EVERYONE IS SYMPATHETIC of a pregnant woman. But in my opinion, pregnancy is only a 10-month torment which might happen once or twice in a woman’s life. On the other hand, the torment a woman goes through each month when she is not pregnant is a life sentence. Freedom, Stayfree, Whisper–advertisements of these sanitary napkins show carefree women who wake up fresh and happy in the mornings while I see young girls from poor families stare longingly at these sanitary napkins in medical shops. I never experienced this longing as a young girl because I didn’t even know the existence of sanitary napkins when I started my period.
Delayed periods is actually a boon that poverty bestows on poor girls. I was 16 when my periods started. Those days we had just one meal a day. Even that wasn’t an assured one! It was my last year at school, around the half-yearly exams. My family organized a small celebration for me. It was exciting, but I couldn’t fully understand what was going on. I had no pain for the first six months. Then, during menstruation, I started to experience heavy flow of blood. I had to walk for about two km to reach school; there was no money to pay for the bus ticket. Only a few scraps of old cloth were folded and kept in place to hold the blood flow all day. I had to keep folding in and folding out the wet and dry parts of the cloth.
WHEN IT WAS announced recently that the first batch of non-Brahmin students were being ordained for priesthood in Tamil Nadu, there was great reason to cheer and celebrate that priesthood has been “officially” thrown open to all the castes and that Brahmin exclusivity was set to break (at least theoretically). But what is disappointing is that all women are denied this right and there is no talk in Tamil Nadu of any legislation, anywhere in the near future, to grant them the right to officiate as priests. 
TAKING OFF from 
THESE QUESTIONS go out to the ladies who have lived any part of their lives in India: Ever been sanitary napkin/ tampon shopping? Ever had your purchases wrapped up in a newspaper/ bag, “safe” from the eyes of the world? Now here’s my gnawing question: Why?