13.6.06

BLANK NOISE HYDERABAD: DISPERSING TESTIMONIALS






Blank Noise Hyderabad Team participants for the first public intervention included
1. Ratna- also from Blank Noise Blore
2. Tanu
3. Arshi
4. Diya
5. Vrinda
6. Lakshmi
7. Meghna
8. Soumya
9. Ambrish
10. Bobby
11. Venkat
12. Krishna
13. Amit
14. Uday

photos by Uday and Ambrish

Blank Noise Hyderabad intervened at Eat Street and an open ground adjacent to it, by giving random strangers letters. These letters contained blogger's testimonials of eve teasing (from the blogathon).

A more detailed account from email extracts:

Ratna:
Blank Noise Hyderabad met at 5.00 p .m at ES, began working on folding the letters etc. Later we found out that the ES security guards weren't going to allow us to distribute pamphlets even on the pavement outside and also that distributing pamphlets itself was banned in Hyderabad!

[ES is a food court type thing- partly open air, on a road by the lake that also has parks etc, so we started outside ES and walked along the road through the park and also through an exhibition. Outside ES and along the road the people were - a lot of young men and some older men and families too, but the area wasn't crowded at al

The women stood along the wall and stared/ tried to keep people’s gaze.

The women volunteers leaned against a wall and gave a letter bearing an eve teasing testimonials to people amongst public (mostly men) who responded in some way.

The group also went to a mela ground like place and the women volunteers just hung out at different spots maintaining eye contact. The men played the role of passive observers, spoke to people, photographed and distributed pamphlets/testimonials to people who they thought were responding to the situation or even ‘checking us out’

Arshi says:
To begin with it was very difficult for me to stare back at men. Even after trying it a couple of times I felt really uneasy when one person continued looking at me, rather scanning me up and down. On giving him the letter he continued smiling, as if I had handed him a love letter. I stood across the path to see his reaction. While reading he kept biting his lips, winking and showing it to his friends. The letter did not seem to affect him.

After a while he noticed the other women around me and men carrying pamphlets, some clicking photographs. Then probably out of fear or curiosity he began a conversation with Uday and (Ridiculous enough!!) even showed interest in joining BNP.

I had to give him the "unwanted" sticker. This time he did not make any eye contact and looked apologetic. Next time I'm sure he would think twice before indulging in eve teasing


Uday says:

Some of the comment heard yesterday:
1. "What are you guys doing about Adam teasing? You guys need to keep track of the trends. As one of the victims of it, I can tell you its more of adam teasing that takes place these days." - This came from a guy who was obviously trying to hit on one of the participants, while the intervention was on, so I stepped in to talk to him.

2. "Which newspaper are you from? Plz dont publish our snaps, plz understand we come from respectible families and it will get very embarrasing if you publish our snaps."

3. "They are asking us not to tease girls who wear bad clothes (?)". This came in response to a question from a passerby as what we were doing. The question was obv aimed at us, but this decided to step in and answer it for us. Incidentally he was a buddy of the guy who made the statement in 2. He actually said this in telugu - "chadda battalu". When asked what he meant by "bad" clothes, he listed, sleeveless tops and mini skirts. The person who asked what we were dng there said "Being a man, if I can wear a ull shirt and trousers, why do the women dress themselves in such short clothes?"

more coming up...

The act of dispersing testimonials in the form of letters also took place in Delhi and Chennai on the 28th of May.

Thankyou for reading...

Blank Noise Hyd.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who\'s the babe in the first picture? She\'s cute!

J said...

give a picture. get the picture.

Anonymous said...

Before blaming the boys the girls should think and analyse that why such kind of activities going on .

The causes are : girls behavior , their style, dressing sense,and the public appearence. Which provokes a man to do so.

Stop dressing ockwardly

Anonymous said...

I spent about 5 minutes staring at the pretty chick in the first picture. Would that be considered eve-teasing?

See Bee said...

hey hyderabad!
way to go, i am so happy that the hyd movement is happening..its a city that could really do with some awareness..i wish i were there!!

ive stop getting shocked at sum of the lame comments that continue to get posted on this blog...

Blinkdreamz said...

give 'anonymous' an 'unwanted' sticker!

Anonymous said...

this is for anonymous,
so a girl needs to lead a miserable life walking on a tight rope in public... because men come up with garbage like "dressing sense, style" as lame excuses to justify crimes as heinous as sexual assault and rape and murder (Sarika Shah, Chennai 1996 and Stephanie, Chennai, June 2001... the list is endless ) and what not ??????
because men are not human but some kind of helpless sexual monsters at the mercy of their hormones...who think women are commodities meant for their sexual gratification ???
if men cant help but sexually assault then something is wrong in what is happening inside their heads ! not in the women's clothes.
for your wonderful pearls of wisdom on "girls should not dress awkwardly", you know many MEN on this blog have agreed that not the women but the men are responsible for such barbaric acts ?
WEARING CLOTHES OF YOUR CHOICE IS NOT A CRIME LOOKING, GROPING, PINCHING... RAPE, MURDER IS !
you know sexual crimes are committed by men against girl babies as young as 6 months of age and as old as on 70 yr old women ( these were reported, we all can imagine how many have gone unreported). a few years ago a 2 year old girl child was raped in Kashmir... Dont even get us started on what kind of monsters some men are ok ?
how could a 6 month old child or a 70 yr old women act provocative ?
how do you jusitfy murders? (like Hetal Parekh? Jessica Lal ? Sarika Shah ? ... the list is endless)
WOMEN DONT WEAR CERTAIN CLOTHING APPROVED BY THE PATRIARCHY... SO THEY ARE MURDERED ???
...you know more than 60% victims of such crimes are less than 18 yrs of age ??????
... go get a life ok ? live and let live... one more thing you seem to have forgotten
WOMEN ARE HUMAN TOO... NOT OBJECTS

like blinkdreamz says jasmeen plz give (him, i guess)anonymous an "unwanted" sticker

