Explaining Menstruation need not be Awkward

It was a regular day at school and there I was doing regular things. Attending classes, chit-chatting, copying notes and yes, waiting eagerly for the day to end. Innovation was always something that my school sorely lacked in. I always felt that the teaching was delivered in a top-to-down manner and that the focus was on earning marks instead of developing capacities. As a seventh standard student, I was curious, scared, and mostly confused about my changing body and the spectrum of emotions I was dealing with. In my circle of girl-friends, we would often discuss why the boys in our school suddenly developed strange heavy tones in their voices, why our bodies had suddenly started growing in weird regions in addition to a variety of other such questions which kept popping up in conversations day in and day out. To our dismay, we never had anyone around to discuss all this with. As the days passed, our anxieties and curiosity kept on increasing with no answers in sight.

Well, so it was a regular hot day at school and it was that time of the day when all we could think about was when we would be left out of the gates that looked like prison bars to me (because I have never been a fan of school and studying). That was when someone entered the class and an announcement was made. “All the girls have to report to the basement in classroom Z,” said a teacher. While we girls wondered what had just happened, the boys I remember were curious to know why they were not a party to all of this. There we were then, almost half the population of the class, getting up and going down to the basement with clueless expressions on our faces and excitement in our minds for we had just got released from the boring Mathematics class that was taking place.

From the third floor, as we walked down slowly to the basement, many speculations about what was going to happen were made; injections, health check-ups, random gifts and such were some of them. I remember very clearly that one girl declared that we were going to be spoken about something called periods. The word was definitely not new to me. Well, school periods were something we always knew about but then she went on to explain about a new concept called ‘Menstrual Periods’. I began walking down the stairs wondering what menstruation was all about. The very first day I had heard about it was the day when several of my questions were left unanswered.

As we entered the dingy room in one corner of the lobby, I saw the room packed with girls. On one corner was a small television set and we all sat down as spectators in front of it. “A movie…ahh…not bad,” I thought to myself. The heat started getting to my head as a straight-faced lady entered the room and we were made to hush our voices down to sit and silently listen as usual.

A ten-minute long movie showing us how to use a sanitary napkin added more confusion to my ever-dramatic mind. I sat there wondering about whys and whats and whose and whens. My friend, the one who had already got her periods re-assuredly patted my back and promised to tell me all about it. For me, the idea of bleeding every month without any reason sounded crazy. “This is how it happens” was replaced by “It happens! Deal with it!”

The next moment, I saw myself walking back to the classroom with a sanitary napkin provided to us as a return gift to carry back. The ‘Angels of Menstruation’ had just informed us about ‘that time of the month’. I felt like I was thrown into a pool with a life jacket but in no way trained to know how to use it, why to use it and why indeed we needed to do so. With no training, with no reason, with no knowledge about why the changes were taking places, I found questions popping up in my head but was too scared to get the words out of my mouth.

We tried to hide it in our blazers and some hid it by folding it in our hands because we knew that the very moment we returned to the class, there would be faces looking at us with questioning eyes, curious to know what it was that made us so special that only we were invited for. It is one of the funniest yet weirdest memories of my school days to be questioned by the boys around me, with my school bag among many others being rummaged to find out what was gifted to us. We had no answers; we didn’t know how to tell the boys and indeed if we could in fact tell them anything at all.

Over the years, the memory keeps on coming and going from time to time. When I had my periods, I was unsure and scared about everything and the way in which it all took place. From that friend-who-had-it-first to sometimes the-elder-sister figure, I turned to everyone for answers but the very idea that it was supposedly dirty and that it wasn’t considered normal to talk about it made my curious brain forcefully shut down, leaving most of my questions unanswered.

My mother never encouraged me to talk about it. We were told that we were not supposed to make it obvious when it was ‘that time of the month’. We were told to hide our painful cramps and to deal with our mood swings. “Have tea, and keep quiet,” my mother would say. Well my mouth was shut but in my mind, the conditioning took place in such a way that I grew up thinking that periods were strictly not to be spoken about and that it was a shame that we had to go through it in the first place.

Years passed by and one fine day when I found myself sitting with a group of adolescent girls in a slum in Delhi with their curious eyes staring back at me, I realized how I would have looked at that time. I left myself at the disposal of those girls, ready to answer any question, any issue, anything at all. I started narrating my story and told them of how, over the years, I had gone through a phase of not knowing to knowing it all. Internet, movies, discussions, research and other avenues of information had all helped me but I knew the challenges I had faced in my struggle to reach the point where I knew that periods were not ‘dirty’, it wasn’t something we had to hide or ignore and that it was a natural process which we most certainly were blessed to go through. For me, the lack of a mentor to help me understand this process got me to realize how I could be one for many others. That is how I found myself answering absolutely anything that the girls ever wanted to know about menstruation.

We live in a society where we consider women impure during their periods. You cannot go to a temple, touch pickles or enter kitchens. We study and function in such societal structures where life processes are taught as mere subjects and not as something crucial to growing up. Sex Education is good, but the manner in which it is delivered needs to be restructured. We live in homes where even the act of throwing a sanitary napkin is to be done with a certain amount of care and secrecy. Well, if change have to take place, it has to start with us. I started with my younger sister, with many other boys and girls in my house and went on to address the dilemmas of many young minds at various other places. You have to decide where to start. Act now, or else ignorance will only result in curious brains shutting down and in creative minds clamping up.

