This Post will deal about my opinions about Street harassment for Blank Noise Project. I chanced upon this blog and liked their idea and started reading the links which were posted and thought I should add my 2 cents to it. Every link that originates from this has experiences of women who have been harassed in the bus or on the road. I thought I should write about this coz i want people to understand what it is to stand on the other side in the guy's shoes. Street Harassment isn't done only by people who are un-educated and who lived all their life in agony with no one to care about them. It is done in IIT-Madras as some one pointed out. It is done by people who are brought up in good families. It is experienced by every girl in some walk of their life. Every one has a story... Why do guys want to do this? Let me tell you it is not fun it brings upon life long tremendous guilt on the guy just as it brings a life long of unforgettable dirty experience for a girl. Yes you heard it right the guy feels guilty. I am not talking about people who do it for sadistic pleasure but guys from well brought up families who really can’t come in terms with their changing hormones. Guys who don't know whom to turn to. Just an average guy who represents more than 3 people of the 5 you meet every hour. Guys who know that their whole life will be spoiled if the girls just takes up the fight and reports to the police but still can’t stop themselves. It is after all a five minute pleasure which will bring you to earth if you jerk off. So is Sex it is also a five minute experience which is basis of all evolution of Man-Kind. Please try to understand I am not advocating that this kind of thing should happen. I still shudder when I read some of the blogs in blank noise. All I am trying to point out is the society is failing miserably in this regard. Our parents shy away to discuss things like this with us. We are not comfortable with our bodies. There is still a lot of gap between boys and girls in understanding each other. I am sure you will agree with me that Street harassment is more in the recent times than a few generations back. That makes me think.. ok their parents are still the same. They shyed away from their children But, still it is less why... This is my personal opinion... I attribute it to the way the girls brought changes to their life style in the recent times. They came a long way be it professionally or personally they have set great examples for men. They fought for their right place in the society... this is a damn great thing... I am proud of these women... I feel there are still hundreds of men who are not able to keep pace with this fact. Frankly speaking I feel this change could have been handled in a better way
Dressing is an important aspect. Many people rote that it is bull shit to argue woman to change the way they dress. An argument which is always put across when this is told is that women wearing saris and burka are not spared from street harassment. But, do you think street Harassment is impulsive I don guess so. The emotions well up in people and when they can’t hold it any longer then they resort to means which brings a shame upon the society. Many people rote that they resort to wearing loose T-shirts and Salwar when they go in public transport why do you resort to wearing stuff like that when street harassment doesn't care what you wear. I am not suggesting that immediately all the women in India should stop wearing provocative dresses. Let times open up. We are still a conservative society. Every one has a right to wear what they are comfortable in but, micro skirts and short tops with lots of skin show. I really doubt if someone will be comfortable in them. I personally feel they wear them to attract attention.
People got to be careful. All the MMS Clips making rounds and exposing in the movies is just making things much worse. Teenagers are getting affected. If your boy friend suggests we make a clip don't girls things how dangerous that proposition is and what kind of guy they are dealing with...
There is no end to this argument. This can go on forever. To summarize I suggest girls to be more careful and parents to educate their children... Your silence is your enemy. I know the societal pressure is really something which is impossible to handle. But if you want to bring a change in the society bold steps got to be taken. Next time someone touches you and if you know who is doing it. Please don't keep your mouth shut and bring a sadistic pleasure to the guy who will not only stop doing it but also encourages his friends to do it. Stand up to him and do whatever you can make him realize he is doing wrong. A slap, a punch, a shout which will make him ashamed. Do something. Women sure are changing and i sincerely believe it is just a matter of time even this social stigma goes forever from our lives and our future women generations live much better...
12/1/09
Sunny/ Pickled Politics for the Blank Noise blogathon (2006)
Yesterday was International Women’s Day which I nominally regard as a silly PR stunt. However this time it would be right to plug The Blank Noise project – a blog based campaign against harassment of women in India. The Indian blogosphere has quite admirably been very supportive of the project but that should come as no surprise since it’s populated by educated, liberal types.
I hope the project moves out of the blogosphere in a sustainable and concrete form so it can move away from preaching to the converted so to speak. Also admirable is their unwillingness to tolerate statements such as “Wear what you want! You just want to be leeched at right?” My hats off to the women, who have been running the project for a year now.
