Pink chaddis and other eye-catchers

February and March were crazy months in Bangalore. Following a whole host of attacks in Mangalore, there were some seven attacks on women in Bangalore as well. Brazen attacks, sometimes right in the middle of the day, pulling young women up (and assaulting them) for clothes they were wearing or languages they could not speak... or for no reason at all except that they were out, in a public space, as a woman.

Fearless Karnataka/Nirbhaya Karnataka was formed in late February: a bunch of friends and groups who came together at ALF one evening to try and frame a response to the recent madness. A website came up: www.baware.in and a series of events and petitions, including petitions to senior police officials and big events across the city.

The media was on the job, overtime. From the Pink Chaddi campaign to the Valentine's Day protests to the FKNK initiatives. An attempt at analysing their involvement in Infochange India, out recently.

The campaign was not defensive about its location as middle class and urban, and the media seemed overjoyed at their most feted demographic finally coming out onto the streets, ready to talk and happy to be photographed with provocative sloganeering. The middle class was making real news, and the English media was covering it every step of the way.

Read the entire article here.

Ban city

(Pic: The Hindu)
No dancing. No live music in places that serve alcohol. No partying beyond 11:30. No smoking in restaurants and bars. No very loud music.

Welcome to Bangalore, 2008.

Here's a story that Lalitha Kamat and I wrote, on the moral politics behind the protests and the laws, and how they take place upon the imagesof women's bodies, but also looking at the urban politics framing the background to the issue:

IT, BT and Bangalore's Moral Economy

A bit here:

The suggestion of a Shanghai-Singapore framework as a discretionary model that presumably discourages "sleazy girlie bars" while retaining the "stylish," "hip" nightclubs is another step along the pathway that has carved out the growth of Bengaluru along a deepening faultline. Since the liberalisation policies of the 90s at least, Bangalore has grown unevenly along a cleavage situating the Information Technology and Biotechnology (IT and BT) "corporate" boom on the one side, and the slower, older, more staid city on the other. The issues surrounding the imposition of these regulations are poised along this crisp divide, and occurring repeatedly in different ways with varying permutations (of class, dress and occupation) are images of women, stuck in this very verbal and angry tussle between various interest groups.

Media and technology

Some stories on how media/technology is being used outside of IT/corporate offices.

1. Story from Hunsur:

A camera, a mike and new confidence

2. Story on history education for kids using film:

History in the Making: Young Historians series

Children play historians, documenting the history of their families, their villages and their state. They learn that history can be shared by different kinds of people, and document the recounting of history from diverse groups including poor old women (early lessons in subaltern history?) and professional archaeologists.

3. Story on Dalit women farmers in A.P.:

Small, diverse and beautiful

and finally,

4. Story on community film-makers, from Adateegala:

The stories you missed on primetime

On being born

I'd never actually seen a baby being born before. I'd just internalised what the movies show you: the rush of stretchers, the graphs, the gloved hands, the screaming. Until Bangalore Birth Network's film screening, where I realised that babies can also be ejected like paste from a tube. Mothers can be squatting. Fathers can be delivering. It can all be at home.

In India, women are recognising that being treated badly during labour and having objects inserted into them without their consent, is a violation - "birth rape". Recent advocacy efforts by birth networks has brought in a rare case to the Mumbai Consumer Court: that of a “fabricated c-section”. Medico-legal activist Dr. M. V. Kamath told me that he gets many such complaints but few people actually go ahead and press charges since proving misconduct would be hard in a profession "with so much secrecy".

In countries like the U.S. and the U.K., rates for c-sections are going up - are women "too posh to push" or are they being pressurised into surgery that will profit the hospital system and the doctors? A mum I spoke to in Mumbai said that at her first, highly interventionist birth, the epidural alone cost her Rs. 15,000 whereas the second, completely natural birth cost Rs. 11,000 from start to finish (without doctor's charges).

