Stain The Stigma

Yes, I am on my periods and it's day five so I'm barely bleeding, but I'm still wearing a sanitary pad. On day one, usually my heaviest bleeding day-I had to use four to five sanitary pads.

Wait. Sorry,I forgot the fact that in India, menstruation is still considered as a taboo and people may get offended by talking about it.

Menstruation is still considered as a secret women's business which they are to manage privately and cautiously.

In a survey by UN's sanitary agency WSSCC, it is found that almost a third of women and girls had known nothing about periods and over 70% thought menstrual blood was dirty.

It is said that women are women's worst enemy and it was clear from stories that it was usually women themselves hiding menstruation and they know nothing because their mothers,grandmothers and sisters had told them nothing. Some girls thought that they were dying of cancer when they got their periods. In Iran, over 40% of girls surveyed by UNICEF thought menstruation was a disease. The most dreadful fact is that only 12% of Indian women use sanitary pads and it can have serious consequences. If girls don't use sanitary napkins, they use straw,or sand or newspaper, often resulting in infections.

To all these bad sides,there are good sides raising.There is now a Menstrual Hygiene Day which is celebrated on 28th May. Colleges and schools are coming up with great initiatives to provide awareness to public.

Films and Arts-A way to fight with stereotypes.

'Padman',a Bollywood movie directed by R. Balki and starred by Akshay Kumar talks about the most widespread taboo in India-'menstruation'.It is a film inspired by the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham, a Tamil nadu-basrd activist who spread the concept of menstrual hygiene in rural India by providing low-cost sanitary pads.

Radhika Apte, who plays a key role in the film,had earlier said that the menstruation taboo has not only existed among men but also among women who are conditioned for years not to talk about it openly.

The makers of this film initiated a Padman challenge on social media in which they challenged public to post their pictures with sanitary pads in their hands.

"Period.End of Sentence" won an Oscar at the 91st Academy Awards in the Best Documentary category. The documentary unfolds the struggle of Indian women to fight the stigma surrounding menstruation.

Let's not making it hard for the next generation to talk about this 'so-called taboo'. When the whole world is evolving, let's evolve together making this a better place to live in.