The Blank Noise Project

Blog-a-thon 2006
Marking our one year foray into the blog world, we’ve decided to host a Blog-a-thon on the issue of street harassment. No, you don’t have to run anywhere (thankfully) to participate, you’ve just got to get to your computer this TUESDAY (7th MARCH) and post your thoughts on street harassment/ eve teasing on your blog. You can write about anything related to the topic: testimonies, opinions on harassment, comments about the Blank Noise project, would all be great. It doesn't matter where you're from, where you live, or whether you're a man or a woman - we'd love to have you on board. If you’d like to participate, send an email to blurtblanknoise[AT]gmail.com before the coming Monday (6th March). We’ll add your name and blogsite to the ‘running’ list of participants on the Blank Noise blogsite so that everyone can see what everyone else is writing about the topic. Also, just to get the maximum number of people 'out' for this event - we'd request that you put up a posting on your blog prior to Monday to encourage other people to participate, and to let them know to check your blog on Monday. So join one, join all!

Ritual. (Rest assured it's fiction..)

The culmination of insecurities shared with brave tentativeness,
of endless conversations about timing,
of drunken attempts and sober regrets,
of clandestine note-sharing with friends:

Yes, the culmination of all that is finally here. A sliver of moonlight quietly illuminates the room, the wine is beginning to fulfil its obligations, the music is painfully contrived. A piece of furniture has never seemed so intimidating but we find it in us to face the challenges it offers.

"I love you..." He says, sitting on the bed, pulling me close.

"Love you too.."

There is hand-holding and face-cupping, and even the shuffling of feet, but we find ourselves stalling for there we are, the two of us swathed in an impenetrable black. We try, through languid kisses and genital-grazing, to find shape beneath the staid opaqueness. Each one tries equally desperately to disrobe the other; each one is equally adamant to hold on to their own shroud.

"Um. Are you...?" I ask, laughing nervously.

"Yeah...no..defin.." he answers, pausing. "Yeah."

"Well then you have to...you know..."

"I know." Maybe we should just..."

"Maybe. Yeah.."

We tousle each other's hair an appropriate amount and he, with the precision of a surgeon, smudges my eye make-up with his fingers. We adjust our bed linen according to cinematic diktats, gaze at each other with vacuous fondness.

"Cigarette?" I ask casually.

"Sure."

We lay in each others arms and fall asleep smelling of smoke.

Party invitation!

In case I missed anyone out in my e-mail which I'm pretty sure I did...

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Dear everyone,

As most of you were informed through a mass text message this afternoon - clearly I need to brush up on my etiquette - my plans have changed. Instead of leaving at the end of next month, I will, in fact, be leaving next Friday. Yes it is sudden, but apparently I'm into making impulsive decisions lately. Anyway to a) celebrate my leaving b) mourn the imminent loss of my presence in your lives c) be wildly debaucherous, I am having a get together at my house this Saturday. It's a good 5 days before I'm leaving but you will all need time to deal with the gaping hole that I will leave behind. Well that and the weekends are the easiest time to get people together.

Right. Party. This Saturday. My house. Between 8:30-9:00 but you're free to drop in before that too. I'll organise the food, so please please RSVP so I know how many people to order for. I will also organise peanuts for those in our midst who drove me mad over the lack of them the last time (cough cough Sowmya cough). Bring your own alcohol and let me know what you're bringing so I can make arrangements for cokes, sprites, tonics and what-have-you. Feel free to bring your friends, lovers, roommates, siblings, pin-up dolls, that cute guy in Toto's (ahem....whoever brings him will be my hero forever). Unfortunately - and this is for you Meenu - I'm going to draw the line at gigolos. Don't cry. I'm saving that for my hen party that'll never happen.

Also though you don't have to, you can dress up because it's always nice to have an excuse to get decked up. If you don't, I might feel a little silly and over-dressed but that's okay.

Oh. Right. Don't feel restricted in your alcohol consumption because everyone is more than welcome to stay over. It might be a tight fit, but we'll manage. I have enough Alka-Seltzers (a.k.a anti-hangover miracle stuff) for everyone.

