Women have been bleeding since time immemorial. In fact, over a standard life-course women’s bodies are capable of generating huge amounts of bodily fluids through events such as menstruation, birthing and breastfeeding. In a culture where discussions around women’s bodies (and bodily fluids) have been either silenced, met with disgust or served as an agent for misogynist comedy (e.g. Hollywood movie, Superbad (2007) or the reference to “test match”in PadMan), an open discussion on an intimate feminine hygiene is refreshing And PadMan achieves that. It has suddenly brought the hidden stained menstrual cloth right into the middle-class living room. Our most defining feminist moment in PadMan was when Lakshmi (Akshay Kumar) carefree-ly bicycles down the ghat only to realize that he has blood stains between his thighs-blood that has leaked out from the hisgoat blood filled football bladder designed to mimic the female uterus. A puzzled and embarrassed Lakshmi dives into the water, bloodying it, leaving a bunch of aghast spectators. Later, Lakshmi is accused of having some mysterious sexual disorder, shaming him in a Khap panchayat style feudal meeting. Those scenes in the film adeptly capture the moral-cultural anxiety over menstrual blood, the policing of the menstruating body and the public shaming of a biological process that is an unavoidable part of the female experience. Together, they offer a poignant critique of the cultural discomfort that girls are socialized into. That PadMan has inspirational dimensions is perhaps clear, but how it capitalizes on the orchestrated global image of the “mend and make do” (jugaad) ethic of an ‘awakened’ India embodying paternalistic ideals of nationalism and safety (of women), affords a sociological discussion.

Poverty and jugaad: The missing link
In PadMan we find a school drop-out husband make heart-warming efforts to ease the everyday hardships of his new bride. A wooden drumming toy bears the onslaught of being converted into an onion peeler or part of a half-broken chair lends itself to a bicycle pillion or the making of a low-cost pad dispensing machine combining ideas from the household kitchen. That this adaptive ingenuity is a purely ‘Indian’ trait is emphasized both by Lakshmi (Kumar) during his climatic speech at the United Nations and an Amitabh Bachhan who declares “1 billion people means 1 billion minds”. While immediately appealing, what gets glossed over in this framing is that jugaad is an outcome of adversity-it thrives on a culture of severe resource constraint and infrastructure deficit. This uplifting invocation of poverty lacks and shortages (of which jugaad is born)conceals the systemic failures of the state and the subsequent inequalities that it generates. As the social anthropologist, Prof Ravinder Kaur of IIT Delhi puts it “.the most obvious critique of postcolonial India-its failure to provide opportunities and access to social goods to all its citizens is presented as a positive force that enables innovative Indian citizens to retain their agency and be makers of their own destinies”. Jugaad’s unprecedented growth in public imagination feeds into this selective amnesia where deprivation is recast as industriousness and ‘below the radar’, quick-fix, cost-effective solutions (originating mostly from rural India) are tendered as a route to economic growth. It holds the promise of an ingenious Indian solution to the global recession. The attendant questions of risk, sustainability, legality are set aside; instead, as sociologists like Kaur argue,jugaad is extricated from the gray zone of illegality and packaged as a potent ‘laboratory to the world’ wherein the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ (the poor) can become vanguards of innovation and entrepreneurship.This dramatic re-imagination of the poor as disruptive innovators is not Bollywood’s doing and hence the film PadMan cannot be singularly called out to bear the weight of this narrative.But it is difficult to overlook this framing since it neatly maps into the inviting world of the ‘Make in India’ project launched soon after Modi’s electoral victory in 2014. That Kumar and his wife (Twinkle Khanna aka Mrs. Funnybones) are responding with a certain degree of allegiance to the dominant political order is hard to miss. After Modi’s much celebrated Independence Day (2014) speech on open defecation, women and safety, we had “Toilet Ek Prem Katha”, co-produced by Kumar. With the launch of the Swacch Bharat Mission (2014), the issue of sanitation and hygiene being further solidified, we have a PadMan (produced by Mrs. FunnyBones)committed to starting a conversation on the taboo topic of menstruation. Mrs. FunnyBones recently announced to continue her forays into such dominant political discussions by declaring that she now plans to work on reproductive rights of women[1]. Although well-intentioned, there is no denying that there is profit in riding the high tide of political rhetoric.What makes PadMan revolutionary is not just its discourse on intimate feminine hygiene, but also in its promise of social mobility acquired through  strenuous individual application under financial deprivation weaving thestandard neoliberal narrative where success is tied to personal responsibility. PadMan’s favourable political reception lies in the fact that it makes the rural poor ideal neoliberal subjects of the state.And by doing so, the movie offers, as UK-based researcher Thomas Birtchnell points out “a revised form of provincial, pastoral cosmopolitanism that unites the ethics of the village” to the global demands of the market.

