There was a time when one would squirm whenever the “chup chup baithi ho, zaroor koi baat hai,” advertisement would play on TV.
In a gradual but welcome move, the ads evolved into high octane action sequences of women in white trousers running marathons, doing parkour, climbing hills and then mischievously swearing by their love for pickles.
But it is only in the last few years that the conversation has gained critical mass, thanks to the efforts of ordinary women like the one who ran a marathon while on her period and with a visible blood stain on her clothes. She said she did this to express solidarity with women who did not have access to feminine hygiene and menstruation management products – which was commendable.
But of late we've started seeing a lot of polarising chatter around menstruation.
The ‘Sanskaar’ of Menstrual Hygiene
One lobby is busy vying for your attention by either guilt tripping you for threatening the environment (using sanitary napkins instead of cloth pads), or offering you new things to stick into your vagina like menstrual cups.
While they educate you about how it is healthier to use organic cotton cloth pads and how it is cheaper in the long run (given cloth pads are washable and reusable), they also make you hate yourself for contributing plastic waste to landfills across the world.