This article was originally published at Menstrupedia blog 

Breaking the Culture of Silence in India

“I was a girl, now I am a woman, I came alone, I die alone.

People cried when I was born, when I die none will mourn.”

_________

Antim, 13 years old had not eaten properly since years. After all, she was a girl.  When she was born, the whole community had cried. Not tears of joy but of pain. After the torturous nine months that her mother had gone through, all everyone was expecting was to see the baby that would carry the family name ahead, bring joy to the community where having a baby girl was a sin. And when she came in, not only did the family-friends cried, the mother who had borne her in her uterus cried, from both her heart and her body. She was that’s why named Antim, which meant, the last one.

Her mother conceived almost as soon as she could again. And when her brother was born, that was the end of any happiness she could have seen in this world where patriarchy was the only rule that prevailed. While the whole crowd around her danced in joy, the pain she will have to go through was right in front of her, waiting to grab her like a demon. As she grew, she remained aloof of the basic joys of life: freedom, food and family. At 13, when she started menstruating for the first time, as confused as she was of the changes that were happening to her, she was unaware of the fact that now, the burden of being a woman had grabbed her, a burden she would have to deal with a smile on her face. No proper nutrition, thousand rules to abide by, and unaware of what she could have been, she was being trained to become a woman, a woman who her mother was, her grandmother was and may be her baby girl will be later.

Menstruation is a phenomenon that changes everything for a girl. As she dwindles with the body and emotional changes that happen to her, she is forced to take it as a curse instead of a blessing. On one hand where she can see her body change, on the other she sees how her curious mind is shut forever. Neither does her mother tell her what to do, nor does anybody else. Hygiene, nutrition, puberty, sex education are topics that are dusted under the carpet. As she grows, she realizes that she must have done sins to be born a woman.

______________

Suman, 23 years old sits beside me as we discuss the issues women face in the community. A look at her is enough to understand that though she smiles, she is empty inside. A mother to three girls, she has recently gone through her third abortion. In her six years of marriage, she has been pregnant almost always. With an expressionless face, she explains that somewhere women are born to live a life this way. The purpose of a woman coming on this earth is only to reproduce and so what she was going through seemed to her like a duty. Desires somewhere had died long ago, or maybe never existed at all.

She was married when she was 17 years old. A case of child marriage as she was, she had never seen her husband’s face, and so marriage was just another duty. In a small yet rich town of the most prosperous state of India, she came to her in-laws knowing the duties she was entitled to do. One of which was satisfying her husband in bed, another one being giving the family the heir, male heir. On one hand while she dwindled with expectations of the family growing every day for her to produce a baby boy, she was being cursed every day for failing to deliver. And so, one abortion after another she was loosing faith in her being able to fulfill her duty, failing to be the ideal woman she was defined to be since childhood. Droopy eyes with dark circles around, she was pregnant this time too and scared because soon she had to go through an ultrasound examination to know the sex of the baby. Little she know, its not she who defined the sex of the baby, biologically.  Suman as she was proudly named, which means a flower, had no meaning in her life because she wasn’t aware what blooming was all about.

Issues of Family Planning go way beyond the number of babies. It encompasses the awareness of contraception, rights to make that choice on using one, it entails the issues of Maternal and childcare, it entails patriarchy and control over bodies, involves issues of infection, HIV and Violence Against Women. It’s much more than contraception and incentives to get vasectomy or birth control.  The fact that even today women simply fail to say NO to their husbands and family pressures go beyond any government scheme or incentives given. The issue remains, of dialogue to move beyond ego issues of males related to condoms, of asking instead of forcing to have sex and reproduce.

_____________

Banwari, 55 years sat next to her granddaughter telling her how to cook as her mother went on the farm. She is greeted by the Nurse from the nearby Local health Clinic set up by the government asking her about the injection schedule for the baby boy just born. During the few minutes of conversation, she is tempted to ask her about the changes that she has been undergoing. She had been trying to ask her since months and so, after a lot of courage she shares her troubles. She goes on and describes a series of symptoms that she has been going through. Her knees have started to pain, she is having uneven periods.. the nurse tells her about Menopause but tries to explain to her how she should get herself tested for once. She shuns the idea, takes it as normal and shows her the door.

After two more months of pain and trouble, she wonders if she should have got those tests done. The local ayurveda doctor medicines didn’t work, neither did the priests prayers. The local community radio channel playing on the radio beside her grandson who lies there playing on the cot has the reporter discussing a similar problem. She is hesitant to discuss the issue with anyone, but after a lot of thinking she finally gathers the courage to call the doctor on the call-in show, happy that she isn’t sitting face to face with him. Being retold to get herself examined, she wonders if it was time to see a doctor.. silently, she gets back to her work. She looks at her grand daughter, maybe she sees in her a reflection of her own past. Named after Lord Krishna himself, she must show courage to handle all her pains.