I think I've covered everything. You all know where I live; you all know where to call.

See you all on Saturday!

Love, Auri

Bleeding colour gone to black.

Just got back from dropping Rosemary to the airport. The house feels strangely silent; my bed seems much too big. I have no idea what I'm going to do for those 10 minutes right before I fall asleep - there's no one to talk and laugh and cry and watch "The L Word" with. She was only here for three weeks, but spending time together seemed so impossibly normal that it was strange to think we hadn't seen each other in 8 months. I'm sure she felt differently since she was experiencing an entirely different culture and country, but for me, I tended to forget that she hadn't always been here in India. I'm going to miss her immensely...

That said, both of us were getting quite antsy by the end of it. I think we're both used to being a lot more productive than we've been the last 3 weeks. All we did in Bombay is watch lesbian soap operas and eat hideous amounts of chocolate and talk about sex and drink gin and tonics and loaf around with my friends. While I think we both really needed vacations from the stress that comes with life, we were both really looking forward to getting back on track. I'm really excited about having a routine again even though I'm pretty much idle for another month. Still I have a lot of sorting out to do in my personal and professional life, and now's the ideal time to do it.

Also here are the books I have lined up:

Amitav Ghosh - The Shadow Lines (I started reading this but really hadn't had time to pay enough atttention it, so I might have to restart)

Salman Rushdie - The Ground Beneath Her Feet

John Irving - Widow For One Year.

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So I leave Bombay for Dubai on the 25th March, and I'll be there until the end of April after which I'll go to San Francisco to take LSAT coaching classes after which I'll actually take my LSAT in CA on the 12th of June. Phew. It feels good to have a plan even though it's still a while away.

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Rosemary and Raghu in Delhi.



Rosemary with the Jagniwas Mandir in the background in Udaipur.



City Palace, Udaipur.



Rosemary and me at the Taj compound with one of the mosques in the background.



L-R: Sowmya, Auri, Rosemary, Supu, Kanika - the debaucherous night at my house before we left on our trip.

Pictures, pictures....

The Taj in all its beauty.



See? Hebrew!



In the hotel at Jaipur.



Gorgeous, gorgeous Udaipur.



Rosemary and I at Hawa Mahal, Jaipur. Seriously, how cute are we?

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In other news, I just sent in my application for the fellowship being offered by the UN Population Fund Agency. Please keep your fingers and toes and everything else crossed for me.

Home, home again...

Wow, so back in Bombay - we were only away for 9 days but somehow it seemed like much much longer. I have mixed feelings about being back - on one hand, it was nice to get away, but on the other hand, Bombay has never seemed more like home than in the past few months. In all honesty, I thought the trip to Rajasthan would be an ideal getaway from recent emotional tumult and future uncertainties, but somehow, I felt like I had more time to mull over things which led to a few meltdowns. It didn't help that both my hormones and sleep were conspiring against me.

When I wrote my last post, we were still in Pushkar. After spending two days there that can only be described as "interesting," we left for Udaipur. Our bus was scheduled to leave at 11:00 am, but even as the clock moved lazily towards 12:45, there was no sign of the bus. Finally, 8 of us (plus driver and his crony) were shoved into a Jeep (old school Mahindra & Mahindra) and packed off to Ajmer from where our bus would supposedly leave. Rosemary and I had to sit in the trunk with all our bags, a tyre, and an Australian chap who we'd dubbed "Roberto" because of his uncanny resemblance to his (fake) namesake (Seriously, Surabhi, I wish I could've taken a picture...). We quickly befriended Roberto only to find out that his name was Clint and also that despite the fact that he was decidedly unclean, he was quite lovely. After a very bumpy and cramped half hour, we finally boarded the bus in Ajmer when I realised quite to my dismay that I'd left my favourite favourite green Simon's sweater in the Jeep. It makes me disgustingly sad so that's all I'll say about that. Except that it was extra special to me because I'd inaugrated it at the Pixies' concert last year.