The long shadow of patriarchy
In India, male validation of ‘women’s issues’ has gone a long way to jolt collective consciousness. We had a well-meaning Farhan Akhtarlaunching the MARD (Men Against Rape and Discrimination) campaign in 2013 to stop gender-based violence or an Abhay Deol on India’s obsession with fairness and the market around it to the recent Akshay Kumar posing with pictures of sanitary pads. What is interesting in these overt expressions of gender justice is that female activists and to some extent, female actors in Bollywood have been also fighting these causes. Unsurprisingly, the media adulation over such female struggles remains limited. We understand that in a culture of entrenched patriarchy, male privilege is hard to trump. And our well-meaning Kumar has been a beneficiary to this tradition. Significant to note that in becoming the ‘voice’ of poor rural women, Kumar (inadvertently) becomes a torchbearer of patriarchy, the same institution that he sets out to critique. Similar to other male validated gender justice initiatives, PadMan turns the woman’s body into a site where patriarchy, corporate profit and national identity play varying power games.The questions of ‘choice’ and ‘free will’ of these women are brushed aside, as Kumar ‘mans up’ the duty to help women realize ‘rational’ decisions about their own health. In a society where women’s bodies are often deemed the property of another, this depiction is deeply problematic. In this framing, menstruation is not seen as a critical component of women’s human right but rather as a prerogative of men.
Further, the movie establishes an easy equivalence between menstrual health and menstrual hygiene.The film mirrors the widely accepted masculine compulsion of ‘managing menstruation’ hygienically, and proffering sanitary napkins as the panacea for menstrual disorders. This automatically pushes the varied socio-cultural practices (such as using cloths as menstrual absorbents) to the margins and reduces them as unscientific. This medicalization of menstruation is problematic since it pathologizes the woman’s body and constructs traditional practices in the language of deficiencies and lacks. In fact, PadMan and post-PadMan euphoria have avoided effective discussions on alternative non-synthetic cloth based absorbents that can offer safe and hygienic menstrual experience.If one is ready to go past the patriotic wave of saving women, one can engage in a useful discussion on the limits of the commercial sanitary pads and disposal issues[2]. Undoubtedly, a gender-based democratic participation is warranted where men and boys are increasingly socialized to be part of this conversation. However, given the longstanding alliance of patriarchy and global capitalism in furthering subjugation, some caution is desirable. South African youth activist, Mbuyiselo Botha’s quote is a reminder of this caution:“We (men) must also be conscious that we do not take over the gender struggle as men. We must always be conscious. The temptation is there, because of men’s tendency to take over. We must be constantly vigilant and remind ourselves that this is a struggle that has to be led by women”.Without a democratic reflexivity on the dangers of this masculine take-over, no ultra XL wings can absorb the patriarchal leak. Women will continue to bleed shame, self-hatred and fear over something that is entirely natural and unavoidable.
 
References used:
Birtchnell, Thomas (2011). Jugaad as systemic risk and disruptive innovation in India. Contemporary South Asia, 19(4)
Kaur, Ravinder (2016). The innovative Indian: Common man and the politics of jugaad culture. Contemporary South Asia, 24(3).
[1]https://www.hindustantimes.com/bollywood/next-i-will-work-for-reproductive-rights-twinkle-khanna/story-ZegwHdGS0HwaDisFK0tGDP.html (Hindustan Times, Feb 15, 2018)
[2]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/30/idia-sanitary-pad-revolution-menstrual-man-periods-waste-problem (The Guardian, May 30, 2016)

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Image Courtesy:New Indian Express
 
“Period” was a word that spelt blasphemy in Indian families up until recent times. Or, does it still exist for girls and women, who are trained to refer to periods as “that time of the month,” or, “chums,” or, as Akshay Kumar’s Padman shows, “five day cricket match?” The taboo around the subject, however, does not prevent boys on the streets from making fun of women when they “sit outside,” or, when a girl becomes “siyani”—which occasions a grand celebration of the girl’s first period. Akshay Kumar’s film focusses on this, and how the girl herself thrives on being the centre of attention with all the chutzpah and the jewellery and the music and song, without really understanding what the future holds for her.