Lately on time- for the Blank Noise blogathon(2006)
I sat in the far end of the café at the end of the world, trying to ignore time and let my thoughts coil and uncoil in the dungeons of my mind. At eight in the evening on a Monday, the world, for all I cared, could march straight to apocalypse now and I would have strewn flowers in its way and smashed a bottle of champagne on its back. There is something manic about Mondays (as the song goes) that calls for a certain morbidity and snap-at-life-ness. However, here, in the sanctum of coffee fumes engulfed, in a snuck corner with nothing but a sheer wall behind me and the rest of the world stretching away from my toes, I felt the self sinking into a comfortable inertia.
On the table next to mine, gelled and calvin klined, sat five men – specimen of what globalised consumption, rich parents and good education can do to people – talking at the top of their voices, showering hi-fives to each other, laughing, roaring, making jokes, having a ball of a time wrapped in their indifference to therestoftheworld. It was the mobile brigade, their phones always on the beep and their hands punching keys even as they talked under the neon hued tree-scape. I smiled at them, over the rising vapours of my cup, with benign amusement – old age comes with tolerance for that which reminds one of one’s own younger days, when one sat on the roads, around an old wizened man strewing cups of tea served in thick glasses, and felt disconnected from the traffic that passed us by; the hours, the days, the years.
Time tiptoed around me, knowing quite well that one false step and I would have killed it with a flat note. And just when I was feeling divinely alone – like god in his heaven, flipping over pages in an old, old book – she walked in. I am not particularly sure how to describe her but if Byron were alive, he would have stirred out of his hashish induced stupor and poked me in my ribs with a familiarity that the Romantics had perfected, and issued a small whistle and said, ‘Now that’s what I meant when I said, ‘Walks in beauty like the night’ ’ before sliding back into his hallucinogenic world.
With quick unhurried steps, she climbed the stairs and made the entire room gasp – a thing of beauty joy forever – and with a smile that would have lit a couple of African nations for a year and a tilt of the head that could have changed seasons, she walked in. Her stride was unconcerned, her hands, covered in many bangles tinkled as they swayed. She punctuated her walk with a comma, perched, as if in mid-air, to sweep the room with her eyes and then traipsed along to the far corner of the triangular room that we were all entombed in. You could see that she was happy. She smiled at strangers – something you generally don’t do in big cities unless you are begging or waiting to be picked up, she irradiated a certain all’s-well-with-the-worldness around her that was infectious. The room felt a better place, now that she was there. In her eyes, one could see traces of a secret joy that she was fostering – nothing in specific, just the joy of somebody who was happy to be alive.
People smiled back at her; momentarily taken aback, but caught in the wave of happiness that she was riding, but eventually giving in. The waiters all watched with their breaths held up, to see which table she descended on. And as she walked certain steps towards where I was sitting, there was a sudden lull in her stride. A chance word or comment from the GAP Group, as I called them in my mind, stopped her in midair as if she was frozen in time. As she stopped, there was a huge roar of laughter and the more courageous man – one shall call him that for lack of a better word – stood up and walked quickly to where she was standing. On the pretext of going nowhere he brushed against her and let his hand hover over her back, closer to the legs than you would have liked to imagine. And then with a look of a hyena that had found its prey, sauntered back to his table, his head held high and his pants tenting in the traces of a power erection.
It happened so fast that the only spectator to this whole thing was me and the bastids who were flocked at the table, their faces split in indecent glee and their eyes covered with a sheen of machismo, now that they had collectively conspired against a single woman in a public place. Her face was registering shock, like somebody had suddenly slapped her with a wet sponge. Her eyes were wide with the unexpected and quivering in anger. Her nostrils were dilating and her body was erect, caught in a rage that had no defining. I looked in horror back at her, wondering what to do next. What does one do next? Does one get up and preach to the bastids – the sons of bachelors, the gutter rats? Does one avenge the woman’s ‘honour’? Does one get up and shrug shoulders and leave it at that because that’s how the world functions? Does one join in, showing camaraderie to the macho men that they are? Does one pretend that it never happened? Does one make a mental note in the mind, only to quickly pile it up with something else? Does one naturalise it because come on, it happens every day to everybody, right?
