Latha was 12 years old when she first started menstruation. What is usually reason for celebration caused a flutter in her Madurai household. “My mother held the still-popular belief that the safety of my father was threatened as I had come of age on a Sunday. Not understanding what menses is about, the only message conveyed to me by her behaviour was that I had done something terribly wrong,” she says.
Now 58, Latha recalls waking up almost every night to see if her father was breathing. She says, “He finally passed away in old age, but the feeling that I could have sent him to an early death stayed with me, even though I had no control over it.”
Her story is just one of the many heart-wrenching ones gathered by filmmaker Geeta Ilangovan in her Tamil documentary, Madhavidaai (Menses). Speaking to City Express after the release of the film on Saturday, Geeta says that the purpose of the film is to ignite a debate on the problems that women face during menses. “Over 50 women have candidly shared their stories of how discrimination has affected their personality, psyche and health. There are problems of sanitation, disposal and toilet facilities, but no one is willing to talk about it in a public forum,” she says. Having worked for two years on gathering material, the passion is evident in her voice. She has also made a short film called Little Spaces, on mentally challenged children.
A lack of basic infrastructure to help women during that time of the month is sorely lacking, concur all the women in the film. In the Sankaramanickam village, the teenage girls say that they do not have toilets in their school. When they need to change their sanitary napkins, they are forced to take a bucket of water out into the woods.
“In most villages, cloth is still used by women. Decorum dictates that the cloth cannot be dried where men can see it. So it is put to dry inside the house, where it retains dampness, leading to growth of fungi. This in turn causes infection, and can even lead to cervical cancer,” says Geeta, adding that instead of being seen as a matter of shame, it should be viewed as unhygienic and right practices should be followed for the health of women.
The plight of the differently-abled women is also covered in the film. “A debate about having to remove the ovaries and uterus of mentally challenged women has been raging in some circles. This is very wrong,” says Rita, mother of a 26-year-old mentally challenged girl, stating that they can be taught to handle themselves.
The physically and visually challenged women too face problems of proper sanitation in public places. “The bad state of toilets in bus stands and railway stations could give me infections, as I use my hands to move around,” says a physically challenged woman. The visually impaired are afraid to venture in for fear of hurting themselves.
Even policewomen face such problems says G Thilagavathi, the first woman IPS officer from Tamil Nadu. Speaking in the film, she says, “During normal bandobust duty we could go to a nearby house and ask to use the toilet. But during communal clashes, if we went to one house, the other caste would say that we were on their side and attack us. At these times, we had to take the women police to a nearby village where they could relieve themselves.”
Prominent politicians like Dindigul constituency MLA K Balabharathi have also spoken in the film. “In case I get a stain on my clothes during a meeting, and someone points it out, I feel like I have committed a crime. Even in government offices the facilities are not great,” she says. Tamizhisai Soundarrajan, Bharatiya Janata Party General Secretary for Tamil Nadu, says that the free sanitary napkins to be supplied by the TN government for women in the rural areas will come as a great boon.