But, wait. Arunachalam Muruganantham, on whom the movie is based, has been the central subject of two, very good documentaries in the past. Two noted documentaries have been made by two different people over two years. One is The Menstrual Man (2013), made by the Singapore-based Amit Vrimani, and the other one is The Pad Piper, by Akanksha Sood Singh, which bagged the award for the Best Science and Technology Film at the 61^st National Film Awards. The award was bestowed “for its portrayal of a sensitive man with a profound belief in appropriate technology, who came up with a simple piece of engineering – an affordable sanitary napkin that has had an extraordinary impact on the health of millions of poor women.”

Sood, who made The Pad Piper, says, “A man trying to break into a market shrouded in mystery and myth surrounding women was intriguing. The reality was shocking. I always thought women use cloth as an alternative. But sand, newspapers, cow dung? And those who don’t wear under garments? My mother, like most mothers, advised me to not go to the temple or touch pickle during my periods. When I would ask her why, she did not have convincing answers. After a point, I stopped believing in these myths. Then, I wondered—what about women who are considered “dirty” when they bleed and are thrown out of the village for 3– 5 days, abandoned in a hut with little food, no company, and no bath? Do they know they have a choice? They did not. Then Muruganantham arrived and changed their lives.”

Vrimani’s film had sold-out screenings at both the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (Toronto) and the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam, arguably the two most influential documentary festivals in the world. “…We were among the audience favourites at both,” says Virmani, adding, “We got a lot of social media buzz because people [were] inspired by the story and [wanted] to share it with their friends. Rosie O’Donnell watched the film and tweeted about it, encouraging her fans not to miss the film. All very humbling but, more importantly, also a confirmation that the film’s themes of hope, triumph, and female empowerment resonate with people everywhere.”

A third film, a docu-fiction, Roll Number 17, was entered at the 23^rd Kolkata  International Film Festival last year, in the documentary and short film section. Directed by Dhananjoy Mandal, the film was a celluloid adaptation of the real-life tragedy of Ananya, a girl in VIII standard of a co-educational school in the Sundarbans, who fell victim to a fatal disease from infection due to the lack of access to toilets and hygiene. She stopped attending school after she fell ill, never to come back again. The Principal of the school said that the drop-out rate and absenteeism among girls in the school was very high, mainly because of their periods and the inaccessibility of hygienic ways of dealing with it.

Her grief-stricken friends were doubtful about whether they would ever be able attend school, especially during their periods. This is when the concerned headmaster, with his single-minded commitment and dedication, decided to solve the problem. He approached several NGOs and government departments for funding, and succeeded in building two hygienic toilets, one for boys and one for girls, in the school. Worried about unhygienic practices by girls during their periods, he gathered funding to set up a sanitary napkin-vending machine within the school. Girls were required to use the vending machine to get their napkin. This created a new culture, a new social practice, and a new way of looking at girls. But this film was rejected by the selection committee and is waiting to see the light of day. However, this is the only film that shows the breaking of this social taboo without referring to the work done by Arunachalam Muruganantham and is based on actual events that happened in the relatively remote area of the Sundarbans.

The one thing that Akshay Kumar has done through his entirely mainstream film, with songs and romance and a touch of romance beyond marriage, is that it has truly drawn a lot of attention—of the good kind among the general population— to the issue at hand. Padman is a masala film from beginning to end, but it has a purpose to serve and, set as it is in the middle of a small town in Madhya Pradesh, it reveals the crudeness of the local people (among both men and women) towards life, in general, and towards this “woman’s problem,” in particular. His long lecture, the climax of the film, at the United Nations is both melodramatic in the extreme and, also, derogatory of Lakshmikant’s own invention because the similarities he draws between (and among) Superman, Batman, and Spiderman on the one hand, and that of the Padman on the other, slights and sidetracks the entire contribution of the innovative scientist-cum-social activist at one go. The comic characters like Superman are fiction and are based on pure fantasy, while Arunachalam is a man who actually exists and is still striving to spread the distribution of his machine to women across the country.

Pricking the conscience are the wrong ways in which the film’s promos came across which, at times, reduces the agenda of the film to a poor joke. “The Padman Challenge,” as it was dubbed, according to this writer, did not achieve even half of what the film achieved through specially organised screenings in schools with the aim of raising  social awareness and education, both for the students and for the teaching faculty. The Padman Challenge was created as a social media campaign where celebrities, mainly from the tinsel world of Bollywood, were invited to take the challenge which required them to pose with a sanitary napkin in their hand and post the picture on their social media sites. So, stars like Aamir Khan, Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif, Tiger Shroff, and Akshay Kumar himself, posed with sanitary napkins in their hands. They are smiling into the camera, as if they are posing for an ad campaign and not for a socially productive act. Their flippant smiles belie the seriousness of the pad, and its importance for rural women’s health,  for their “selfies” or whatever. Why?