While Menopause is a natural phenomenon, cervical cancers have been on a rise in the country of India. The fact that a woman would think a hundred times before she sees a doctor for a ‘personal’ problem that should not be spoken about to anyone, makes it evident that screening is slower even after awareness. Even today, when it comes to issues related to Maternal Health, Personal hygiene and Feminine care, women in rural India are just not ready to voice out their concerns, their fears. The will live in pain, as they have been trained to but never speak out, thereby remain voiceless.

_____________

These Three stories connect to the Culture of silence in India. Keep aside men. Keep aside social rituals. The fact that even a woman cannot easily talk to a woman about her troubles and get empathy in return makes it evident that even after 65 years of independence, women are crippled by social customs and age-old traditions to a level where they wont speak their desires out. Though systems of support outside family exist, the fact that the first connection should happen at home leaves them helpless. The culture of silence on issues of Menstruation, Maternal Health and Menopause have been there since ever, especially in Northern part of India. These three make women feel burdened of living and while she had faced the same in her childhood, she doesn’t easily take a step to fight for her daughter or daughter-in-law.

Privacy is good. But sometimes issues like these that are of common good, women good, need to be spoken out loud. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live” was a strong statement that Joan Didion had given long time ago. Such stories of pain and sorrow need to be spoken out loud in order to motivate women not to face troubles with a smile, but to voice out the issues they face, the pains they go through, the fears they live with.

What is the starting point?

“Starting a dialogue, maybe”

Are you undergoing PMS?

One of the irony of my life has been that studying in a all girls college in Delhi University for my under grads, grads and now my PhD makes people believe that I am a feminist. The difficulty is that people didn't see that I was one before I entered college and that coming in this college made me more sober in terms of my feminism. In my second years when I was studying a course in Women Studies and Concerns, I realized that Feminism wont help this nation achieve anything in terms of women's rights. If Gender equality has to be achieved, what this nation needs is more of a gender-ed approach rather than pro-women!

Well, why am I telling you these things? The story goes like this.. Over the past few years, months and weeks I have come across some very funny people who love tagging any irrational (for them) behaviour that a woman shows as her biological imbalance phase. To speak of it openly, PMS is a national debate now. Pre-Menstrual Syndrome (PMS) as we all have believed over the years has affected many women in various ways. Its just that a week before her menstrual cycle ends, she undergoes strong emotional changes, becomes cranky and if old traditional books are to be believed, turns into a witch!! (REALLY??)

I think, our cultures have been all over the world propagating this idea since centuries and after science proved that hormonal changes do impact her, it has been a label that has many women even more cranky. I for instance, have over the years believed that I not only undergo Pre syndrome but also Post! And even as many men out there haven't told me or questioned me if I am undergoing PMS, I know that has been in their minds as they saw me being angry or irritated. I, now believe its more of a psychological things rather than hormonal. This conclusion of myn comes from the fact that I have spent many so-called- PMS-weeks without any emotional drama attached to them!

Lately, while reading a novel called "Can Love Happen Twice", I came across a similar instance where the author describes this phase of his girl friend's life in a very interesting yet comical manner. Initially for me it was really funny but then a thought came across my mind. While he described it to be a phase where every boyfriend turns more of a pet (if he really loves her! HAHA).. where he needs safety measures of she will go crazy and things will mess up.. I understood the interesting thing that goes inside the male mind as they tend to ignore what a woman feels or says or rationally explains too in this phase by tagging a week of her month as some stupid PMS time..Do you really think that all a woman or girl speaks or does during this phase, is irrational???

A sudden thinking process in the evening of my funny little brain brought out a new definition of PMS to me.. I have after few hours and days of thinking and analyzing male behavior patterns come down to the conclusion that HELLO!! Its not just we who suffer from PMS, you do too... for men, as I should define, this PMS can be elaborated as Permanent Masculinity Syndrome! While we women at one side turn cranky and irrational just one week a month (as described by men and stupid biology scientists), men on the other side suffer from loads of ego that is an impact of them realizing their masculinity! In India, PMS (for men) is even more stronger. And I am not kidding as am sure many women will agree with my theory! You find men getting irritated if don't do what they want you to do, if you explain your diversions from typically tagged women-behavior, if you rebel and if you divert from any society-termed-appropriate behavior.

Well well.. In today's scenario, most women rebel, most women divert from typical behavior patterns and say NO to what they want their approval on. In such a situation, men get cranky, irritated, irrational (for us) and become (if my theory is to be agreed on) a monster!! So.. if you agree with the theory, have men around in whom you do see this behavior (not once a month but anytime, anywhere, anyhow).. then the next time a man asks you "Are you undergoing PMS?", just answer with a smile, and nod that "Yes, I am... and so are you..while myn will be fine in few days, you my friend are in trouble coz your PMS is for lifetime..may you recover soon!"

(If my friends are to be believed I am a feminist..but if you agree that we need gender equal tagging as well.. you agree with me..and you agree that I am a simple human being who wants men and women to have equal status.. if we are witches once a month, you are a monster whole of your life honey!... )