Since my childhood, I have witnessed this notion around me that no one talks about menstruation openly. Grandmothers, mothers, aunts never talked about this thing with their young girls freely. And it is not their fault completely that they are still not comfortable while conversing on this topic. The roots of this hesitation go back to thousands of years when women were not even allowed to step out of their rooms during the entire period of menstruation. They were not supposed to see their husbands and brothers during the periods. And we witness those things even today without any amendments or improvements in those ancient practices.
Girls are supposed to follow hundreds of rules like they are not allowed to touch a set of things. They can’t enter into the temples and other places which are considered sacred. During menstrual period wives sleep separately from their husbands.
But slowly things are changing. The orthodox views regarding menstruation are changing among the girls, women and even men. A huge example of this change was witnessed by me on one of the Railway junctions where they have installed a “Sanitary Pad Vending Machine”. Anybody can avail pads by putting a coin of five rupees in the machine, this was something which I had not witnessed on any other Railway stations where I have travelled. Such a beautiful and considerate initiative which must be lauded. People are getting aware about menstruation. A lot of government schemes are directed towards this, for example, Government of Maharashtra has launched a scheme of distributing sanitary pads to girls at Rs 5 and rural women could avail it at the reduced price of 28 and 29. Young girls are now much aware, efforts are being made by NGOs. Advertisement of sanitary pads in the TV Commercials are also playing key roles in creating awareness.
Let us together work in this direction of eradicating the taboos surrounding menstruation and menstrual cycle. This thing never makes a girl impure, this is just a very ordinary cycle which a body undergoes every month, nothing more than this. Let’s talk about menstruation freely and frankly amidst ourselves, creating awareness about this thing in our own little ways. We don’t need to do anything big just small things.
Let’s together celebrate menstruation by treating it as any other process, not suppress it. We need to instigate this attitude within ourselves if we want to see the same attitude in others.