WOMEN

For a long time, I had been wanting to participate in the campaign against street sexual harassment (aka eve teasing) by Blank Noise. Finally, last Sunday (Aug-5) afternoon I joined the fortnightly action - this time on Church Street and Brigade Road from 3 - 5 pm. 5 of us reached out to around 150 pedestrians from different age, occupational and socio-economic backgrounds while displaying wall and hand held posters in English and Kannada. Some roadside vendors helped us enthusiastically while 4-5 male/female police personnel, taxi drivers and building security guards agreed with the prevalence of the issue and the message…

  Women with courage, strength and patience. Supporting their children and each other. Speaking out against violence at home and outside. Despite the pain of abuse and the threat of ostracization and backlash. In India, Cameroon, China, Kyrgyzstan and elsewhere. Portrayed through the lens of sensitive and concerned artists. In the women's own voices and others'. This was Daughters of Fire, a festival of films and discussions on violence against women and women's resistance to it. Last weekend, Vimochana and the Asian Women and Human Rights Council in collaboration with the Bangalore Film Society and Alliance Francaise de Bangalore organized…

Bangalore in the fifties was a relaxed, laid back town with little aspiration to cosmopolitanism. There was a rarely articulated divide, between the westernized cantonment area and the city areas with their predominantly old Mysorean culture. Double road (K H Road) was the dividing line as is still suggested by the crematorium on its eastern side. The cultural divide was quite stark, Veena and Carnatic music, long skirts and long hair, kho kho and tenniquoit in the schools on the south side and piano and western classical music, basket ball and hockey, knee length skirts and god forbid, shorts! on…