It seemed at first that the bus ride was going to be like all others - overloaded with belligerent women and men revelling in loud, malodorous burps. It didn't seem too different from my daily train rides in Bombay, really. The journey was supposed to be five hours long, but instead it took a ridiculous 7 hours. Turns out the staff on the bus were unprecedently unscrupulous and without embellishment, during the course of the journey, at least 100 random people were picked up and dropped off. The bus conductor who looked vaguely Sicilian made at least, at least Rs 2-3000 that day. Like most people, I don't appreciate random people's bums on my arm. I also don't like it when I can't sit straight because there are random people sitting on me. It was also during this bus journey that I realised that I was not going to succumb to political correctness anymore - men from North India live up quite fabulously to their reputations as proudly misogynist horndogs.

Still I was thrilled to see rural Rajasthan unfurling around me - miles of parched nothingness, women with wholly covered faces but wholly exposed stomachs, fields of wonderous green, aimlessly wandering cattle, hills dressed ruggedly in beige, supplemented, of course, by noxious fumes creeping into our systems as audaciously as lust. Maybe I'm hardier than I thought but despite the overall unpleasantness of the journey, I would do it again and not just because Udaipur was totally worth it. Which it was.

Udaipur is probably one of the few tourist places in the world that lives up to the hype completely. When we first entered, it looked like any other overcrowded urban hellhole, but as we got closer to the old city, it seemed like a different world altogether. The bazaars were housed in impossibly narrow lanes and like everywhere else in Rajasthan, were a kaleidoscopic delight. People were a lot nicer than anywhere else, were less aggressive and more genuinely helpful. Between the spectacular sunsets and charming palaces and rooftop cafes and exquisitely beautiful lakes, I have to admit it was a tad bit depressing to be single. It was certainly not conducive to recuperating from heartbreak.

Our hotel room was disconcertingly nice and in the end, we were right about being disconcerted. I'd booked a standard double room, but instead they gave us one with a balcony overlooking Lake Pichola - we had no idea that these were their "deluxe" rooms and just assumed that we'd gotten really lucky. When we were settling our bill, however, we realised that we'd been charged double the price that I'd agreed to. We were told we'd been "upgraded" but as we pointed out, we should've been informed of the upgrade, and really, if we were being charged for it, that's not really an upgrade at all. After 4 hours of arguing, we "won" even though the owner was a complete asshole and told me that even though he'd conceded, I should look into "my heart and conscious (sic)" to see if this was "justified." Pfft. Not our fault that someone accidentally booked us into a deluxe room when my e-mail clearly and categorically mentioned an economy room. Luckily he still had a copy of the e-mail in question which made our case that much stronger.

Anyway now we're both quite exhausted, but I think I'm more exhausted by questions of the future that are attacking me like bats on acid.

Second Installment.

So much to say, so little time. The internet here costs a rupee a minute which is daylight robbery, I tell ya. Anyway.

We left Jaipur this morning - while we thoroughly enjoyed most of our stay there, the end of it wasn't quite so lovely. Let me explain: The hotel we were staying at was run by a family. Their youngest son - he must've been around 28 - was really really nice to us; it seemed like he went out of his way to be helpful. When he followed us to the rooftop restaurant to basically watch us as we sipped tea, I got this feeling that his intentions weren't quite as innocuous as we would've hoped.