Questions, at the speed of hemp fumes, rushed in my mind as I half sat and half stood, unable to reach a decision. Our eyes met and silently I offered her any help that she might have needed. But before I could stand up and offer any help of any sort, she turned. Taking slow and calculated steps she reached the roadside romeo who had just violated her, swung her hand in a style that would have made Sania Mirza gasp in envy and gave one tight resounding slap on his cheek. Swearing in styles that would have immediately made the censor board issue an A certificate, calling upon their mothers and sisters to the oldest professions in the world, she emptied a cup of hot coffee on a gelled head and then quietly walked back towards where I was sitting.
The silence in the room was palpable. The entire populace was staring between the two tables, from her to them, as if it was a tennis match. The rug rats had visibly shrunk, their eyes wide in horror. The Slapped sod was on the verge of tears and the others were doing a fine imitation of a rabbit caught in headlights. One slap and an overturned cup was all that was required to deflate their hormone fed masculinity. In two minutes, they had disappeared, their lesson learnt, hopefully thinking twice before ever engaging in casual eve teasing…
It needs people like her to remind at least half of MAN kind that even Adam, when he had walked up to Eve and made a pass, had a red cheek and a kick in his balls for the action. Eve teasing is a crime and to let it pass of as a joke, perhaps even bigger. Sexual harassment is an act of violation and violence and deserves to be punished – sometimes informally and sometimes through the law, depending upon the nature of it. It needs people like her to fight it. And it needs everybody who agrees with it, to support the fight. This is not a battle of the sexes – men versus women; it is the battle between people who care and people who don’t. Whether man or woman, if you see an act of sexual harassment, no matter how miniscule it might be, no matter who it is targeted at, do not ignore it or detach yourself from it. What happened to her could happen to anybody we know – men or women. And sometimes just your presence or solidarity gives the victim enough courage to right things up.
It is women’s day today and as a part of the Blank Noise Blogathon, I endorse the need to fight actively against sexual harassment in public spaces around us.
On the table next to mine, gelled and calvin klined, sat five men – specimen of what globalised consumption, rich parents and good education can do to people – talking at the top of their voices, showering hi-fives to each other, laughing, roaring, making jokes, having a ball of a time wrapped in their indifference to therestoftheworld. It was the mobile brigade, their phones always on the beep and their hands punching keys even as they talked under the neon hued tree-scape. I smiled at them, over the rising vapours of my cup, with benign amusement – old age comes with tolerance for that which reminds one of one’s own younger days, when one sat on the roads, around an old wizened man strewing cups of tea served in thick glasses, and felt disconnected from the traffic that passed us by; the hours, the days, the years.
Time tiptoed around me, knowing quite well that one false step and I would have killed it with a flat note. And just when I was feeling divinely alone – like god in his heaven, flipping over pages in an old, old book – she walked in. I am not particularly sure how to describe her but if Byron were alive, he would have stirred out of his hashish induced stupor and poked me in my ribs with a familiarity that the Romantics had perfected, and issued a small whistle and said, ‘Now that’s what I meant when I said, ‘Walks in beauty like the night’ ’ before sliding back into his hallucinogenic world.
With quick unhurried steps, she climbed the stairs and made the entire room gasp – a thing of beauty joy forever – and with a smile that would have lit a couple of African nations for a year and a tilt of the head that could have changed seasons, she walked in. Her stride was unconcerned, her hands, covered in many bangles tinkled as they swayed. She punctuated her walk with a comma, perched, as if in mid-air, to sweep the room with her eyes and then traipsed along to the far corner of the triangular room that we were all entombed in. You could see that she was happy. She smiled at strangers – something you generally don’t do in big cities unless you are begging or waiting to be picked up, she irradiated a certain all’s-well-with-the-worldness around her that was infectious. The room felt a better place, now that she was there. In her eyes, one could see traces of a secret joy that she was fostering – nothing in specific, just the joy of somebody who was happy to be alive.
