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BLANK NOISE HYDERABAD!

June 10th from 5 30 pm

Hyderabad Blank Noise intervenes in the city's Eat Street !

The Blank Noise team Hyderabad, will disperse testimonials of eve teasing in the form of a letters via performance.

The group comprises Uday Prakash Tekumalla, Ambrish Bansal, Diya Shivlani, Ratna Apenender, Tanushree Parial, Arshi Singh, Soumya Divakarla, Bobby Yerra, Lakshmi Kishore, Poorna Shashank, Vrinda Chandra Shekhar, Krishna Atkuru, Vicky/ Vignesh Ramakrishnan...and others...

The team meets inside ES at 5 pm.
To join in call: Uday at 98 66 10 36 30 Ambrish at 939 3333 522

BLANK NOISE THINGS...

CLAIM IT IF YOU'VE PARTICIPATED!
A NON CITY SPECIFIC ONE COMING UP FOR ALL THOSE FROM EVERYWHERE ELSE BUT THE CITIES MENTIONED.

ONE DAY IN THE COUNTRY: DELHI

Delhi: South Ex Market 1

Delhi Team- Shruti of Jagori, Monica Mody, Raj Shekhar, Amit Kendurkar, Sharad Kapor, Sumati, Geetha Bhardwaj, Nikita Doval, Svetha, Param Singh, Shruti ( 2)...Sakthy

Ive been told that there were more...incase youve been missed out in this list please mail me or hemangini at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com

here's what delhi blank noise did:

maintained eye contact with passersby. stood stiff in their locations and gave a letter bearing a testimonial of eve teasing to anyone who reacted to their fixed gaze. it could be anyone in the public- eve teaser, mute spectator, 'victim'. The testimonials were taken from the Blank Noise Blogathon, where bloggers shared incidents of 'eve teasing'/ street sexual harassment, online.

Our male participants distributed Blank Noise and Jagori's safe Delhi campaign material in the meantime.

The results were open ended....hear it from Svetha and others as they write in....

At first i was very apprehensive about staring back at the starer. i guess i am just conditioned to NOT making any eye contact with men on streets. but i think the fact that i was with a group who would all be staring as well was good because it allowed me to shake off my own apprehension.

Being able to stare back at the person and give him a letter was a very empowering feeling. This was a fantastic idea! There was even a point when I felt it would be very useful for me if I could hand out these letters just generally when I am walking on the streets by myself to every single man who letches/whistle/passes remarks at me. But I think I abandoned that idea this idea because I am not sure I would be able to stare back and hand out testimonies when I am alone.

I handed out a lot of testimonies to many men. There was one point when there was a cop who was letching but I did not give him a letter because I was scared that I might get arrested or something.

Overall I think the intervention helped to change my opinion about south ex. I would never have thought about just standing around and just…well… being over there at all before. But now I realize that it is possible to do so and that I can :-) so that is great :--) -Svetha

ONE DAY IN THE COUNTRY: CHENNAI

MEET THE CHENNAI TEAM!

from left to right: Swarna, Sudhish, Shilpa, Anuradha, Jaikrishna, Vignesh, Vivek, Darshan and Diya.

The team distributed Blank Noise tamil/ english pamphlets at Beasant Nagar Beach, Chennai.
Our female participants stood frozen maintaining eye contact with public present and giving a pamphlet to the chosen one.

(the point was to actually disperse testimonials of eve teasing in the form of hand folded letters/ private notes along with pamphlets that were being distributed in the peripheries anyways..didn not quite happen in the last min...so that's for next time!)

thanking Darshan and Sudhish for the video documentation+ personal responses to the intervention!

to view the video click on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzRRA0zNpvs

ONE DAY IN THE COUNTRY: BANGALORE

thankyou for participating Aruna, Atreyee, Balaji, Dev, Laura Neuhaus, Jose,Padma, Priyanka, Roshan Paul, Sanjana, Sarita, Soumya, Yamini Deen

We started an hour late. from the 18 confirmed 11 showed up and we needed about 14 women to form the sentence Y R U LOOKIN AT ME?!! Ofcourse there was panic: thanking Nirmala: Stress Control Dept.

No matter what, in the end, there will always be a show. Thankyou Priyanka, our new member, the alphabet A who readily joined us from the public!

Dev, Balaji and Jose distributed the pamphlets at traffic signals, Brigade Road and on MG Road.

But when you look back at them, when you stare right back at them, they don’t take it as an invitation, they don’t think we’re reciprocating.
They get the message. They get the vibes.
Back off!
All it takes is a little courage. -Sanjana

Some strange reactions of horror/suspicion/curiosity/amusement/hesitation in the women on Brigade Road, as we were walking up to them asking them to volunteer.
Also won some long astaring matches, leaning against the railing of Brigade Road footpath.
Felt strong frustration against policemen who were kicking a fuss- there were some ten of us- young women, unarmed, not stopping traffic(simply standing at the signal), not shouting slogans. Is it so unnerving to see women moving around, having fun? -Atreyee

Sunday's intervention was empowering and socially catalytic- thanks for the experience.
It's personally reassuring to discover a unified group of women and men who oppose the humiliation of women- and are dedicated to ending the passive, fearful silence about public harassment. -Laura Neuhas

I was disappointed with the fact that some people did not bother to read what was written in the pamphlet, throwing it away and some girls not even taking the pamphlets, even after mentioning it was a campaign against eve teasing.-Balaji

Couldn't help but laugh when I saw those gaping motorcyclists.
Shock and awe! -Dev

It was fun! Esp running between the signals... yeah the look on ppl's
faces was priceless :) - Soumya

ONE DAY IN THE COUNTRY

Blank Noise Project will intervene on the streets of the following cities:

BANGALORE DELHI CHENNAI CALLING VOLUNTEERS on Sunday the 28th of May between 5 and 7:30 pm (MUMBAI and HYDERABAD postponed until we get more volunteers in both places and the mumbai weather supports our activity) e: blurtblanknoise@gmail.com with your city name in the subject line to participate


Thankyou!