Still, I mentally chided myself for not trusting people - especially men - more. Last night, while we were eating dinner, he came over to our table to (ostensibly) chat with us. The conversation took a strange turn to talking about our personal lives - both Rosemary and I told him we had boyfriends which is partially untrue in Rosemary's case and totally untrue in mine. He said there was a time when his brother and him could make the female guests forget about the men in their lives by being their charming selves and that maybe our blatant disinterest was a sign that they ought to hit the gym more. We laughed at the (ostensible) self-deprecation, but as the conversation went on, he became increasingly aggressive. He told Rosemary that she probably wasn't going to get into McGill Med like she hoped (so she can be with Marco)so she should "find someone else." He told me that my (yes yes, non-existent) boyfriend was probably getting drunk in Bombay, picking up women. His exact words to me were, "I'm a man. I'm telling yo. WHen you're away, woh to ghar ki dal nahi khana chahata hai. Abhi woh restaurant mein khana chahata hai." In English, he basically said that my boy was fed up of "eating home food and wanted to eat out" now that I was away. He also cracked some really misogynist jokes and laughed proudly at them. At the end of it all he said, "Don't mind me. I have Rajput blood. We're all shameless flirts." While Rosemary and I laughed hysterically last night, it did leave us fairly unsettled that he was trying so hard to get at least one of us to sleep with him. He said to Rosemary, "When I first saw you, I knew you were missing someone but it doesn't speak well of my hospitality that I haven't made you forget about him." Shudder.

(Raghu: Apparently men and women in Jaipur do a lot more than touch)

Oh did I mention that he was wearing these black pants that were puffy until the knee (think 80's style prom dress sleeves), after which they turned quite miraculously into tights? The look was complemented perfectly by a tucked in t-shirt. Oh baby...

Anyway, the story ends this morning when he basically rushed us out of the hotel (like 4 hours before checkout time), refused to let us pay by credit card saying that his machine had a "virus" (even though we saw others using theirs...) and ripped us off Rs. 500. Fortunately I had the cash. Unfortunately that was all the cash I had save for Rs 400. The entire situation was so unpleasant; I can't believe we had a bad experience in Jaipur because we refused to sleep with some seedy hotel owner with frighteningly hideous pants. Both Rosemary and I were really upset the entire day, and our foul mood was only exacerbated by what I can only describe as the bus ride from hell. It seems like Indian bus conductors make a lot of money on the side by picking up stray hitchhikers even when there aren't any seats left on the damn buses. Also, it was supposed to be air-conditioned except not only was the A/C not on but also it was a 1000 degrees outside. In short: It was cramped, hot, sweaty and we were subjected to Anuradha Freakin' Paudwal's annoying-as-all-shit voice the entire way. They also decided not to drop us off at the bus station but instead to make some more bucks by dropping us off at the Brahma temple and offering to be our guides.

Pushkar doesn't have auto rickshaws so we had to walk 2 kms to find our hotel in the scorching Rajasthan sun. We did have to walk through the town centre though, which was nice. Pushkar is exactly like I'd expected: It is crawling with white people with dreadlocks who look like they accidentally stumbled upon Pushkar while trying to find themselves. What I certainly wasn't expecting is Hebrew everywhere. Like seriously, everywhere. Road signs, signs for restaurants, internet, food, books...all in Hebrew. People on the roads said "Shalom" to us almost as often as they offered us hash (Madam, madam, lovely Manali hash. Come on, Madam!) In most places here, I feel like token brown person which is quite amusing under the circumstances.

Anyway, after we showered (in ridiculously cold water), Rosemary and I went to town; it feels like it's on the border of Varanasi and Haight-Ashbury circa 1967. We looked around all the stores - most selling clothes that look pretty from afar but on closer inspection look like they were made in the 1960s and worn about 657 times since then - and we bought a skirt each. We ate at a cafe called "Moon Dance" that was quite delightful despite the mediocre food. And now we're back in the hotel where the electricity seems to go out every 45 mins or so.

That's all for now. Next stop, Udaipur.

Write me write me write me!

Until then!

Written as of 31st January, 2006

So yes, it's barely been a few days since I left Bombay, and you're hearing from me already. Hi, my name is Aurina and I am an internet addict. I am currently writing from a hotel lobby in Jaipur. We just got here last night at about 10:30 p.m, and thus far, this is definitely my favourite place. The hotel is filled with balconies and arches and really ridiculously nice people and I think I'm going to segregate this e-mail by city so all of it doesn't sound so disjointed.