Interestingly, all the birth networks, midwife/doula services and advocacy efforts around natural birthing in India seem to be involve foreigners either as mid-wives or as co-founders of the networks. Most Indian women still give birth at home of course, but these are with traditional birthing attendants, or dai's, and urban women are often nervous about leaving their birth completely in the care of a usually uneducated (although highly skilled) woman, especially if they are going to be outside a hospital setting.

Women's births in hospital are so often acknowledged as experiences where they are completely vulnerable, in deep pain, and forced to entirely trust their medical staff who can approach the birth in whatever manner they feel like (separating women from families; making patronising remarks - one midwife told me she heard a doctor tell the patient "she shouldn't have opened her legs then if she wasn't able to open them now, in labour"; not allowing the woman to walk around or kneel or squat and instead insisting on having her flat on the bed; being intolerant of pain and so on) that the push needs to be for the mother-to-be to have "someone on her side". If midwives were integrated into the healthcare system, women would have someone with them during their labour, plumping for a natural birth, telling her that this level of pain was natural and normal (if it was) and most of all, they would have a companion who had the patience and the interest in them as individuals, to stay the course of the labour however long it took, without clicking in exasperation and pushing for a c-section, an episiotomy, an epidural, cervical stripping or whatever else.

Here's my story in Tehelka, which didn't get to say all of this, and which, also, describes my story as likening natural birth experiences to "village style" births, whereas I do think that integrating well-trained, very-skilled and experienced midwives into hospital systems or getting them to work with obstetricians is far from the current model of "village-style" births.

Stranger on a train - 1

Hunsur-Mysore, January, 2008

When a middle-aged man alerts you to the fact that you're ticket jumping and should actually move from the cool greyness of the lonely three-tier compartment you have comfortably ensconced yourself in, to the hard wooden benches of the unreserved compartment instead, as per your ticket; follows you there; takes his seat opposite you on a two-seater and then proceeds to tell you how glad he is to have made a good friend to chat with on this three-hour journey, you're pretty much doomed to three of the longest hours of your life.

**
The journey began promisingly enough, with a story of a stick up and a death by gunshot at headpoint, in Lucknow.

It was a crowded restaurant in one of the more affluent commercial districts of the city. Tables were filling and emptying quickly and harried waiters rushed around, doling out orders and handing across bills.

At one such table two men were finishing up lunch when the waiter handed them their bill. They scrounged around in their pockets briefly and handed him the money, while continuing to finish up their meal. The waiter returned to them a few moments later, pointing out that they had paid two rupees short of the bill amount.

Within seconds, the customers turned violent. Their tempers flared. They asked how he dared to question them. They asked what difference two rupees would make. He stammered that he was only pointing out a genuine mistake and that they should be tipping him a couple rupees extra, if anything, and not undercutting him.

One of the men pulled a gun out of his pocket and shot the waiter dead. Then, in broad daylight, in full view of tens of stunned customers whose activities had ground to an abrupt and deafeningly silent halt, the men walked out, got into their car, and left.

There were more stories.

Stories of hurrying home in the insurgency in Punjab, stories of pilgrimages undertaken in the freezing cold of a Jammu winter, stories of loyalty and assiduity from Calcutta.

But gradually the tenuous thread hanging these unlikely and disparate strands of storytelling magic together, begins to fray.

**
A peanut-seller enters the compartment and dashes in and out of each berth cluster throwing a few peanuts onto our laps, for free. In a few minutes he is done and goes down the same route, but this time much slower, with his paper cones and warm bag of brown nuts. Ensnared by the quick testers, people dig for change and the adolescent peanut-seller does brisk business.

Outside the sky darkens and the wind gathers speed as we leave Mysore further and further behind.