People smiled back at her; momentarily taken aback, but caught in the wave of happiness that she was riding, but eventually giving in. The waiters all watched with their breaths held up, to see which table she descended on. And as she walked certain steps towards where I was sitting, there was a sudden lull in her stride. A chance word or comment from the GAP Group, as I called them in my mind, stopped her in midair as if she was frozen in time. As she stopped, there was a huge roar of laughter and the more courageous man – one shall call him that for lack of a better word – stood up and walked quickly to where she was standing. On the pretext of going nowhere he brushed against her and let his hand hover over her back, closer to the legs than you would have liked to imagine. And then with a look of a hyena that had found its prey, sauntered back to his table, his head held high and his pants tenting in the traces of a power erection.
It happened so fast that the only spectator to this whole thing was me and the bastids who were flocked at the table, their faces split in indecent glee and their eyes covered with a sheen of machismo, now that they had collectively conspired against a single woman in a public place. Her face was registering shock, like somebody had suddenly slapped her with a wet sponge. Her eyes were wide with the unexpected and quivering in anger. Her nostrils were dilating and her body was erect, caught in a rage that had no defining. I looked in horror back at her, wondering what to do next. What does one do next? Does one get up and preach to the bastids – the sons of bachelors, the gutter rats? Does one avenge the woman’s ‘honour’? Does one get up and shrug shoulders and leave it at that because that’s how the world functions? Does one join in, showing camaraderie to the macho men that they are? Does one pretend that it never happened? Does one make a mental note in the mind, only to quickly pile it up with something else? Does one naturalise it because come on, it happens every day to everybody, right?
Questions, at the speed of hemp fumes, rushed in my mind as I half sat and half stood, unable to reach a decision. Our eyes met and silently I offered her any help that she might have needed. But before I could stand up and offer any help of any sort, she turned. Taking slow and calculated steps she reached the roadside romeo who had just violated her, swung her hand in a style that would have made Sania Mirza gasp in envy and gave one tight resounding slap on his cheek. Swearing in styles that would have immediately made the censor board issue an A certificate, calling upon their mothers and sisters to the oldest professions in the world, she emptied a cup of hot coffee on a gelled head and then quietly walked back towards where I was sitting.
The silence in the room was palpable. The entire populace was staring between the two tables, from her to them, as if it was a tennis match. The rug rats had visibly shrunk, their eyes wide in horror. The Slapped sod was on the verge of tears and the others were doing a fine imitation of a rabbit caught in headlights. One slap and an overturned cup was all that was required to deflate their hormone fed masculinity. In two minutes, they had disappeared, their lesson learnt, hopefully thinking twice before ever engaging in casual eve teasing…
It needs people like her to remind at least half of MAN kind that even Adam, when he had walked up to Eve and made a pass, had a red cheek and a kick in his balls for the action. Eve teasing is a crime and to let it pass of as a joke, perhaps even bigger. Sexual harassment is an act of violation and violence and deserves to be punished – sometimes informally and sometimes through the law, depending upon the nature of it. It needs people like her to fight it. And it needs everybody who agrees with it, to support the fight. This is not a battle of the sexes – men versus women; it is the battle between people who care and people who don’t. Whether man or woman, if you see an act of sexual harassment, no matter how miniscule it might be, no matter who it is targeted at, do not ignore it or detach yourself from it. What happened to her could happen to anybody we know – men or women. And sometimes just your presence or solidarity gives the victim enough courage to right things up.
It is women’s day today and as a part of the Blank Noise Blogathon, I endorse the need to fight actively against sexual harassment in public spaces around us.
India Uncut for the Blank Noise Blogathon (2006)
Of many violations:
This post is my contribution to the Blank Noise Project, which I support and applaud.
It feels strange to write this post, part of the Blank Noise Project Blogathon to protest eve-teasing and harrassment, for one simple reason: I'm a man. Till recently, I didn't quite understand the extent to which women are violated every day in India, in so many different ways, and that there are no exceptions to this -- you step outside the house, you're a body. I'm not sure I can understand what it must be to be treated like meat. Never happened to me.
When I walk with female companions in crowded places in Mumbai, like railway stations, I often walk directly in front of them, to clear the way, or behind them, to make sure they don't get felt up. So many of my female friends, when I ask, tell me stuff they've gone through that seems shocking to me, but is everyday to them. A touch here, a grope there, push, squeeze, hold, pinch, being reduced to tits and ass. Bloody hell, I'm lucky to be a man; and a part of me says I should be ashamed to feel that way.
