Written by: Namita Bhura for Sachhi Saheli
Still is fresh the memory of that day when I got up with a red ugly pimple on my face. I searched the entire internet at 7am in the morning, for the best face cream to remove the pimple and the best facewash to get rid of it, but all in vain. Four days passed by, and the pimple grew big and bigger. I failed to understand why my skin, which had suddenly started becoming fairer and glowing more, had this horrendous eruption.
As if this wasn’t enough, a week passed and I had this weird stench brown mark on my panty. I knew it was the age for my periods to begin (the “whisper hai na” advertisement gave me hints of the age too), but the smell and sticky texture of the ugly growing mark on my panty didn’t look anywhere near the beautiful blue blood-like liquid shown in ads. I spent days wondering what’s wrong with me until my elder sibling got around my state of mind and helped me understand it.
“Pimple is like a beauty dimple, is simple,” her words I still remember as if being said to me right now. Gosh, what a relief it was! Suddenly, the sister I’d hated forever for being elder and having all the fun while I was pushed behind the lines by the phrase “Tu abhi chotti hai (you are too young right now)” became the best of the best sister in the world.
Today, I wonder how many of us are born privileged to even have someone to speak to about adolescence and body changes as they occur. The transition from childhood to adulthood occurs during the adolescence period, which is characterised by major biological changes including physical growth, sexual maturation and psycho-social development.
Let us begin with a story to see what the onset of menstruation looks like in a country such as India, where there is ghastly silence, shame, and disgust around this natural biological process. As spoken by Rikita Narula of Sachhi Saheli,
“While working in various regions of India, we heard a similar narrative, especially from rural regions. With overwhelming emotion and tears in their eyes, they told us how they never knew anything about their bodies or periods because their mothers or grandmothers wouldn’t tell them anything. Instead, they felt burdened with the weight of carrying this secret almost every month. “Aap toh sach mein hamari sachhi saheli ho didi (you’re really our true friend, didi)” is what they said to me when they hugged me for helping them love themselves and their bodies. All this with just the power of knowledge, that’s it!”
She further tells us the story of a 13-year-old Reena, who got her first period while playing with her friends in the park. Finding herself bleed, she looked for bruises on legs/thigh/feet. When unable to find any, it struck to her like lightning that it was her vagina bleeding. “My first reaction was of shock and panic,” recalls Reena. “I thought I had contracted some serious illness and I was going to die. What would happen to me now? Should I ask my mother to take me to the doctor?,” Reena had called out to her mother in panic.
The little bleeding girl was met with a hastily moving mother, collecting things for her — a bedsheet, soap, makeshift pillow and two pairs of salwar kameez. Her mother took her to the storeroom that had a wooden takht (shelf) in a vertical standing position, and told her that that was her room and bed for the next three days. Over the next three days, Reena learned a new way of life, mind it — bleeding was only one part of it.
Reena was asked to not play with children in the neighborhood, to start wearing salwar suits, to not talk to boys and stop moving around the house during those days. The nightmare in her case wasn’t just all these restrictions, also appalling was the attitude of a woman to whom menstrual hygiene was just not important. She explained well all the societal rules to her daughter, but not a word about her health and hygiene.
What we see here is that ignorance and superstition have deprived young girls of crucial information on menstruation and the importance of menstrual hygiene. Most young girls still are completely unprepared at the onset of menarche.
Menstruation continues to be a subject of gender disparity in India. Myths about menstruation are still prevalent, forcing many girls to drop out of school early or be ostracised for the duration of their menstrual cycle every month. Today, what’s more alarming is the lack of education regarding the same. The myths and taboos around menstruation have become guidelines for periods.
Reena isn’t the only Indian girl facing this. A study indicates that 71% of adolescent girls remain unaware of menstruation until their first menstrual cycle. This is a shocking number, and even the numbers in urban areas are no less shocking. These myths have fused into society and catastrophically affected our way of life as a Pandora’s Box.
It’s time for these girls to be spoken to – ‘awareness’ is the key to the lock of this Pandora’s Box.
Menstruation usually begins when girls start developing breasts and growing pubic and underarm hair. The onset of menstruation is when a girl gets her first period, also called menarche. Our homes are the safest and best place for most girls to be spoken to, where they can have one-on-one discussions with their parents or siblings about puberty. We must have girls be aware of how their body changes during puberty, which usually onsets at the ages of nine up till 16 years.
They need to be told that they are not alone in it, and it’s a natural process that happens to each one of us. Puberty brings about a lot of transformation in our physical bodies, feelings and emotions. Mood swings are the most common cause of teen-grief amongst the youth these days, sometimes the depth of which, if reached, can even lead to cases of depression or excessive aggression.
Girls need to be advised on how important it is to enjoy a healthy balanced diet during our menstruating days. Very often, mothers in our society ask them to stay away from eating achars, khatta, etc, but they talk less than required about having a balanced diet with their little growing women. Regular exercise also reduces the occurrence of pain and various PMS. Girls often have irregular periods during the first few years of their menstruation. Addressing these small but important issues, Sachhi Saheli, a Delhi-based NGO, has been encouraging and educating girls regarding the onset of puberty, what to expect and what not to panic about during their menstruating days.
The day our society has mothers who can talk to their daughters “dil se (from the heart)” not what “samaj se (logical talk)” is the day we will see the changes happening. It’s time to speak up, give a voice to our concerns, encourage girls to ask questions and not be ashamed or afraid of their bodies.
Apart from having these conversations about menstrual hygiene, when we talk to them, we create a world that speaks for itself.