The fraying threads have fallen apart to reveal gaping holes now – the storyteller opposite me is taking on the bulky form of a real person: a man consumed by his work, unable to communicate with his wife. Determined not to share his sorrows and hardships with her, he turns instead to a polite stranger on a train; a stranger whose eyes are constantly drawn to the moving black shapes outside the iron bars, pupils returning to him – tedious storyteller - in later and later intervals, with weary politeness: the barest indication that he still has some semblance of an audience.

Stories of colour and texture, from the corners of India have been overshadowed by the monumental confessions of personal trajectory. Long hours slaved, dedication and sincerity overlooked, increasing work loads, growing responsibility, the draw of more money – all eating angrily into personal solitude. And from initial conversation punctuated by self doubt and negation, now the story teller's tempo rises, his hands weave up and away and he speaks with renewed vigour: this time about heroes, about beacons of hope in this dismal rut of middle-class aspiration and mundanity.

Hitler! He adores (no, too fawning a word), he idolises Hitler.

“His determination! His ability to set a goal and achieve it, whatever the cost; his single-minded purpose!”

I mutter something about war crimes.

He leans forward to remind me of Bush. Triumphantly he mentions hundreds dead in Iraq – like a sparring partner who has been secretly practising overtime, he stops any pretence of accommodating my interjections, and indulges instead in an unstoppable eulogy to the majestic heroes who dared to punish those they believed had done wrong.

“Rapists? Should be murdered! Their hands should be chopped off!” He leans across and grabs me by the wrist. “They should be made to remember! Their executions should be public. People should watch and be afraid. There should be no doubt that thievery will lead to DEATH!”

My wrist is released.

His verbal sparring has outdone any partner who might have risen to meet his defiance and daring suggestions. He pushes each barrier of resistance, each seed of criticism with more and more confidence. “War crimes... Saudi Arabia... dictatorship...?”; the mild protests from the polite Listener are brushed aside with the confidence of a first time speaker-storyteller who has just succeeded in enchanting his virgin audience. His words are louder, more enunciated; definitive pronouncements now, listen to them - “Death! Hanging! Execution! Public shaming! Mass killing!”

The tirade continues. Earlier mild confessions and retorts, “... but although I am not a History or Geography student, I think...” have been overtaken by bold declarations of justice and revenge.

The night thickens. The compartment thins out. I draw my hands into my lap.

My story teller is now possessed by ghosts from a past that was not mentioned in the stories of the Lucknow shootout, the Amarnath trek or the Calcutta file-clearings. These are stories from a history that precedes my entry, stage left to the ticket counter where I stood before him and bought a cheap wooden bench ticket - “Unreserved, Madam! A fine of Rs. 150, or maybe more, depending on how the TC likes you!” - from Mysore to Bangalore, and he bought the same after me, asking the same question I did: Which platform? To which the irascible ticket vendor, nearing the end of a shift, dreaming of hot tiffin brought to him in a shiny scrubbed carrier, told him to just “follow the lady”.

He talks of persipacity and boldness; of capital punishment, of death camps; of grit, determination and resolve; of blinkered progress without a second thought.

**
Suddenly there is a scramble as the train starts to slow down. Crowds of people who materialise suddenly swell up at both exits; squeezed young men appear like toothpaste blobs, large head and then, painfully eked out, a visible thin rest-of-the-body coming around the corner of the berth, diving for a window seat – the train goes on, after this brief halt, down south to Tuticorin.

We hurry out, story teller and once-listener and suddenly the suspension of disbelief in the dimly lit compartment with the two curious ladies (wondering why the young girl was talking, so closely, to a stranger), the staring man from the berth across (who was fascinated by a certain point between the young lady's chin and the base of her neck), the farmer-turned-land owner men (wondering where the two ladies were going)... is shattered. The station is patchy with pools of white light and shallows of darkness hiding sleeping coolies and hungry old ladies and suddenly, scurrying out together, past long corridors smelling of tin-urine-sweat-hurry, up stairs where people scramble confused up and down along the same side of the banister, past unquestioning ticket checkers, we emerge into the night.

