A school dropout won in his quirky but noble mission that has now inspired Bollywood to make a movie
The machine came first, the daughter only later, quips Arunachalam Muruganantham, tongue in cheek. “All because of my obsession with the sanitary pad.” The 55-year-old is referring to how his daughter was born only ten years after his marriage. For, his wife had walked out on him, protesting against his obsession with his sanitary pad project. Shanthi did return to live with him, but only after he succeeded and won social recognition.
Not just recognition. Today, even Bollywood fame. Actor Askhay Kumar decided to make PadMan, based on Muruganantham’s mission that has freed thousands of women from the shackles of unhygienic living during their periods. First Muruganantham and now Akshay have together dared where no Indian man has been before: the sensitive issue of menstruation that comes with taboos that confine women to the dark corners of their homes. The absence of a pad used to instil dread in rural women all those three days.
Coimbatore-based Muruganantham, had married in 1998. Once he saw his wife smuggling a dirty piece of rag into the bathroom, and that’s when he realised most Indian women don’t use sanitary napkins. “She was hoarding dirty rags with which I’d hesitate to clean my two-wheeler. She said commercial pads were too expensive. That impelled me to find a low-cost solution,” he recalls.
This story is from the January 22, 2018 edition of Outlook.
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This story is from the January 22, 2018 edition of Outlook.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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