 30 women.



his intervention is not Bangalore specific either, however it is starting here!)



the 30 women team currently includes: Soumya, Poonam D, Pallavi C, Chitra B, Rupa S, Nandini, Arpita, Sanhita, Alka, Ratna, Aditi, Jayalakshmi....



BLANK NOISE MEET UPS: BANGALORE, DELHI, MUMBAI , HYDERABAD, KOLKATA, CHANDIGARH,CHENNAI

6.4.06

Working girls, broken society?

The feminism of the 1960s and 1970s, reflecting and feeding into a revolution in women's lives, spoke the language of sisterhood — the assumption that there was a shared female experience that cut across class, ethnic and generational lines. The reality was that, at that very moment, sisterhood was dying. Gender politics still encourages us to talk about women as a group with common interests and demands.

This is an essay sparking off huge debates in Britain. What do you think of it?

Start the debate!

respond to what Blank Noise is doing. do the methods make sense to you? are you opposed to them? does intervention make a difference? start the debate on this great website. the comments space is beckoning...

rape harassment eve-teasing murder news flash news flash rape harassment eve-teasing murder in a flash in a flash...



Some of our readers have asked us why we have not written about Meher Bhargava. Or Jessica Lal. Or the fact that Sunil More - in a rare case of speedy, faith-affirming justice - has been given 12 years imprisonment for the infamous Marine Drive rape. Or several others, not so famous, beyond the headlines, outside of the soundbytes, who have been harmed by eve-teasing or any other form of violation. Or those who, in cases so infrequent they seem almost bizarre, have been arrested and punished for these crimes.



But mostly, we've been asked why we have not written about Meher Bhargava, the feisty 50-year-old who died after being shot while protesting her daughter-in-law being eve-teased.



Our silence on any of these issues has not been one of indifference. Or apathy. But Blank Noise believes - in all its evolving, collective wisdom - that merely to react to news with an impassioned, outraged blog post is not enough. Meher Bhargava - whose instance can only make us shudder as much with anger as with disbelief - cannot become one headline, one story, one post that attracts thousands of comments. She cannot be our poster-girl. Absolutely not.



Our silence, then, has only been one of introspection and deliberation. What do we do in these times? When hostile witnesses stall justice just as cooperative ones speed it along? When women like Priyadarshini Mattoo are remembered only when a Jessica Lal is brought back into collective public memory? When women have acid thrown on them for refusing a man's ardent overtures? Or for speaking up? When schoolgirls, adolescents, adults - every woman on every street in every city - is always in danger of violation?



Sounds overdone? Sounds exaggerated? Read the newspapers of the past month. Watch news channels hour after tiresome hour every day. I've just summed it up into one paragraph. But it still goes on.



Therefore, Blank Noise Project has decided to meet. In big cities and small cities. Whereever people can gather together to formulate action. To create performances of protest. To look up in anger and then do something about it.

4.4.06

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS! BLANK NOISE CITY MEET UP


SMS YOURSELF. WRITE IT ON YOUR HAND. TELL YOUR NEIGHBOURS TO REMIND YOU. TATOO YOUR FORE HEAD.

If you miss it, you’ve messed it. Your presence will matter.


Meet up in your city over a beer, chai or chewing gum, or marie biscuits, by the 15th of April.




Bangalore :

Sunday: 14th May. We are meeting at the Blank Noise studio. time 4 pm.
Pls contact Blank Noise at 98868 40612

Friday the 5th of May :Blank Noise Bangalore meets on Friday the 5th of May at 6 pm to plan a street intervention scheduled for the following Sunday. This event will also work with texts from the blogathon.

You are invited to attend and participate in this event. Your participation will strengthen the impact of what we want to say, and how we can say it.

Another part of the meeting will discuss and distribute campaign material for clothes project DID YOU ASK FOR IT .

Email: blurtblanknoise@gmail.com or phone me at 98868 4061


Tuesday, April 11th
Time: 6:30 pm
Venue: Malleswaram


Mumbai :

-Tuesday - April 25 - Mumbai Meet

We will meet next on Tuesday, April 25, at 7 pm at Prithvi Cafe in Juhu. For details, please email chininath@rediffmail.com

Venue: Carter Road - Opposite Cafe Coffee Day
Time: 6.30 pm

It's the first intervention in Mumbai. So please be there to participate, to observe, to get informed and to spread the word.

Any details needed? Mail me - chininath@rediffmail.com

-Mumbai Intervention - Saturday, April 22

Venue: Carter Road - Opposite Cafe Coffee Day
Time: 6.30 pm

It's the first intervention in Mumbai. So please be there to participate, to observe, to get informed and to spread the word.

Any details needed? Mail me - chininath@rediffmail.com


-Sunday the 9th of April.
Time: 5 pm
Venue: Bandra, 'Just Around the Corner'.




Delhi:

Saturday May 13th

Time: 5 30 pm

Venue: Connaught Place, Regal Cinema

please email blurtblanknoise@gmail.com, subject titled delhi meet to confirm your attendance.


Sunday 9th April
Time :5 pm
Venue: India Habitat Centre Amphitheatre




Chennai: Friday April 14th
Time: 7 pm
Venue: at the Woodland Cafe at Narda
Gana Sabha



Hyderabad: Tuesday 11 April

Time : 8:00 PM
Venue : Barista, Jubilee Hills



IN YOUR CITY:

Individuals from various cities such as Chandigarh, Lucknow, Guwhati, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata, Tokyo, Chicago, San Francisco , New York etc have written in and expressed that they would like to initiate it in their cities.

Cheers to Chennai and Hyderabad for the largest response! Looks like we already have an offline group! Likewise volunteers from different cities will be announcing the meet up on this post.

If you would like to initiate the project in your city and feel as though you don’t really have the ‘group’ to call for a meeting, all you need is yourself and 3 more people you think might want to work this out, a date, time and location, we will announce it for you! We would like the first meet up to happen by the 15th of April.





Some FAQS for the meet up:




Why are we meeting?



Because various individuals have mailed in saying that they would like to initiate the project and address eve teasing in their cities.,




Who are we meeting?



We are meeting other bloggers, individuals who have written to the Blank Noise Project and proposed to address eve teasing through their various skill sets.




What is the aim of the meeting?



  • For the individuals to meet.
  • To initiate dialogue about the issue in their context.
  • To brainstorm and propose locales for performance interventions.
  • To brainstorm and propose locales for the opinion polls.
  • To take responsibility of the clothes project, ‘did you ask for it’ in your city and collect clothes.
  • To come up with new ideas and strategies.


The meetings will be documented with photographs and sound or video. The meet ups will be reported on the Blank Noise Blog regularly. For any further questions email us with your subject as your city's name and we will get back to you shortly.