**
They live in the same neighbourhood, three streets away. He had asked her (earlier on, whilst they were still friends) how she was going to get home - “pre-paid auto,” she said, and he had said he would take one too.

They reach the station entrance and are ejected out into the sudden darkness of the night outside.

“Goodbye Madam,” he says briefly, raising a hand cursorily in a half wave, hurrying into the confusion of the street.

Some newness

In today's Sunday Herald, on a road trip:

"The first sign that things are going wrong is when the people disappear."

and last week's Sunday Magazine, on a climate change walk.

Alter ego

I'm confused and amused to discover that I have been plagiarised by a fictitious writer.

It's one of those fashion stories that I hid under the bed after writing, and it's been swiped by a Goan newspaper.

If I'd read all those press laws they made me study, I might have done something about this, but... well, I didn't.

Deccan Herald story

I have two eyes. I think you are beautiful. I will look.

Today's Deccan Herald explains the Action Heroes Project.

Article pasted here since the online link has expired.

Keys to the Street

"I have two eyes. I think you are beautiful. I will look!"

"I am not the 'sexual harassment' type of person. I was staring at you because it was crush. It was just a crush. I like your eyes."

"Why are you screaming? ( laughs out loud) I am only asking you out for coffee. I am not even touching you."

It's exhausting being "wooed".

A relentless stream of "compliments", bits of lewd film songs floating down to you, unsolicited attention, a general perception that the 'wooer' has every right to be there, 'wooing you'. That it's fine to stare invasively, to make remarks or inappropriate suggestions – as long as you weren't actually, physically touched. Is it, though? Who decides that staring is alright but pinching is not? That verbal harassment (asking someone out repeatedly when they've said a clear 'no' the first time) is alright, but physical is punishable?

As a project that began in 2003 with workshops and street interventions centred around this notion so flippantly called "eve teasing", as though it were just a little inside joke between the victim and the perpetrator, Blank Noise has often been on the streets just listening to and recording what men have to say about why they "eve tease". (We prefer to call it street sexual harassment.)

We've often had to ask ourselves what the lines are between someone wooing you, however clumsily, and someone harassing you. In a culture where women and men don't always interact freely and openly, establishing contact itself is a big step forward.

"I like girls who wear salwar kameez'es. That's the kind of girl I notice on the street. The one who's pretty in salwar kameezes. That's the kind of girl I want to marry."

What do you do then?

"I go up to them and say, "Excuse me! Hi I am Raju! Can I know your name? Can you give me your number?

They don't say anything and leave.

But I try my luck everyday."
(Stall Owner, Sarojini Nagar market, Delhi.)

Or this:

"I like all kinds of girls; the ones in salwar kameez are most attractive. I saw this girl once and trust my luck- I found a bouquet of roses, I pulled out a rose and gave it to her. She accepted it. I saw her father walking towards her. I quickly gave her my mobile number and said 'mera outgoing free hain, aapka incoming free hain."

"My cousin has a set of visiting cards with a rose on it, which he gives to every girl he meets."

Ajay is 22 years old . He hangs out in a particular coffee shop and has approached many girls and told them that they are beautiful. That has resulted in conversations and a date.

Were these instances of wooing? Or harassment? Did the girls want to be talked to? Did they say 'no'? For some women, these moves might have been appropriate. A way to meet the opposite sex. For others, because of class and cultural differences perhaps, these moves might be offensive.

We've listed the men's stories. What were the women's testimonials?

"His hand was cupped on my breast. I screamed. He did not react until I took the camera out and began photographing him. He got off the bus with me. He said, 'I am sorry. Please don't do this to me. I am a father of two children.' Just a few minutes before that, he ignored me, made it seem like I was screaming for no reason."

"I was taking a morning walk at 7 a.m. A van kept following me and asking, 'how much'?"

"It was during an afternoon stroll in Sadashivanagar. The car pulled along by me slowly, and the man kept blowing his car horn and trying to get my attention. 'Hello, hello...' Finally he threw a piece of paper with his phone number out the car window."

