Written & Performed by Beth Lewis
Edit & Sound Design by Chris Attaway

Beth Tapes - HANNAH

Kaamuk explores a deep understanding of the conflict experienced between pleasure and shame from sex (an activity in which one, two or more people use words or touch to arouse themselves and/or each other). An attempt to deconstruct the conflict intermingled with the dynamic layers of an individual’s socio-cultural identity in India.

Sitting in the discomfort of talking about sex and pleasure since the day puberty hits to old age, Kaamuk represents the learnings of individuals from diverse identities (age, religion, caste, class, body types, skin colour, gender identities, disabilities, professions) trying to express why they feel sex is still a taboo in Indian society.

Eroticism in India has been celebrated by multiple artists, from the world’s oldest & most celebrated treatise on erotic love “ The Kama Sutra” by Mallinaga Vatsyayana, to artists in 21st century like, a book on sexual impulses of a pregnant woman, “A pleasant kind of heavy” by Aranyani; a book on homosexual eroticism in India, “Queering India” by Ruth Vanita; a high caste brahmin transgender story “Me Hijra, Me Laxmi” by Laxmi; a series of illustrations by Veer Misra, portraying an image beyond the hyper-sexualised imagery of queer in India. But talking about sexual pleasure openly is a shameful thing to a lot in society. The Indian cultural shame attached to it is that it's only supposed to be a secret private affair. It is not even considered as an act for pleasure but solely an act for procreation purposes. 

Kaamuk is a conversation around the idea to unlearn the shame as the fundamental to sexual pleasure.

Credits:
Mentors : Suvani Suri, Jayant Manchanda, Ananya Sengupta & Gaurav Chintamani.
Artists : Himanshu Bablani (Banana house), Swapnil Dangri, Sagrika Kalta (theplantttt), Shweta Jha (pagaliyatahine), Dev Singh, Anushka Upreti.
Video : Ayushmaan Sachdeva
Special thanks to Inder & Sagrika.

Kaamuk - a sound art piece (headphones mix)

I started to make audio recordings of these walks sometime in 2022. While walking in the city over the years, I keenly noticed how the sounds of the city change as the hour changes and how within a span of two hours, we could be occupying such different sounding spaces. Cities are usually noisy, chaotic - to stumble upon quiet in them all of a sudden was precious…and to have a passing horn pierce through that quiet – a bringing back to reality of sorts. Conversations with the walkers were always rich…there was so much fun, laughter, song.. and I often heard women echo each other on issues  like safety, pleasure, solidarity…walk after walk, month after month. It felt almost necessary to document these occurrences.  The people joining the walks come from different backgrounds and reality and so, audio as a form also aided anonymity, when required. 

What you are listening to is an audio recording of our walk on May 20, 2023, in and around the Mandi House area of New Delhi. The walk was led by Ujwala, a journalist originally from Bangalore, who lived in the area for about a year. It stretched slightly over two hours. The zoom recorder that captured it all stayed in with me, Mallika, the entire duration of the walk. 

This unedited recording, from when we start to when we stop, is an invitation for you to journey with us for the entire duration of the walk. Resisting the temptation to edit or make more «accessible» by shortening or putting together only the «relevant» parts, here you can listen to «everything» that my recorder caught that night. Over the two hours, you will hear a lot of chatter, volumes of silence, traffic, dogs, footsteps, some humming, a quietening down of the night and us walking. Time passes as we walk, the sounds and sights of the city shift and we shift with them. As we tire over the two hours, our voices shift. For me, all of it is relevant and significant to the ways in which we sense the city and the city hears us. There is no shortcut to get an insight into Women Walk at Midnight – its texture, fatigue, sometimes boredom, its ethos and sheer necessity. And so, I ask you to give it the time it requires to get acquainted with the practice. As you let the two hours unfold, you will notice – sometimes gradually and at other times, suddenly – the shifts in the night, of the street, and in those walking. Perhaps even in you.

You can listen to this like a radio show or podcast in the background while doing house chores, while on the metro, while on your own walk… you can listen to it in bits and parts or skip forward. At many points you may ask yourself – why am I listening to this? What is going on? I ask that you keep listening. At the end of the two hours, you would have taken a journey with us and felt our fatigue, desires and fears – and ,perhaps, yours as well? In the midst of it all, you may hear sounds from the streets of Delhi, late into the  night. – For many of us, an inaccessible space, a taboo, a nervous state, an impossibility.

Perhaps this listening in – almost evesdropping –  is slightly demanding. But cities are demanding, the nights are demanding and walking repeatedly over years and years is incredibly demanding. There is no real way to soften the blow. And then I also ask – why should this?