The Blank Noise Team
.............................

EVENT DETAILS BELOW:

HYDERABAD

INTERVENTION DATE: In Hyd on Saturday Jun 3rd, 2006.

participants: Prithvi, Uday, Ambrish, Lakshmi Kishore, Vrinda, Lakshmi, Soumya Divakarla.

MUMBAI :

INTERVENTION DATE: JUNE 4th SUNDAY

participants: Rajvi, Tejus, Nisha Chandwani, Varsha, Pallavi

CHENNAI
location: Besant Nagar Beach
meeting at Planet Yumm at 5 pm. 28th May

participants: Vivek Rai, Diya Shivlani, Vignesh, Sudhish, Jai krishna, Swapna Mohan, Deepti Ravi, Anu Vishwanathan, Mridula, Gayathri,Shilpa Rathnam....

DELHI
location: Assemble at Barista South Ex Part 1 at 5 pm

Intervention starts at 5 : 15 pm

At Delhi Blank Noise collaborates with Jagori for its Safe Delhi Campaign!
participants: Prashiela, Sharad, Harneet, Raj Shekhar, Sakthy Edamaruku, Apoorva Bhandari, Pawan Sharma, Siddarth, Sumati Panikar, Amit Ken, Shruti (JAGORI), Monica Mody, Svetha Venkatraman


BANGALORE
location: Brigade Road EVA MALL : Coffee Day
meeting at 5 pm

participants: Chitra, Soumya, Balaji, Yamini, Harini, Ruam Mukherjee, Dev Sukumar, Rekha, Suren Vikash, Padma, Laura Neuhas,Sanjana, Chandani, Alkaa Shankernarayan

majestic majestic!!

5 30 PM- platform no.5
MONDAY : MAY 22nd
MAJESTIC BUS STATION

purpose:
to introduce the idea of eve teasing in the bus station
direct public response to another event in the bus station in the coming week!

Volunteers:
Dev, Balaji, Pritesh, Chandani, Ratna, Vijay. Rahima.


here's what we did:

distributed pamphlets/ dispersed letters bearing eve teasing testimonials/ read them aloud inside a bus with a captive audience/

a detailed version of what we did is coming soon

Dear Stranger

There were some intimate moments on the streets of Bangalore this evening.

Alka, Chitra, Pritesh, Ratna, Vidya, Yamini dispersed testimonials from the Blank Noise blogathon as letters addressed to strangers on the street. These letters were given to people who reacted to the gaze of the participants in performance.

(Balaji distributed the Blank Noise bilingual pamphlets alongside)

Twenty different testimonials, randomly selected from blogathon entries.

The letters were hand folded and given to the few chosen ones on in the public. Anyone who made eye contact, walked upto the participants, asked a question got this little note instead thus creating intimate moments, secrecy, surprise, shock?

Each letter was a different blogger's testimony.

The letters read as:

Dear Stranger,
Coming back from college, if the bus was too crowded, I used to try and walk the seven kilometer stretch. Even in the bloody summers. Even when I kept away from the crowded bus, and walked - some asshole would drive by, roll down his window, and ask persistently if I wanted a lift. No. I'll give you a lift. No. Please come. No. Come you bitch. No. Walk. Five minutes later - another car. No. No. No.
So are you victim, perpetrator or mute spectator to eve teasing?
Sincerely,
Just another girl.

or

Dear Stranger,
NOT GLARING AT EVERY PASSERBY SUSPICIOUSLY CAN BE INTERPRETED AS AN INVITATION
So are you victim, perpetrator or mute spectator to eve teasing?
Sincerely,
Hyper women amidst 'fathers', 'husbands' and 'brothers' .


The next intervention is in Majestic bus stand, Bangalore. We are meeting on Sunday 14th May to get it going.

(Kannada speaking bloggers are encouraged to contact Blank Noise at 98868 40612)

FOR MEET UP ANNOUNCEMENTS IN YOUR CITY

Blank Noise Bangalore meets on Friday the 5th of May at 6 pm to plan a street intervention scheduled for the following Sunday ( 5-7 pm). 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 .
The meeting will be held at the Blank Noise Studio . Please email and confirm your participation.
For questions such as " BUT WHAT ARE WE GOING TO ACTUALLY DO? " : I sincerely request you to attend the meeting.
Email: blurtblanknoise@gmail.com or phone me at 98868 40612
FOR INFORMATION ON MEET UPS IN MUMBAI, DELHI, BANGALORE, CHENNAI AND HYDERABAD CLICK HERE. (the same is posted on the side bar in green.)