Talking Menstruation

What is Mensuration?? I am sure a biologist will answer a better definition than what I will present here, but just for formality let me provide for the same. Menstruation is the periodic discharge of blood and mucosal tissue (the endometrium) from the uterus and vagina. It is one of the property which is reason for, perhaps, the birth of a life from a woman's womb. But, since, from my childhood I have an itch with the traditional definitions, I have found my own definition for this taboo too. For me, Menstruation is a periodic phenomenon which is responsible for  illness, shame, the loss of educational and economic opportunity, and even violence for the female class.

Due to lack of accessibility, most of the females are left on to depend on with unhygienic clothes with no access to basic medical precautions such as soaps, private toilets etc. More than that, during this period they are treated as an outcast from the society, making them deprived of their basic rights such as debarring them from entering the house of "God" (thank "God", I am an agnostic), debarring them from washing and using public hand-pumps, interacting with their kith and kin and so on. In most of the cases, the woman wait for the night to fall so that to maintain her privacy, she may step outside and wash, putting herself at risk of rape and assault.

The first time I heard this word, I was in my 9th Standard but I am lucky because my friends openly took it and soon it became a topic of "nothing to hide about". There was nothing odd about it except making fun of our teacher when he/she used to mention the term 4th "period" or 5th "period". If this is so critical to women safety and her empowerment, then why don't we hear about it at all? Why it is the thing of maintaining "confidentiality", even among those who are "educated". I remember well, the middle aged educated people reacted in an unpleasant manner when I mentioned it during my train trip from home to Rajasthan. Few were in a cultural shock, few were amused and busy in neglecting me with a gentle smile and the ladies faces were as if I had asked them to demonstrate it.

For me, this issue can be tackled only if we debate it, when required like the other ones, openly and properly. For example, only 12% of the women have accessibility to commercial sanitary products while rest 88% depend on, in strict words, garbage. Innovative companies and organisations developing inexpensive, reusable sanitary products like the AFRI pad can help close this gap and must be supported. Government must priorities this. A study in Karachi, Pakistan, found that half of girls aged 14 to 17 knew nothing about menstruation and were scared of their periods, believing they were ill or dying. I am pretty sure, similar survey in India will reveal nothing astronomically deviating.

Conclusion

It's not that the wave for changing the circumstances are absent. Organisations such as Utthan is busy providing rural woman accessibility to basic sanitary products. The Indian government amended the national sanitation policy to include language on menstrual hygiene management. But it's too slow, not only because of the pace with which these legal changes are being brought about but also because that even educated sector of contemporary India is not ready to take this openly.

Well I have tried my best to take it openly, wherever I went as a volunteer for free at any NGO, I took classes on related issues but through my article I am asking you also to join the same.

Voting for What, Voting on What !!

Contemporary India has been a debatable chapter in it's all ages. Turn the pages of History, the concept has never been uniform, it has always fought for the survival of different philosophies. The different civilisations which came from an alien world, settled here and got absorbed, taught something , learned something and got some new name in a newer dimension. But what I find controversial now, is the survival of a concept which has neither morphed itself nor it seems that it will put an end to itself soon.

Going briefly through the parties' manifesto, I find their proposed issues to tackle development in various sectors such as economic, social, educational, health etc. in a well strategic and determined way. It's not a new story what happens just after the big picture of election. But I want all of us to focus on a different dimension. I think it's not actually corruption, unwillingness, leakages, unawareness etc. as the major cause for the problems which this contemporary India is facing. I find rather that the basis "for" which we vote is completely different "on" the basis of which we vote.

We vote for issues which reflect a technocratic, capitalist and "Mission Mars" India but we vote on the basis of a Feudal India, a India which was perhaps the reason for being conquered at the foreign hands.
When we vote, what matters for us is the domicile of the candidate, and not the knowledge of the candidate, the knowledge which he/she will use for making his/her party manifesto a reality for the concerned constituency which may have a completely different demographic, density, amenities, dimension etc. I had very high hopes from the youths of today but it seems that it has distilled in the very beginning itself. Many of them are against the present government because they think that the present government could have delivered more, but what makes me to walk on a different line is the way they have taken these issues in public places. They have not only started posting or speaking derogatory comments which could hurt someone's interest but also they have started branding people as communist, fascist or whatever they consider as "bad"when the concerned person tries to bring into it's ambit a different picture.

I must say, they may not agree, but whatever they are doing to impose what they want is completely Feudal, a Fedualism being presented in a completely different fashion, it may not be "zamindari" but it's more than "atyachaari".