Padman’s take on menstrual hygiene

Some thought he was possessed, some thought he was just being a pervert when he started questioning young women about sanitary pads.

But Arunachalam Muruganantham did all this in his quest to make cheap sanitary napkins for his wife, which, eventually, went on to revolutionise menstrual health for rural women around the globe.

Muruganantham, who hails from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, says he still has miles to go in his mission "to make menstrual hygiene accessible and affordable for everyone".

"People have definitely changed. More people are having open conversations about sanitary hygiene... 20 years ago no one dared to speak about it. Today, taboos have been broken. But India is not made up of metros alone. We have 600,000 villages and the awareness level is low. We have miles to go in our mission to make menstrual hygiene accessible and affordable for everyone," he added.

A school dropout, Muruganantham nearly lost his family, his money and respect in society. People started avoiding him, he was subjected to taunts from the people from his own neighbourhood, and some even thought he had contracted a sexual disease. In fact, his wife also left him due to his craze to create affordable sanitary napkins.

Flash forward to the present, he runs a company in Coimbatore to supply women with sanitary pads, provides technology for his low cost hygiene products to several countries, was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2014, and was honoured with the Padma Shri in 2016.

His story found its way into Bollywood in a more dramatised way through "Pad Man", with actor Akshay Kumar driving the project with his star power.

"I want to create more Pad Men who can make an impact in society.” Muruganantham, who believes in living a simple life, is using the new found commercial interest to spread word about his endeavour.

"We have an initiative called #StandByHer, aimed at spreading awareness in menstrual hygiene digitally and on ground. With the help of a few like-minded people, we create awareness amongst school students and villages.

"We also distribute pads to police women, school girls and villagers. We are creating various unique concepts to create awareness -- the Pad Man challenge being one amongst them. We are also bringing out a multi lingual song to raise awareness about menstrual hygiene."

By: Sugandha Rawal