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
