Padman: The Man Who Made the Laying Revolution in India
Dmitry Kurkin
In early February in social networks a flash mob launched against stigmatization of the monthly #PadManChallenge, timed to coincide with the release of a film about Arunachalam Muruganantam, a Tamil inventor who put on stream production of cheap sanitary pads. In India, where the topic of intimate hygiene is still banned, the action was perceived ambiguously, accusing its participants of marketing speculation. We tell how from a lone craftsman, who was regarded by villagers as an eccentric and obsessed, Muruganantam turned into a national superhero - Padman.
“To be honest, I wouldn’t even scrub a scooter like this,” Arunachalam Muruganantam was surprised a lot when he learned what items women who live in poor parts of India use instead of gaskets. Most often these were cloths (and used many times and not always in time to dry), sometimes leaves, sand or sawdust.
Even more Tamil, who hastened to “please his wife” with a pack of gaskets, was struck by their price: having estimated how much an adsorbent can cost, which he mistakenly took for cotton, Muruganantam came to the conclusion that manufacturers overestimate his price by forty times. Then the handyman from the neighborhood of Coimbatore firmly decided to find a way to make gaskets cheaper. After many years of searching and studying the topic, an enterprising man achieved his goal: his apparatuses for the independent production of gaskets were installed in 23 of 29 states in India.
The legend of Padman began to take shape in the early 2010s. In December 2011, Indian documentary Amit Virmani stumbled upon his story, saw the perfect Bollywood script in it and made the film Menstrual Man, thanks to which they learned about Muruganantam outside his native country. Arunachalam’s official biography reports that he lost his father early and grew up in poverty: at the age of fourteen he had to drop out of school to help his mother provide for his family. Since then, he has worked as a farmer, salesman for yams, a welder and a machine operator.
For some time, Muruganantam had to test samples on himself: for this, he made a menstruation simulator using goat blood
Muruganant, obviously, was far from prejudice, but very quickly found out that few of the household and neighbors are eager to discuss with him monthly - and even more so to take part in testing his handicraft linings. Many of his fellow villagers did not even know what it was. The inventor couldn’t wait until his wife started his period (Arunachalam learned about the periodicity of the cycle a little later), but didn’t find volunteers for testing right away: his sisters refused to help him, and the class barrier interfered with her students: even the guys from the medical college can't go - where is the workman from the workshop? " For some time, Muruganantam had to test samples on himself: for this, he made a menstruation simulator using goat blood.
The more an Indian went into research, the more hostile were those around him. One day, Arunachalam's mother discovered his laboratory in the backyard with samples of gaskets — after which she collected her belongings and left the house. Soon, the rest of the family, including his wife, turned away from the inventor, and he himself had to leave his native village, so that fellow villagers would not begin to “cure” him from evil spirits.
He did not give in to Muruganthan, and after two years and three months finally found out that cellulose is used as an adsorbent in mass production of gaskets. It took another four and a half years to create the machine and to sharpen its own technology, which the inventor was literally going to put in the service of the people: Arunachalam kept in mind that the prime cost of the gaskets should be low, and the machine should be fairly simple to use.
At the Madras Institute of Technology, the Tamil project was skeptical, but the invention was in demand in women's communities and charities. The price of one gasket Muruganantam was reduced to 2.5 rupees (2 rubles 25 kopecks at the current rate), but more importantly, his machines spread in the poorest regions of India, which not only helped with providing women with personal hygiene items, but also created new jobs . To achieve this, we again had to overcome the age-old prohibitions: “In order to talk to a woman in the village, you need to get the consent of her husband or father,” says the inventor, adding that, even with consent, you have to talk through a blanket without seeing the face of your interlocutor .
Machines spread to the poorest regions of India - this not only helped with providing women with personal hygiene items, but also created new jobs
Now Muruganantam, who has not made a fortune (his business is still focused primarily on improving the quality of life of people), has become a national hero - his relatives have long been reconciled. The film "Padman" based on his biography is produced by the writer and columnist Twinkle Khanna, and her husband Akshay Kumar, one of the most successful actors in the history of Indian cinema, will play the inventor in the film. And this is a significant breakthrough in the promotion of feminine hygiene. The current flash mob may have Indian women comedians like Supriya Josha’s jabbing - but a big Bollywood film in a country where movie stars have the status of perfect celestials can seriously advance the dialogue on the topic of menstruation and at least partially remove the social stigma associated with everything feminine hygiene.
In the meantime, the padding revolution is far from over. It is not able to compete with the giants of the Muruganantam company, so a pack of gaskets in India still costs an average of 37 rupees - the budget for those who earn 2–3 thousand rupees a year is pricey enough. And this is not the only problem. A recent survey conducted in Hyderabad (where more than 3.5 million people live) showed that 43 percent of women still hesitate to buy gaskets in public places and prefer to borrow them from friends, and about 85 percent order gaskets by mail. Issues of menstrual hygiene in Indian society are still silenced, and this, in turn, leads to an increase in diseases of the reproductive system. The work of the collective Padman is no end - and, judging by the comments under the posts of the flash mob, not only in India.
Cover:Arunachalam Muruganantham / Facebook