Anonymous said...

dear anonymous..

you are exactly the reason why movements like this one have to start at all..

summer moon said...

this is for 'anonymous' who posted at 05:40 am .. Do you know that 3 yrs old get abused and raped in quite a lot of states in India? What kind of clothes are they wearing to provoke men? Stop giving excuses and face the music dude. Before you do moral policing on us maybe just maybe try to check yourself next time you feel the urge to fondle a girls butt or wink at her.

Anonymous said...

The cause is good but your approach is definitely wrong in handling it!

Looking at your Hyderabad Convention photos, I have my comments - Straight

You made girls stand on the street for sometime and then tried to get hold of men staring at them. Absolutely stupid!!!

Look at this case then....

The girl in the second photograph, the one in the wheatish top ofcourse, featured in a couple of other photographs too - is looking like a pimp!

Who wouldn't look, glance, stare at her? She ain't beautiful, still desperate to look sexy - thats the very purpose of her outfit. Whatever her name is, can she answer my question? Don't you like flashing you skin to men and wanna get prasied by them?

Looking at her standing on the road for hours doing nothing only conveys the impression that she is a hawker, as that is exactly what hawkers do - they dress skimpily provoking men, standing in the public places, waiting to earn a buck or two. It wouldn't have been a surprise if someone actually approached this girl and asked her - "How much for a night?", As this girl matches the profile of a prostitue in every sense of it - looks, dress and they way she was standing! ;-)

Staring, glancing is a crime!!!? In which part of the world doesnt it happen and which sex doesnt do it - men or women? All of us stare!

If you dare, then publish this comment without editing and lets see the response of all who visit this blog.

You wear whatever clothes you wish, no problem. But its more then obvious people will stare and dont make a cry of it. Its not necessary men/women should stare at girls in revealing clothes, they might even glance at girls who look beautiful.

Its definitely wrong to tease, hurt, talk rot, wink, comment, and mis behave in an obvious manner - I would also add and agree Staring like you are stripping the girl to this list.

Never can you say glancing, looking, accidental touching - as things which should be stopped.

Get your thoughts staright!

Blinkdreamz said...

girls/guys,don't throw stones into a gutter,it'll spill back on you,and it'll always remain a gutter,irrespective of how much you try to cleanse it. just neglect it or try cleansing it at your own risk. and also there's a saying in kannada which when translated goes like this...when the elephant comes to the streets,the street dogs start barking,but looking at the dogs bark,if the elephant tries to bark back,it's the elephant's prestige at stake and not the dogs'! if somebody sincerely has something to say,that they don't agree with the methodology of your campaign,there's a decent and diplomatic way of saying it and they'd do it in a respectable language without trying to make subjective vulgar accusations and without trying to provoke you. if they're resorting to cheap language and gimmicks of drawing attention on your website,calling women names and attacking your very campaign and trying to belittle,discourage and insult your campaign,it simply means they have other ulterior motives which you should conveniently ignore. in fact i'd have been very happy if jasmeen had not fallen prey to a malicious challenge to publish the comment which maligns the dignity of a woman and smacks of male chauvinism.

J said...

fallen prey?

this blog is not about online threats or people falling prey.

I published mr reddy's comment, even though I do not agree with him; nor am threated by him.

His comments about women being prostitutes are a close observation, but quite obviously he has totally MISSED THE POINT!!!!

and as you can see rajshekhar reddy is one of those anonymous blogger ids....

Anonymous said...

way to go, gayatri, sanchari, and everyone else. and kudos to the guys helping you all out.

as far as anonymous is concerned, a rotten mind leads to a rotten life.

and its a long fight... hopefully, with an end to this disease somewhere in the future.

personally, i didnt feel that any of the girls have dressed provocatively, and besides, it doesnt matter how provocatively somebody is dressed, or not dressed, its a matter of one's own dignity how you respond to any stimulation, a lot of men in India(and elsewhere) seem to be just a tiny bit evolved over the animal kingdom. they sure have lost the tail, but not much else.

keep fighting, flower power :-)

Blinkdreamz said...

you have to see this link... http://www.ibnlive.com/news/women-panel-links-hemlines-to-crime/13787-3.html .if women in women panel think this way,wonder how we can change the society's outlook towards women.

Suraj Darra said...

hey .. hi .. i m with u!!! ... only my ways r not soo civilized .. coz their ways r not civilized ! .. if the eve teaser is weaker than me (i am guy btw) then i will beat him up .. and if he's stronger than me .. then i'll use a weapon .. strip him .. insult him ... throw him .. if i am totally out numbered .. i guess i gotta run for my life .. atleast to a police station! ... the situation is tragic! i'm in the US rite now.. this place is much more civilized ... INDIA !!! WAKE UP!!!!

Anonymous said...

Rajasekhar Reddy - Please post your mother's picture on some site and post the link here. Let us judge if she looks like a pimp or whore.

Anonymous said...

https://www.facebook.com/groups/170774996349769/