First stop, Delhi: We took a Rajdhani to Delhi which made me feel really spoiled, but I'm pretty sure I deserved it. I think. We were only scheduled to be there for a night as a stopover before we made our way to Agra. My friend Raghu was kind enough to let us stay with him in his (palatial!) flat for the night. What did we do in the day? Absolutely nothing. It was great. Between Rosemary's jet lag and my intermittently painful right breast (which had only been unstitched a day), our enthusiasm levels weren't exactly high. The most we exerted ourselves was through quizzical frowns and naughty giggles while trying to figure out how the hell "The Jasmine" worked. I'd say more but my parents are reading this(Hi!). I'll give you a hint: Cosmo was involved.

The only times we left the house was to eat lunch and dinner, and even then we went to the same restaurant twice. That's right. We're all about adventure. After dinner, Raghu, his friend Vijay (who works with HRLN Delhi!), Rosemary and I had a pleasantly laidback evening that involved rum, Joni Mitchell and compulsive channel changing. We had an early morning train to catch, so we went to bed relatively early.

Agra: The train ride to Agra was spectacularly uninteresting, although Rosemary did see an unprecedented (for her...I've had the privilege of seeing more, I'm sure) number of bare bums going about their morning business on the railway tracks. When we reached the station at Agra, we managed to find an auto who was willing to do the whole pre-paid thing. We agreed on Rs 50, which with our luggage and all felt like a pretty sweet deal. The ride to the hotel was a good 30 minutes long which made me inordinately proud of my haggling skills. It was only later that we found out that the hotel was barely 5 minutes away, and that we had, quite literally, been taken for a ride. At least it makes for a good story eh? In any case, the hotel at Agra is owned by my mum's friend which means we paid for absolutely nothing but that damn rickshaw. Nothing. Not for food or phone calls or anything. It was sort of embarassing, but man, the awkwardness was definitely overshadowed by the impossible coolness of it all. We were waited on hand and foot all for no cost. That's what I call a real holiday.

We didn't see much in Agra except the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort, but both of those were totally worth it. The first words that popped into my head when I saw the Taj was, "Blinding beauty." Against the sun and haze of Agra, the translucent whiteness of the structure is just.... dazzling in the most literal sense of the word. I guess I'd been so saturated by images of the Taj that seeing it in person was really surreal; it took me a while to fully digest its unequivocal magnificence. The mosque to its West (and its identical counterpart) were really beautiful too. I have to admit that I was really skeptical after hearing horror stories of women being leered at and grabbed at the Taj, but for the most part, our visit was without incident. We were, of course, assailed by child vendors speaking impressively good English, who kept thrusting ball pens embellished with crystal animals in our faces, but that was to be expected.

The Agra Fort wasn't nearly as striking, but it did reignite my once-keen interest in Mughal history and architecture. It was definitely really interesting - The Diwan-I-Am was my favourite - but I was really disappointed by the lack of maintenance; several of its walls were irreparably scarred with "RAMU LOVES MALTI!!!!" type etchings.

Jaipur: The bus ride from Agra to Jaipur was...well, pretty run-of-the-mill if you don't count the fact that it stopped every time someone (and by someone, I mean someone who was male) wanted to pee, picked up hitch-hikers and that the men sitting in front of us were not-so-subtly conspiring to pick us up when we reached Jaipur. (Made me think of that one time at Toto's, Sowmya...heh). And here we are now. Our run of free accomodation has sadly come to an end, but those were good days and we'll remember them fondly. There's not much to report from here so far except that the breakfast was stellar and that this hotel is unexpectedly luxurious. We're about to hit the bazaars, so I'm all prepared to put on my bargaining hat which will be interesting, because I really can't carry it off at all. We'll see.

That's it for now. If you've scrolled this far, congratulations! You win a ....well. Tell me what you want from Rajasthan and I'll get it for you. I miss you all. And I don't mean it in a "this-is-the-end-of-an-email-and-I-have-nothing-else-to-say" way. I really need pocket-sized versions of my friends to carry with me everywhere.