When my eldest daughter first got her period, I told my son (then seven) exactly what was happening, as matter-of-factly as possible. I must have explained things very badly, however, because later I overheard him authoritatively telling his friends that girls have to wear a pad between their legs to ‘catch the egg’ that drops out of them every month. He managed to give the whole thing a very sporty, wicket-keeping feel. I got the distinct impression that he was going to be following his sister around, hoping to catch the egg when it dropped, and stash it in his Crazy Balls collection.
Still, compared to the stuff most Indian men believe about women’s periods, his version wasn’t too bizarre at all. There are some crazy stories out there—of black magic, and witchcraft, of temples being desecrated by unclean menstrual blood, of the rotting of crops that are standing ready in the field, of the curdling of milk and the souring of pickles. And, these weirdo tales are taken so seriously, that even in these ‘modern’ times, girls cannot enter temples and kitchens and engage in social activity, like offering refreshments to guests, simply because they’re on their period. Which is confusing, because if the point is to not let anybody know that this ‘shameful’ thing happens to you every month, then why does tradition dictate that you so obviously set yourself apart when it happens—shunning the kitchen, the temple and the common utensils—practically walking around with a neon sign on your forehead advertising that your period is on?
To me, it seems like the patriarchy just wants to poke its self-righteous nose into my chaddis, in a proprietorial, voyeuristic, control-freaky sort of way, as well as blame me for everything that happens to go wrong in the universe.
It’s the kind of situation that makes me fantasise about taking a trip to Sabarimala during ‘that time of the month’, and when questioned about whether I’m on my period or not, reaching down into my undies, scooping out a bit of menstrual goo, and flicking it in a slow-motion curving arc at the self-righteous interrogation squad, all the while chanting dark, threatening incantations. How they would run for cover, clutching their sacred threads!
Setting that lovely, wistful fantasy aside for a while, let me rewind to a few decades ago, when something else entered the mix, making the situation even more toxic. A big multinational waltzed into our country, and pushing aside the pads we were using, called Comfit and Stayfree, aggressively started hawking a sanitary napkin diabolically branded Whisper. What a name for a napkin, I tell you! So coy, so hesitant and complicit, and so utterly ashamed of itself. It exits the chemist shops wrapped in newspaper or in opaque black plastic, because what if somebody sees it in your shopping basket and finds out the awful truth that you actually bleed? It sidles about at the edge of the national conversation, dressed in tight, white pants, with its legs pressed tightly together. If you prick it, it apologetically oozes an antiseptic blue goo. Hushhhh… it seems to say. Shhhhhhh. Let’s keep it between us girls and women. Nobody must ever know. Everything that is wrong with the whole periods business is summed up in that name!
Its advertisers are aware of this shortcoming, though. They, recently, launched a campaign encouraging girls and women to raise their voices (above a Whisper, one assumes) against period shaming called ‘Touch the Pickle’ (yeah, because touching the pickle is the biggest issue associated with menstruation, you know, not entering the temple or reclaiming the kitchen) and even won an award at the Cannes Advertising Festival in the newly created, women’s-issue oriented Glass category. But, it kind-of stank of creative opportunism with an eye to awards glory and, so, died the death it deserved.
Our attitude to women’s ‘five days a month’ was summed up pretty well in the strange episode recently when actor Amisha Patel was trolled for being unpatriotic because she did not stand up for the national anthem in a movie hall. She shut up her accuser by revealing that she ‘had the monthly girly problem and getting up would have caused a blood flow on the theatre ground.’ I remember thinking that both the accusation, and the explanation were equally bizarre and could have happened only in today’s India.
And, just to make things worse, sanitary napkins are priced super-high. And, taxed as heavily as my bleeding on the second day. Which is ridiculous, because menstruation is not something luxurious women choose to do, like drinking a pink Cosmopolitan or getting a chocolate bikini wax. A sanitary napkin is a necessity, unlike say, bindi and sindoor, which by the way, attract no tax in beti-bachao, beti-padhao India. If any item in India deserves to be subsidised, surely, the sanitary napkin does? But, no, we’ve brainwashed generations and generations of women into believing that they have no rights and deserve absolutely nothing, and so naturally nobody objects when sanitary napkins are taxed and condoms are not. Except the usual rag-tag crew of feminists and female stand-up comics and other such folk of zero political importance who launched a #LahuKaLagaan campaign in protest, that was largely ignored by our policymakers.
But, finally, we have some serious beefcake on our side. A man who may actually possess a chest 56 inches wide—Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar, no less—is fighting in our bloody trenches. He’s taking the story of the affordable sanitary napkin machine inventor, Arunachalam Muruganantham, mainstream, seeking to strip away the mystical, shameful, haw-ji aura so firmly attached to the business of women bleeding every month, and normalise it till it shrinks back into being the entirely natural phenomenon it is. May the goddess bless both men and the women in their lives!
Of course, the film can’t provide answers to everything. Like all the issues surrounding PMS, and painful periods cramps, and whether or not employers should offer medical leave during periods.
Or, the environmental havoc wreaked by used sanitary napkins, which often end up being flushed down the toilet to block the drains or chucked into landfills to fester and spread infection, or burnt in improper incinerators which leads to toxic emissions that can affect the health of people in the vicinity.
Or, how using layered cloth is a perfectly good (even environmentally friendly) option, as long as the cloth is washed regularly and sanitised by drying under the hot sun—something women never do because they’ve been told that their menstrual cloth is unclean and must be dried secretly in some damp dark fetid space, certainly not on the washing line where their husband’s undies hang so proudly.
But, it still tells an amazing tale. Muruganantham’s life and invention are truly both praiseworthy and inspiring. And, his concerned, loving and matter-of-fact approach to the issue is what all fathers, brothers, husbands and sons can all learn from.
Of late, we have had films about ‘sperm donation’, ‘gents problem,’ ‘toilet problem’ and, now, ‘period problem.’ Bollywood, always quick to recognise a winning formula, seems to have zoomed into all types of bodily emissions with a vengeance. I, for one, can only applaud—the more the light that shines on these furtive, fetid, ‘shameful’ spaces—the more sanitised and sunny our future will be.