I think of the walking as riyaaz (practice/ rehearsal)… the more you do it, the better you get at it… the easier you roll over the bumps and the more you own the form.

Join us for this walk, wherever you are.

Evesdropping: Mandi House | New Delhi | May 2023

Finding inner peace is difficult... especially when you're sitting next to Harvey Keitel. This story was produced by Pejk Malinovski as a Falling Tree production, and originally aired on BBC Radio 3.

Everything, Nothing, Harvey Keitel

This personal documentary integrates found sound and voice memos that I recorded, bound together by an essay about a magical connection with a bus driver. All of these things I wrote and recorded in order to ground me during the most powerful grief and complex love I've ever known.  

This piece originally aired on KCRW's UnFictional program. Editorial help by Leila Day and additional mixing by Nick White.

ASK ME

WHAT DOES PANIC SOUND LIKE?
I try to aurally interpret the feeling of overwhelm, and to do so, break it down into 4 stages. 

Stage 1: Loom
I wake up with a feeling of dread. It follows me like a ghost on my back. Something's coming. The clock is ticking, and I can't think or do anything else until I know for sure.

Stage 2: Trigger
I'm starting to sweat, but it also feels like a block of ice is pushing against my chest. The trigger reveals itself.

Stage 3: Unfreeze
I’m trashing in deep waters. I come up for air but let out a scream instead. It’s silent because I can barely breathe. There’s also something else in the background. It’s a calm, beckoning me to surrender. It’s a chance at lifeless peace in the very heights of panic – how ironic. My thoughts are pearls dropping on the floor, slipping away before I can hold onto any. 

Stage 4: Sediment
The peak has passed. Anxiety lingers bubbling away for a few more seconds. Ever so often there are cracks, threatening my fall into the full intensity of panic again. The atmosphere around me eases, and worry finally drains away.

Panic

Listen...
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
And fall

Five radio producers from around the world hijack The Essay to offer a series of Radio 3's innovative Between the Ears features in miniature, in response to the five-line poem 'November Night'.

In tonight's edition, Australian musician and radio producer Jaye Kranz delves into the therapeutic possibilities of poetry, using the line 'The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees' to tumble down the rabbit hole into a dreamlike space of memories.

Featuring the voice of poetry therapist and clinical social worker, Sherry Reiter

First broadcast 3rd December 2015, BBC Radio 3
Produced by Jaye Kranz

Between the Essays: The Leaves, Frost-Crisp'd, Break from the Trees 4/5

In the first episode of 'It Wasn’t My Idea', Pip finds his way to a tantric sex class, and discovers that Sydney’s spiritual sex scene is booming—with middle-aged white people. He embarks on a slightly mortifying journey of self-discovery at the gentle hands of an elderly woman named Lynda.
This piece was originally produced for All the Best on FBi Radio, with supervising production from Selena Shannon. Additional voices by Emma Harvey.
http://allthebestradio.com/

Music:
- 'Raga Jog’ by Ravi Shankar
- ‘Title theme from Bombay Talkie’ by Shankar Jaikishan
- ‘Ignition Remix’ by R. Kelly (Performed by Jinja Safari for triple j ‘Like a Version)
- ‘Wade in the Water’ by Eva Cassidy

Episode 1: The Beast with 60 Backs

In the broad dialogue around body positivity, men’s body image issues rarely make their way to the surface. For the second episode of 'It Wasn'y My Idea', Pip has a new challenge: stand naked in a room full of strangers for an extended period of time. Grappling with weight gain and body image, he finds himself nude modelling for a life drawing class.
This piece was originally produced for All the Best on FBi Radio, with supervising production from Selena Shannon. Additional voices by Angus Dalton.
allthebestradio.com/

Music:
- 'Sunday Morning (instrumental)' by The Velvet Underground
- ‘Baby Elephant Walk’ by Henry Mancini
- 'Femme Fatale' by The Velvet Underground
- ‘The Murder Mystery’ by The Velvet Underground
- ‘Venus in Furs’ by The Velvet Underground
- 'Ride into the Sun’ by The Velvet Underground
- ‘These Days’ by Nico

Episode 2: Pop Art

Lilia is Listening aired on an episode of CBC's Love Me called In the Distance. Sound Design and mixing by Cristal Duhaime. Editorial support from Mira Burt-Wintonick and Sarah Geis.

Sara collects sounds of her son, her second child, during the first year of his life. Laughter, cries, shrieks of joy... Her first child never made much sound. She died three days after she was born. The story explores Sara's connection to both children as she listens to the sounds of her family and grieves for the sounds that are missing.

LILIA IS LISTENING

Di major

Podcast producer based in Bengaluru, India dipping my toes into a sound art practice.

Panic

Ashrita Achar