When a woman is violated, of course, it is not just in a physical sense: looking does it too. You live in an Indian city? Notice the men when a pretty woman walks by in a public place sometime, see where their eyes are. Nice breasts, no? Such an ass. See how she walks, thumak thumak ke. Ah, how you'd like to...
I suppose women are used to the male gaze, and I can't imagine how. But everytime a man talks disparagingly about letches, he's being hypocritical, to some extent or the other. After all, we all 'check out' women fairly often. If we're male, we have the gaze. Maybe we've just learnt to make it less obvious. One man's checking out is another man's letching. Where do you cross the line?
Well, where you certainly do cross the line is when the look becomes the touch. Why are Indian men in Indian cities so free with their hands? Well, because by a lack of adequate condemnation and punishment, there is a sort of social sanction for it. Now, while men probably can't imagine what women go through in crowded buses and trains, they can put a stop to it. Instead of turning a blind eye to what is happening around us -- minding our own business, avoiding trouble -- we can raise our voice, and even our hands, if we spot someone violating a woman's space. Every time one of us does this, shames a molester in a public space, we change that public space just a little bit, and make it harder for the next guy to go overboard. And even if we don't know the woman we're helping out, we're making things a little bit easier for the women we do know and care about.
So that's my own resolution, and my plea to the men out there. What can I say to the women that so many other women haven't blogged about eloquently already? There's nothing new to say, but I'll just say this: it's not your fault and you shouldn't have to put up with it, so don't. Be like Hemangini famously was in the train to Chennai. Be strong.
Not like us male schmucks.
This post is my contribution to the Blank Noise Project, which I support and applaud.
It feels strange to write this post, part of the Blank Noise Project Blogathon to protest eve-teasing and harrassment, for one simple reason: I'm a man. Till recently, I didn't quite understand the extent to which women are violated every day in India, in so many different ways, and that there are no exceptions to this -- you step outside the house, you're a body. I'm not sure I can understand what it must be to be treated like meat. Never happened to me.
When I walk with female companions in crowded places in Mumbai, like railway stations, I often walk directly in front of them, to clear the way, or behind them, to make sure they don't get felt up. So many of my female friends, when I ask, tell me stuff they've gone through that seems shocking to me, but is everyday to them. A touch here, a grope there, push, squeeze, hold, pinch, being reduced to tits and ass. Bloody hell, I'm lucky to be a man; and a part of me says I should be ashamed to feel that way.
When a woman is violated, of course, it is not just in a physical sense: looking does it too. You live in an Indian city? Notice the men when a pretty woman walks by in a public place sometime, see where their eyes are. Nice breasts, no? Such an ass. See how she walks, thumak thumak ke. Ah, how you'd like to...
I suppose women are used to the male gaze, and I can't imagine how. But everytime a man talks disparagingly about letches, he's being hypocritical, to some extent or the other. After all, we all 'check out' women fairly often. If we're male, we have the gaze. Maybe we've just learnt to make it less obvious. One man's checking out is another man's letching. Where do you cross the line?
Well, where you certainly do cross the line is when the look becomes the touch. Why are Indian men in Indian cities so free with their hands? Well, because by a lack of adequate condemnation and punishment, there is a sort of social sanction for it. Now, while men probably can't imagine what women go through in crowded buses and trains, they can put a stop to it. Instead of turning a blind eye to what is happening around us -- minding our own business, avoiding trouble -- we can raise our voice, and even our hands, if we spot someone violating a woman's space. Every time one of us does this, shames a molester in a public space, we change that public space just a little bit, and make it harder for the next guy to go overboard. And even if we don't know the woman we're helping out, we're making things a little bit easier for the women we do know and care about.
So that's my own resolution, and my plea to the men out there. What can I say to the women that so many other women haven't blogged about eloquently already? There's nothing new to say, but I'll just say this: it's not your fault and you shouldn't have to put up with it, so don't. Be like Hemangini famously was in the train to Chennai. Be strong.
Not like us male schmucks.
10/5/09
9/17/09
BN guy Arun
Last year I was in Hyderabad at a pub called Sparks. Was there with a dear female friend and we were catching up over a few drinks. Now Sparks used to be a cool place about 8 years back and is pretty run down now with hardly any mixed crowd coming there at all. In a word, it has become seedy.
