So the Indian government says , “let them use ash , leaves , hay , dung or cloth .” Take the most absorbent material and make it into a do it yourself pads and wad up that flow somehow. Because sanitary pads are taxed and are called the non essential item in today’s creaky clean’swatch Bharat’. Although , packaged pads are produced by multi national companies who aim to gain profit and are therefore evil. But we do not have a lot of problems with that when we’re urging them to make in India.
But don’t start organising a ‘pad’ Yatra , ladies . Because whatever Patanjali has in store is all exempted from GST . Hopefully now , Patanjali’s hairy head honcho will start churning the sanitary pads and will bridge this uneven gap and give it a sanskari name . And ladies, they’ll be tax free !!
Interestingly , a media company in Mumbai has declared a new type of leave for women , called first day or period leave. The company is petitioning Maneka Gandhi , minister of women and child development and Prakash Javadekar , minister of Human resource development, to implement the same across the country .
Personally , I have a mixed response about this leave. I am not sure how implementable it is on the ground and in regular , non hip offices. I mean it would be difficult for the company’s human resource department to track the regulatory of your periods. It’ll be a lot of nudge nudge , wink wink and questions on not claiming the leave .
Also what would happen after the menopause ? Do you just not disclose that it has happened and keep right on claiming those twelve leaves? Or let the office into the good news and have a party.
Well , so with all feminine or feminist things , comes a lot of confusion, confusion and questions about the end of this difficult period.