Looking at the spread of the movement, one feels that this challenge was not really necessary. Chanakya Grover in his enlightening piece, Just the Beginning of the Challenge (The Spectrum, Tribune, Sunday, February 18, 2018) writes, “It would be prudent for us to realise that it is but a small step towards a revolution; and certainly not a Pan-Indian one because the women who need our support, who need sanitary pads or menstruation cups, don’t know about them or can’t afford them. They are not online, not logged on to Twitter, Instagram, are unaware of the fancy Snapchat stories and don’t read newspapers.”  He goes on to add, “They would certainly benefit more from a one-to-one talk about the issue and a free sample of pads and menstrual cups, than with our online posturing. Well-researched, result-oriented campaigns educating women and men alike on menstrual hygiene would help more than the synthetic online campaigns.”

However, the film and its promotional campaign across the country brought to light others who are engaged in similar campaigns. Shobhon Mukherjee lives in Bansdroni, a Kolkata suburb. He was pleasantly surprised with a phone call one winter morning when the caller informed him that Akshay Kumar wished to talk to him. The actor spoke to him for a few minutes and told him to carry on the movement he had pioneered himself. What movement? Shobhon, who, after the release of Padman has been dubbed the “Padman of Kolkata,” had begun a unique movement in the city. What movement? “It is a very small attempt to alleviate girls of a regular problem but it is also a very important one,” he says.

He visits public toilets across the city and places sanitary napkins in boxes that he makes out of empty ice-cream cartons. The young man—who is doing his post-graduation in Geography, pursuing a diploma course from the Indian Institute of Health Training, and running a magazine, all by by himself—began this crusade in October last year. “It was triggered by a small incident. A friend of mine, whom I was supposed to meet, called me up and said she that could not make it because she had just gotten her periods and was not carrying any sanitary napkins with her. That set me thinking—hundreds of girls and women, students, housewives, working women, mothers, sisters, they all face the same problem every other day. They do not always have napkins, or, even if they do, there might not be a public toilet nearby.” He calls this Project Bandhan; bandhan means  “bonding.” He chose this name, firstly, because it was a way of “bonding” with his “sisters,” (he began this movement just a day before Brother’s Day), and, secondly, because the “bonding” stands for the bonds that exist between a mother and her children. Till date, Shobhon has placed these boxes in the ladies’ section of 15 public toilets across Bansdroni, where he lives, and in Ganguli Bagan, Garia, Rath Tala, and Kalighat, after obtaining clearance from the respective councillors, who were quite cooperative.

Like Lakshmikant Chauhan, Shobhon has also been at the receiving end of brickbats, negative reactions, acidic barbs, and potshots, especially from men. “A social media page, sarcastically, asked me why I was doing all this even after the film’s release. This is not true at all. I am determined to go on doing what I had decided to do. I saw the film but I was already doing it in a different way with a different agenda. What the film has done is that it has brought attention to me and to my work and that has been a great help. I do not recall anyone calling me to commend me for this work,” he adds. A local pharmacist was puzzled when he noticed that Shobhon came to his shop to buy sanitary napkins every week. But, when Shobhon explained the reason, he accepted and supported the movement. Shobhon is not very comfortable with the nickname “The Padman of Kolkata.”

His friends, family members, the local councillors, and some strangers have not only appreciated his work but have also come forward to help in their own way. His parents—his father works in a bank and his mother is a housewife—have encouraged him every bit of the way. He began with his personal savings, but, as the news spread, money began to pour in. The first help came from an unknown person in Manipal. Now, money keeps pouring into his bank account and his PayTM account, from students, IT people, and others, ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 100. “But, this positive change has come only after Padman released,” he admits.

Shobhon’s activism is only one side of the awareness campaign. Padman, the film itself, is helping in a large way in dispelling myths, breaking taboos, and spreading the message of the importance of hygiene among growing girls through special screenings across cities. A special screening of the film was held for 400 girls studying in ten schools within Balurghat city, and ten neighbouring villages, by the district magistrate Sharad Kumar Dwivedi. Many of the girls came out of the screening and admitted that they did not use sanitary pads because they could not afford them. This open admission, of not being able to use pads, is itself an example of girls talking openly about periods and its associated problems. Twelve members of a local women’s NGO, Alo, had also been invited to this screening. They informed the girls that they were soon planning to release cheap sanitary napkins in the market. The Alo Female Co-operative Credit Society, together with multiple Self Help Groups, has begun its mission to produce sanitary napkins for women residing in rural areas. Sources at the organisation claim that 20 women have already been trained, and have started making the pads. A packet containing ten pieces of these pads will be sold for Rs 27.