We were there only for nostalgic reasons and found it odd that the only other customers at the place were two young women. My friend and I found it decidedly odd and while on the way back from the little boys room I stopped by and asked them (very politely) why they had chosen this pub in spite of its condition..i explained that we were there only for nostalgic reasons and were curious if there could, indeed, be more people there for the same reason..
To this one of the girls nearly bit my head off. And made me feel I had tried to tease/intimidate them. I was surprised that she reacted like that, apologized and made my way back to my table. There was nothing in my body language to suggest anything close to what she implied.
I apologized again on the way out for having offended them but can't think why I should have today.
8/26/09
BN GUY Shrikar Marur: street tales of love lust and possible misinterpretations
The street is one public/ transitory space that I have occupied with utmost consciousness or the absolute lack of it. The street it one space that I have always traversed the quickest and been most lost in thoughts. Every time I am on a street, depending on the purpose of my being on the street, my body language changes. When I am in a hurry to reach or leave a space and hence am on a street, I would not notice anything or anybody but just try reaching the required destination. On the other hand, if I were in a street like Brigade road or Commercial st, I would walk slowly, looking at the billboards, looking at people etc.
For the most of my time at public spaces, it is spent by looking at the whole space and not people in particular. Even when I do look at people, it is never to establish eye contact or to attempt conversing with strangers. This one time, however, I had an interaction with this stranger that I hope was a misinterpretation.
Domlur bus stop, 22:00 hrs.
After a visit to a friend's place for an evening, I decided to take a bus from Domlur to Koramangala in an attempt to save some money that I would have otherwise spent on auto and ironical as it was, ended up spending a little more than what I would have if I had taken an auto ride back home on the first place.Walking for about half a kilometer through dark alleys that eventually led to an ever darker bus depot that was so empty and ill lit, that I was absolutely certain that about half a dozen hired goons would surround me and I would, if Indian cinemas have taught me anything, would have to establish my worth by fighting them in the most unimaginable ways imaginable. Unfortunately, that did not happen and I just had an uneventful walk around the bus depot trying to figure out the duration of my possible wait for the next bus, only to notice that I was the only one at the bus depot which meant I had just missed a bus and the fact that the space was no longer accumulating people meant that the bus I had just missed was possibly the last bus for the day. Walking out the depot, I noticed this one man, in his early thirties, his attire clearly signifying his social and financial background, standing, leaning against the wall that separated the depot from the main road looking around, and this was noticeable as no one waiting for a bus or wanting to board a bus would wait against a wall as it would be visually challenging for him to follow buses that would enter or leave the depot. Not speculating his presence or actions or the lack of it, I just walked past him trying to hold an auto with no passenger that would probably pass the depot looking for the wise people like myself who planned their evening well enough to miss the last bus.
Answering a call from a friend and talking to him not-so discreetly, I was rather obvious about my ethnicity with my conversation in Tamizh and the dialect. Half way through the rather unimportant but very engrossing conversation with my friend, I heard a whistling sound from the man resting against the wall. Writing the first few calls off as attempts to entertain himself or trying to stop autos that I realized weren't around, I slowly reacted to the periodical whistles that were increasing in frequency and decibels. Turning around in response to the whistles, i realized the whistles were not for an auto as I hoped them to be but for me. Trying to get over my shock of such an act from a stranger, I saw him trying to usher me into a darker corner of an already dark space. Looking at his hand pointing to a bag, it hit me that he was probably trying to make a drug deal with me or was a pimp and misconstrued my presence there as looking for some action. Every elapsing second of my presence there and my responding to his very existence only made him presume I was interested in him and his deals and he grew more obvious and loud in his gestures of trying to probably signal to me something that I failed to comprehend. I knew it would be a terrible idea for me to be there even for a second longer and just walked at a pace that would not result in my running but fast enough for me to get to the adjoining main road that held the first rays of street lights that seemed a lot more to me than just rays of light to light up the street. Not looking back and not acknowledging his calls, I walked across the main road little caring for the oncoming traffic and crossed a 2ft divider to ensure I was in a safer space and contrary to my usual routine of getting into a long debate with auto drivers over the tariff, I just got into the fist auto that agreed to take me to Koramangala, not even questioning him about the charge.