"I was constantly 'accidentally' elbowed in my breasts by the man in front of me"

" I had to bite a man who dragged me in a lane. He held me from the back. I do not recognise his face."

Somewhere along the way from the beginning of this article to this point, the narrative has changed. The experiences have morphed from the men's stories of casual "want-a-coffee" requests to the women's stories of retaliation, of helpless, of something larger, stronger than an indifferent response to a misplaced attempt at wooing. These are now stories of sexual violence. These are stories of sexual bullying of unjustified invasion of privacy, of behaviour bordering on stalking.

At Blank Noise we suggest that the point when a "wooer" becomes a harasser is the point when the girl says 'no'. But what next? We've established a perpetrator, we've established a 'victim' (though you may choose not to see yourself as one) – now what?

The current stage the Blank Noise Project is at reflects the need for women to respond, in their own individual ways, to such overtures. Attempting to make contact with someone could range from the whistle, to the pinch to, as we have seen, dragging someone down a lane with you unable to see their face and no one to listen to your screams for help.

This stage of the Blank Noise Project is the Action Heroes campaign. Strategies, street interventions and a blog-a-thon to mark Women's Day, that all centre around the concept of identifying street harassment and choosing the best way for you to respond to it.

We invite you to join us at our blog-a-thon. We had one last year that was hugely successful and had people share their testimonials of harassment. This year we're asking for responses and reactions. If you've responded to harassment and street violence, email us your story at blurtblanknoise@gmail.com. If you have a blog, blog your story on the morning of March 8, 2007, but before that, send us a shout at this email id that you're coming on board, so we can link to your blog and hopefully you will link back to ours: blanknoiseproject.blogspot.com

...

Box:

The Action Heroes campaign

Blank Noise Action Heroes are women who have chosen to react to street sexual violence. Theirs is not an emotional outburst but in fact a strategy, a plan or a choreography. An Action Hero has learnt to judge a situation. An Action Hero chooses to confront or not confront, but at no point ignores or avoids the problem.

Anybody can be an Action Hero. The idea is to challenge oneself and one's comfort levels through very simple acts, that have never been done before. Something as simple as women of different age groups occupying public spaces in numbers of twenties, thirties, forties, fifties.

There have been times at our interventions on Brigade Road when volunteers have come dressed in clothes they would not otherwise feel comfortable wearing. It is easily assumed that the clothes would therefore be provocative by popular standards. The answer is NO. While for one, wearing a sleeveless top is a brave thing to do in a public space, for another it would be a pair of jeans. For a woman always dressed in a sari it is challenging for her to wear a salwar kameez. By participating, each woman starts a process of questioning her limits, her relationship with her clothes, her body and the public space. She begins to take a closer look at her public and private identity.

What would brigade road be like without those railings?

What if for one evening women took over those railings? Brigade Road is one road in Bangalore that many women hurry past, aware of the men draped along the railings "checking them out" often with more than a look. Blank Noise Action Heroes have done simple things such as stand by the railings of brigade road, and enjoy the space as women. We look men in the eye, we confront their gaze head on, we hand out pamphlets on the law against street harassment (yes, there is one!) and we enjoy being out in the public space.

The public reacts by asking us why we are standing? Why we are looking?

We ask, "Why should that even be questionable?" There have been times when people assumed that a woman who looks back at you, is obviously interested in you. Annie Zaidie participated in the blank noise Blog-a-thon last year. She says. "Not glaring suspiciously at every male passerby can be interpreted as an invitation."

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Hahahahaha

British believe Bush more dangerous than Kim Jong-il.

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Also my story on The Hoot - The perils of becoming a good story
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Clearly, I have nothing left to say. How about a fotu eh? OK, after my Sunday expedition, exploring Banksy near Brick Lane. Till then, here's a peek at my latest obsession.

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