Arunachalam Muruganantham is not rich. But he could be the most important entrepreneur in India. He is certainly so already, for 88 per cent of Indian women who’ve never used a sanitary napkin. While working in a Coimbatore workshop, Arunachalam was appalled when he came to know from his wife that most Indian women shun napkins from big brands because they are too expensive. This unlikely entrepreneur, who dropped out of school at 14, decided to do something about the unsanitary situation. Unable to get at the big brands’ technology, he taught himself English and tricked big players into sending him samples of the cellulose used in their manufacture. Armed with the samples, he reverse-engineered the napkin, only to find that the machine used to make cellulose out of tree-bark costs half a million dollars. Four years later, he designed his own cheaper machine that could make them economically. But then he faced a real challenge—getting his invention tested. Neither his wife, nor his sisters, or any medical student he approached, wanted to discuss the issue. Undaunted, he made his own menstruating uterus by filling a bladder with goat’s blood, and wore it under women’s underwear. Now his firm Jayashree Industries, instead of making napkins, is selling these machines to self-help groups at a mere Rs 65,000 a piece, using which they can produce 120 napkins an hour. Arunachalam says he has one goal. “Make India a 100 per cent napkin-using country”.