Two years hence, there have been other instances that have surpassed this incident in terms of its "shock" value, but this this incident is one of the most unforgettable one of the lot as I as a spectator or a participant have always been better prepared and have managed to handle the subsequent situations better.
Shrikar is a student at Srishti School of Art Design and Technology. He wrote this while doing a workshop with Blank Noise. more here!8/25/09
BN guy Kinshuk for ' street tales of love lust and possible misinterpretations'
After four years I saw a face in the market that truly resembled her, four years back she had left school and city due to unknown reasons. It was not as if we were good friends, boys and girls rarely talked to each other in school. But after four years, suddenly seeing her aroused curiosity and I felt compelled to talk to her. Without any second thought i started following her with a puzzled mind. She was not alone; an unknown face accompanied her, maybe one of her friends. With her fierce gaze the unknown face just turned to burn me with embarrassment. I wanted to shout and tell her “I am not following you, but just wanted to say hello to my classmate. “Anyway I felt defeated and decided to never repeat this mistake. But my heart was questioning what had I done so wrong? After an hour, when I was struggling to pull my scooty out, i noticed her again in a nearby cloth shop.
“should I”....”shouldn’t I”, “should I”....”shouldn’t i, “should I”....”shouldn’t I”...........
I finally decided not to directly confront her, but stand somewhere to make sure, she recognized.
I stood strategically at a place where she could see my reflection in one of the mirrors of the shop. And I am sure she did........ But before she could turn, I paced back towards my scooty.
Since then I have never seen her. I don’t even remember anything clearly about her, but I keep wondering why I left, what stroke me to leave all of a sudden.
Maybe because I really never knew if it was her, maybe because she had forgotten one of her classmates, maybe I was too embarrassed by previous incident to dare to stand there. Maybe.
Maybe, because we were strangers.
Kinshuk is a student at Srishti School of Art Design and Technology. He wrote this while doing a workshop with Blank Noise. More here!
“should I”....”shouldn’t I”, “should I”....”shouldn’t i, “should I”....”shouldn’t I”...........
I finally decided not to directly confront her, but stand somewhere to make sure, she recognized.
I stood strategically at a place where she could see my reflection in one of the mirrors of the shop. And I am sure she did........ But before she could turn, I paced back towards my scooty.
Since then I have never seen her. I don’t even remember anything clearly about her, but I keep wondering why I left, what stroke me to leave all of a sudden.
Maybe because I really never knew if it was her, maybe because she had forgotten one of her classmates, maybe I was too embarrassed by previous incident to dare to stand there. Maybe.
Maybe, because we were strangers.
Kinshuk is a student at Srishti School of Art Design and Technology. He wrote this while doing a workshop with Blank Noise. More here!
8/22/09
Anubhav
From Anubhav in 2007:
When Vaibhav Vats, the President of my college’s ‘Literary Society’ told me that the Society was organising a talk on sexual harassment and concerned issues, I, frankly speaking, did not expect to see or hear anything new or different from all that I already knew about the said subject.
I was wrong.
For not only did that seminar expose me to the hard realities of modern, urban life-realities which until now I, even though aware of them, had not chosen to believe in-but also, by putting these ‘inconvenient truths’ right before my very nose, made me, forced me, to look out of the cocoon of my own happy life into a larger scheme of things. This, I suppose, is the only reason why I’m writing to you even though it’s been almost three and a half months since that seminar.
Like most people, I too had my peculiar set of ideas, ideals and beliefs, all of which are close to me and not just determine my actions, but also shape my outlook. One such peculiar and, in light of this seminar of yours, perhaps outdated belief is in the essential goodness of humanity. While I still refuse to let go of this idea, your seminar did weaken its hold on me in a way that neither newspapers nor statisticians managed, for while the former has a negligible and fickle impact on the conscience, the latter is easy to dismiss if one were to emulate Mark Twain’s notorious example and dump it in the category off the third and, presumably, biggest lie. Hence, inspite of being an avid newspaper reader and inspite of being well aware of the statistician’s alarming conclusion about rapes being perpetrated every twenty-nine minutes in Delhi, I managed to stay blissfully ignorant of the real situation. This is not to say that I am not appalled when I read or get to know about incidents of sexual exploitation- it’s just that I would feel shocked and then move on to the next news item…
Therefore, when Annie Zaidi, Blank Noise started talking about how a huge, humongous majority of Indian women have been sexually harassed at some point or the other in their lives, I was taken aback. But when all the female members of the audience raised their hands in affirmative response to the question whether they had been sexually harassed, I was shocked! I mean, well, OK, I knew these unfortunate things happen, but that they happen in such huge percentages was a revelation that shook me. Agreed that there are no more knights in shining armour, but is this the age of knaves and monsters?...
