Divya Ranjith,
Chennai,
Tamil Nadu
I was in Grade 8 when I had my first period. Sadly, I didn’t know much about it. So a bizarre reaction was anyway expected out of me! I hurriedly called out for my mother and asked “Is it some wound or an injury? Do we need to go to a doctor?” That’s when my mother gave a gentle smile and said ” You’ve grown up. Don’t worry, it’s normal.”
To tranquilize and relieve myself of the pain, I ended up chanting her words “It’s normal” almost fifty times a day as if it was some holy prayer. That’s how I grew up. Grew up with the comprehension of periods as ‘NORMAL’.
But soon I came to realize that it was nothing more than my utopian apprehension of menstruation. It was when I saw the chemists and other shopkeepers ensure the maximum possible layers of packaging while selling sanitary napkins and tampons, all wrapped up with newspapers and black polythenes, and that made me question if this is the way of the world defining periods as ‘NORMAL.’ A judgmentally biased world that sadly judges women who do not cover sanitary napkins in public more than a rapist, a murderer, or a cheat.
Asha Khataria
Udaipur,
Rajasthan
She was 12 years old when her mom took her to the pharmacy, gave the pharmacist an indication and he took something out and packed it in a very shady manner, not to be shown to anyone. The transaction took place without any dialogue. All women have been there. Buying sanitary napkins from the nearby shop, wrapped in black polythene, as if it wasn’t to be shown to anyone. It was a ‘natural’ secret.
Asha’s first period not only opened her to the phase of adulthood but also the hushes of it. She wasn’t going to go easy on the hushed secrecies of something which was ‘natural’ according to her science textbooks and the people around her. Why would someone want to hide something which is a part of all of us? She went to the same shop and asked the same man to give her a pack of sanitary pads. With her VOICE, everyone stared. She let them run their judgemental eyes through her without any fear and then asked the pharmacist again. Louder. He ignored her deep voice demanding no secret-packing for her pads and handed over the black polythene with the hushed secret to her. She handed him a 100-rupee note and asked for change. She indeed did not get the change that she dreamt of, but she did get coins and notes.
Rajeevan Rao
Bengaluru,
Karnataka
The worse part being; boys, far from being sensitized about periods, aren’t even educated about it enough. I remember how my parents used to change the TV channel as soon as a sanitary pad advertisement came up. I was brave enough to ask my mom one day, what that ad was about, to which she replied, “It’s none of your business.” When my sister experienced menstrual cramps, she was immediately moved out of our room while I was left wondering.
With practices like these, men are left uneducated about menstruation and the vicious cycle continues. Even advertisements of sanitary pads contribute to this cycle. Why is it normal for a band-aid ad to show blood but a sanitary pad advertisement has to use blue ink to depict the same? Again, the question arises. What is so impure about menstruation that it needs to be hushed? While all the taboos go back to the sacred books of many religions, they have not been modernized like many other notions. Most of the people don’t even know why they’re following practices like silencing period talks or giving sanitary pads wrapped in newspapers, they just do it because they have been told to. Ironically, we were also told to follow whatever’s happening in the society without any reasoning. Which one do we follow now?
– Divyanshi, Shreya & Maanav