Women get periods. So bloody what?

Last evening while browsing Twitter, I stumbled upon the cover of an upcoming issue of Newsweek (April 29, 2016) that has blood on the cover. Yes, their story is on periods - blasphemy! - and the cover line says "There will be blood - get over it". It goes on to say "Period stigma is hurting the economy, schools and the environment. But the crimson tide is turning".

High time, really.

I still recall the time I was with my father in Kolkata (my mum and sister were in Delhi for her college admissions), and I got my period. I must have been 13 or 14 and I asked my dad to get me sanitary napkins from the chemist. I honestly don't remember feeling awkward about it. Or a year ago, when I started to feel a little dizzy at the gym doing decline sit-ups and when my trainer asked what was wrong, I mentioned that I had my period and was probably feeling a little weak.

Both completely uneventful incidents. But the point is, I remember them. Why, in my entire timeline of life, should I even be able to recall these little meaningless incidents? Precisely because periods have always been a hush-hush topic. You get it every month for some 30-40 years of your life and yet talking to a man openly about periods has just never been the "done" thing - even if it's your own father.  

Which is why the Newsweek cover got me thinking. In fact, the period conversation has been gaining momentum in the recent past and rightly so. In March last year, a few students at Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia University wrote feminist messages on sanitary pads and left them around the campus. While the university officials took them down, the message spread, and soon, a similar movement was seen in Delhi University and also Jadavpur University.

Then, the famous Instagram post happened.

At the end of March, this year, Instagram took down a post by Rupi Kaur in which she posted a photograph of a fully-clothed woman lying in bed with a period stain. It was deleted twice by Instagram, which said the post didn't "follow (their) Community Guidelines."

The post was obviously shared thousands of times and Kaur took to Facebook to write: "Thank you Instagram for providing me with the exact response my work was created to critique." She went on to say that she created the series around menstruation to "demystify the period and make something that is innate 'normal' again."

While Instagram eventually reinstated the post, apologising for it, the issue gained traction.

And then in early April, the sanitary napkin protest reached Lahore, where a group of students (both boys and girls) of Beaconhouse National University (BNU) decided to write messages on pads and paste them on a wall to protest the stigma surrounding menstruation.

At a time when countries are considering-and some have already adopted-granting period leave to their female employees, it is deplorable that women are still handed sanitary napkin packets either in black polythene or wrapped in a newspaper, depending on where they live.  

If distributing condoms has been undertaken in the country on a large-scale as a planned intervention to reduce the cases of HIV/AIDS, and to encourage family planning, then distributing free sanitary napkins should be mandatory. We live in a country where girls drop out of schools because there are no toilets; imagine what happens when they menstruate. If access to sanitary napkins can put girls in schools and colleges and eventually in the work space, think about the long-term impact it could have.

It's high time we started to participate in this conversation in our own way to normalise periods. So many moms agonise over 'the talk' they need to have with their daughters nearing puberty, and constantly post queries on how to approach the topic, on social media groups. Just as you need to tell your pre-teen to have a bath every day and moisturize-despite the eye roll-you also need to tell them about menstruation.

Instead of making such a big deal of it and appointing a special time to discuss it, which eventually sows the seeds of secrecy that it doesn't require, talk to your kids about it even before they "need" to be told. It's not going to scar them, unless you think of it that way in your own head. And tell your sons too.

A good way to start? When your child goes through your bag and finds an ST, don't call it an adult diaper. Call it a sanitary napkin. Period.