According to a survey, around 82% of women go without sanitary pads during their monthly menstrual period in India. Instead they use old rags, sometimes sand or ash. There, it seems, hasn’t been any voice of concern raised regarding this huge hygiene issue involving millions of women. But, a humble villager who also happens to be a school dropout, touched by the plight of these women went on to invent the low-cost sanitary pad producing machine, but not before going through all kinds of harrowing experiences. The man is Muruganandham and his low-cost pads is a silent revolution which is saving women from horrible hygienic threats.
Muruganandham’s extraordinary life story that revolves around sanitary pads makes for interesting reading. Bollywood is quick to make use of this rather intriguing story with R. Balki coming up with a commendable movie named ‘Padman’. The real Padman Muruganandham belongs to Pappanayakkanpudur, a nondescript village in western Tamil Nadu. His father, a handloom worker, died in an accident when Muruganandham was in 10th standard and that was the end of his schooling. He joined his mother’s breadwinning efforts for the family of four. He sold firecrackers, Ganapathi statues, idlies and sugarcanes before settling down on a work in a welder’s shop. He learnt welding there.
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Muruganandham innovated with his welding; people were impressed with his iron grill gates which were in subtle, unique patterns. He even made rangoli designs into grill patterns. The clutches of poverty began to ease as his welding business progressed and soon he got married. It was through his wife Shanthi he came to about the menstrual cycle of women. One day he was very curious to see Shanthi taking away a piece of old rag hiding it behind her. When he enquired about this he was hushed by her.
It was not long before Muruganandham realised the troubles of women in their period and he vowed to himself that he would find a solution to this widespread crisis. The innovator in him got awakened. First he examined the sanitary-pads available in the market to know what they are made up of. Then he tried making his own pads, but finding volunteers who could help in trying the pads was the biggest obstacle that came his way. The taboo of period and pads had almost stalled his invention.
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People would look at him critically as though he was insane. Some called him pervert, he even got beaten up. The women of his family too couldn’t understand him, as if these weren’t enough his wife left him. But Muruganandham determined and didn’t give up; he got help from some medical college students who agreed to try his pads. He himself wore the pads with goat blood filled in a bladder tied to his abdomen. It took him almost four-and-a-half years to make his pad-making machine.
After all the ostracism and agony he has given the world low-cost sanitary pads which helps poor, uneducated and underprivileged women to see off the challenges of period hygiene. Muruganandham has won many accolades for his invention, a Padma Shri in 2016 is one among them. But the movie ‘Padman’ is a fitting tribute to the man who confronted taboos to come up with a solution which has liberated our women from an awful and mostly unspoken health hazard and this movie will also help in a big way in doing away with the taboos surrounding menstrual period.
Read Also: Do Movies Like Pad Man And Toilet Create Any Impact?
