A Bollywood movie about an inventor who created a revolutionary machine that makes cheap sanitary pads hits screens this week, challenging taboos surrounding menstruation in socially conservative India.
Arunachalam Muruganantham is nicknamed India’s “menstrual man” for transforming the lives of poor women forced to use items like old rags, sand and leaves during their periods.
He has been lauded by India’s government and is now getting the star treatment with Bollywood A-lister Akshay Kumar portraying him in Pad Man, releasing on Friday.
Photo: AFP
It is the latest socially conscious movie to come out of a film industry known more for producing complex love stories featuring handsome heroes and elaborate dance routines.
Muruganantham hopes the movie will help raise awareness about the importance of menstrual hygiene in patriarchal India where women, particularly in rural areas, are frequently shunned during their monthly cycles.
“Menstruation is still a taboo subject in India and a tough subject for a film,” he told AFP by phone from his home state of Tamil Nadu in southern India.
“But I read the script and I was also on the sets to guide them. I think [R] Balki [the writer and director] has handled the subject beautifully. People will talk about personal hygiene and it will give hope to the younger generation to do innovative things,” he added.
Muruganantham’s remarkable story began in the late 1990s when he was shocked to discover that his wife was using newspaper and dirty cloths during menstruation because sanitary pads were too expensive. He decided to do something about it and started experimenting with different designs using cotton. His first few prototypes were not very successful and quickly his wife and sisters refused to be guinea pigs any longer. When other women in the village balked at his requests to try his products he started testing them on himself, using a football bladder and animal blood.
Muruganantham was mocked and ostracized by fellow villagers, and his wife even left him for a while, but he remained undeterred and intensified his search. After two years he discovered that sanitary pads are made from cellulose found on trees.
RISKY
Muruganantham also learned that the machine which ground down the pulp before turning it into napkins cost hundreds of thousands of dollars so he decided to create his own.
In four years he had invented an easy-to-use device which could produce pads at a third of the cost of the commercially produced ones. The machines themselves were also vastly cheaper at around 75,000 rupees (US$1,170).
“I wanted to make sure that technically we did not go wrong, so he agreed to supervise,” Balki, the director, said of Muruganantham’s role on set.
Actresses Radhika Apte and Sonam Kapoor star alongside Kumar whose character, based on Muruganantham, is called Lakshmi.
The 50-year-old actor, whose films regularly rake in more than one billion rupees (US$15.6 million) at the box office, is no stranger to starring in movies with an important message.
Last year’s comedy, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha (Toilet: A love story), focused on the lack of toilets in India and the problem of open defecation. It was a massive hit, grossing upwards of US$2 billion rupees, but Balki says a film about periods is an altogether different proposition.
“Pad Man is possibly the riskiest film Akshay has done because of the taboo, unexplored subject,” he told AFP.
Several million more Indian women are now estimated to use sanitary pads thanks to Muruganantham. His company, Jayaashree Industries, has more than 2,000 units across the majority of India’s states and also exports to dozens of countries. The machines also provide employment to thousands of rural women.
In 2014 he was included in Time magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in the world. Two years later India’s government awarded Muruganantham one of the country’s highest civilian honors.
The release of Pad Man is set to elevate his fame further but he insists he won’t be letting it go to his head.
“The cause is becoming big, but I am remaining the same,” he said.
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
On April 17, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) launched a bold campaign to revive and revitalize the KMT base by calling for an impromptu rally at the Taipei prosecutor’s offices to protest recent arrests of KMT recall campaigners over allegations of forgery and fraud involving signatures of dead voters. The protest had no time to apply for permits and was illegal, but that played into the sense of opposition grievance at alleged weaponization of the judiciary by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to “annihilate” the opposition parties. Blamed for faltering recall campaigns and faced with a KMT chair
Article 2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) stipulates that upon a vote of no confidence in the premier, the president can dissolve the legislature within 10 days. If the legislature is dissolved, a new legislative election must be held within 60 days, and the legislators’ terms will then be reckoned from that election. Two weeks ago Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed that the legislature hold a vote of no confidence in the premier and dare the president to dissolve the legislature. The legislature is currently controlled
RSS