After the show was over, the girls came out of Satyajit theatre to click selfies in front of the poster of Padman. Nandita Das, Headmistress of Ayodhya K.D. Vidyaniketan, watched the film along with her students. “This is a very timely film that, I hope, will raise awareness among the girls. I always keep a stock of sanitary pads in my office to fulfill the needs of the girls who need them suddenly. But it is still very expensive for girls in small towns and villages, and it is necessary for the state government to supply cheap sanitary pads to schools.” Krishna Karmakar, assistant teacher at Kabitirtha Vidya Niketan, said that 60% of the girls in her school did not use sanitary napkins. She added that, along with the girls, their mothers should also watch special screenings of Padman  so that they become aware of the dangers of unhygienic menstrual practices.

The girls agreed in that they could not afford to buy sanitary napkins and pads. They belong to a cross-section of schools where Padman  was being screened specially for them. There are other issues too, for them not using pads—they were shy to ask their families for money to buy pads, or, they felt uncomfortable visiting shops to buy pads, even if some of them could afford them. After watching Padman, however, they are convinced that they will be able to cross these social and family hurdles, and gather the courage to come out of their shells and talk about periods openly.

The two questions that keep nagging us, however,  is, (a) why do women always need a man to deal with their problems? Does this not reaffirm the role of patriarchy in society and in the economy? (b) Why must  a film like Padman, which is very serious and socially relevant, fall back on a production house that calls itself  Mrs. Funnybones Movies? This is not funny, really.

First published on Indian Cultural Forum
 

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According to the new rules displayed on the official website for Haj travel, “Women are required to travel for Hajj with a Mahram. Proof of kinship must be submitted with the application form. Any woman over the age of 45 may travel without a Mahram with an organized group, provided she submits a letter of no objection from her Mahram authorizing her to travel for Hajj with the named group. This letter should be notarized.” Also, women under the age of 45 are still prohibited from going on Haj without a male guardian. This makes one wonder if the 1300 Indian women who have been granted permission to travel without men are all above the age of 45 and are travelling in groups.
 
The Modi government is also claiming credit for rescuing Muslim women from the scourge of instant triple talaq, thereby completely invisiblising the hard work of Muslim women like Shayara Bano who was one of the original petitioners in the case that led the Supreme Court to pronounce a historic verdict in August, 2017. While, it is true that the present government passed legislation criminalising instant triple talaq, the movement was started and carried forward by strong and determined Muslim women. The fact that Ishrat Bano, one of the other petitioners in the case went on to join the BJP takes away nothing from the efforts of these women whose determination to see things through is what won them this hard fought battle against patriarchy.
 
Meanwhile, actor Akshay Kumar is busy playing Padman, a self-proclaimed ‘super hero’ whose claim to fame includes putting ‘men’ back in ‘menstruation’. For starters, while menstruation is still a taboo topic in most parts of the country, Kumar and his movie cannot claim credit for destigmatising open discussions on the subject. Feminists groups like Bhoomata Brigade have been speaking fearlessly on the subject for years and even achieved significant victories like the right to enter the sanctum sanctorum of temples such as Shani Shingnapur.
 
Also, Arunachalam Muruganatham, the original Menstrual Man of India, who suffered social boycott and ridicule in his efforts to manufacture and distribute low cost sanitary napkins to rural women, was a South Indian man from a socio-economically disadvantaged background. However, Kumar plays Laxmikant Chauhan, an ‘upper’ caste North Indian in Padman, thereby attempting to wrest credit from backward communities for original ideas and perseverance. Infact, there were reports that Tamil superstar Dhanush was director Balki’s original choice to play the role of Arunachalam. But Akshay was cast and the character was made a North Indian for the movie to have a ‘pan India’ appeal.
 
While one does not need a vagina to be a feminist and men are always welcome to join the feminist movement, it is utterly despicable for any man to claim credit for a woman’s efforts. It is equally despicable for the identity of people who represent India’s diversity to be standardised into that of an ‘upper’ caste Hindu male, the alleged ‘default setting’ for an Indian identity. 

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