From your seminar (and not just your but also the great many that followed it) it seems that it is. I cloud not believe my ears when the speaker went on to spell out some of the words from a collection dubiously titled as the ‘Eve-teasing Dictionary’. So great was my amazement and disgust that immediately after the seminar I cornered one of my (male) friends and asked him whether he had ever heard such words, such deeply derogatory and shameful words, being used. I was sure that here atleast I would get a confirmation of my views, my beliefs…
It was the second time in that day that I was proved wrong.
What that fellow told me left me speechless. It seems that seventeen and a half years in this city had not exposed me to one of its most rampant evils…
However, past experiences apart, I must first congratulate you and so, Blank Noise, for its praiseworthy efforts in fighting sexual harassment and then request you to put my e-mail address [anubhav.p16@gmail.com] on your mailing list (your representative at the seminar told us about this facility).
When Vaibhav Vats, the President of my college’s ‘Literary Society’ told me that the Society was organising a talk on sexual harassment and concerned issues, I, frankly speaking, did not expect to see or hear anything new or different from all that I already knew about the said subject.
I was wrong.
For not only did that seminar expose me to the hard realities of modern, urban life-realities which until now I, even though aware of them, had not chosen to believe in-but also, by putting these ‘inconvenient truths’ right before my very nose, made me, forced me, to look out of the cocoon of my own happy life into a larger scheme of things. This, I suppose, is the only reason why I’m writing to you even though it’s been almost three and a half months since that seminar.
Like most people, I too had my peculiar set of ideas, ideals and beliefs, all of which are close to me and not just determine my actions, but also shape my outlook. One such peculiar and, in light of this seminar of yours, perhaps outdated belief is in the essential goodness of humanity. While I still refuse to let go of this idea, your seminar did weaken its hold on me in a way that neither newspapers nor statisticians managed, for while the former has a negligible and fickle impact on the conscience, the latter is easy to dismiss if one were to emulate Mark Twain’s notorious example and dump it in the category off the third and, presumably, biggest lie. Hence, inspite of being an avid newspaper reader and inspite of being well aware of the statistician’s alarming conclusion about rapes being perpetrated every twenty-nine minutes in Delhi, I managed to stay blissfully ignorant of the real situation. This is not to say that I am not appalled when I read or get to know about incidents of sexual exploitation- it’s just that I would feel shocked and then move on to the next news item…
Therefore, when Annie Zaidi, Blank Noise started talking about how a huge, humongous majority of Indian women have been sexually harassed at some point or the other in their lives, I was taken aback. But when all the female members of the audience raised their hands in affirmative response to the question whether they had been sexually harassed, I was shocked! I mean, well, OK, I knew these unfortunate things happen, but that they happen in such huge percentages was a revelation that shook me. Agreed that there are no more knights in shining armour, but is this the age of knaves and monsters?...
From your seminar (and not just your but also the great many that followed it) it seems that it is. I cloud not believe my ears when the speaker went on to spell out some of the words from a collection dubiously titled as the ‘Eve-teasing Dictionary’. So great was my amazement and disgust that immediately after the seminar I cornered one of my (male) friends and asked him whether he had ever heard such words, such deeply derogatory and shameful words, being used. I was sure that here atleast I would get a confirmation of my views, my beliefs…
It was the second time in that day that I was proved wrong.
What that fellow told me left me speechless. It seems that seventeen and a half years in this city had not exposed me to one of its most rampant evils…
However, past experiences apart, I must first congratulate you and so, Blank Noise, for its praiseworthy efforts in fighting sexual harassment and then request you to put my e-mail address [anubhav.p16@gmail.com] on your mailing list (your representative at the seminar told us about this facility).
7/30/09
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