Akshay Kumar’s film Padman inspired from the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham — the inventor of a low-cost sanitary pad-making machine, did help start a positive dialogue around menstruation, and did create greater awareness of menstrual hygiene. But do you know another padman from West Bengal who is doing his bit to eliminate awkwardness from ‘menstrual’ conversations?
Sobhan Mukherjee, 22, an MSc (Geography) student of Asutosh College, Kolkata, has been installing Bandhan sanitary napkin boxes in the public toilets of Bansdroni, Golpark and Naktala areas of Kolkata. He believes that while travelling or during an emergency, women need not rush to the chemist to buy a pad. It can be made available to them at public toilets.
Currently, he is running two projects — Tridhara and Bandhan. While Tridhara focuses on building separate toilets for transgenders, Bandhan focuses on the installation of sanitary napkin vending machines at public toilets. The idea of installing these machines came up in 2017, when one of his classmates couldn’t attend an important meeting because she got her periods and she didn’t have a pad. “She told me that she had got her monthly cycle and that she didn’t have a sanitary napkin. Hence she had to go to the chemist. I found this incident very disturbing. This was when I thought, if some sanitary pads could be stocked in public toilets, it would provide relief to women,” says Mukherjee who is also the founder-editor of a magazine called Kabi Kolom.
The Bandhan box is a carton designed to stock sanitary napkins in public washrooms. “This is a cheap and effective answer to the many sanitary pad vending machines. Many a time, these vending machines are out of order and those working don’t have the stock of sanitary napkins. We hope Bandhan will make some difference to the lives of women. We are using social media, making videos, creating posters to make women aware of these boxes, which can come handy during emergencies or for women who can’t really afford expensive sanitary napkins.”
Mukherjee’s picture of him along with his mother busy packing sanitary napkins went viral which brought people’s attention to his efforts, resulting in them coming forward to help. At present, there are total 70 vending machines in Bengal and Mukherjee is striving to expand the number.
His parents have been very supportive about his ideas and initiatives. He adds that instead of just distributing sanitary napkins, he is also spreading the knowledge of menstrual cycle and hygiene by giving demonstrations at various schools and colleges in villages.
Talking about his Tridhara initiative, he says, “Every transmen and transwomen, due to changing hormones, suffer from untimely periods and are still not comfortable in discussing their problems. Awareness can’t be spread by only posting on social media or giving free advice. Tridhara has given them access to pay and use toilets. We all have to join hands and work together. ”
Using his own pocket money, he started the project. “I spent Rs 1000 buying the sanitary napkins and it took only two days for the napkins to go out of stock,” says Mukherjee. Initially, the pads were available for free, however, with the misuse of the facility, Mukherjee decided to charge a nominal fee of Rs 2 for the napkins and he gave the responsibility to the guards of pay and use toilets to charge the users.
Mukherjee, who is also the recipient of the National Foundation for India award and Ananya Samman, says that initially, the government refused to offer assistance to his initiatives. But that has never deterred him from going ahead. He says, “I organised a social awareness programme during which the first woman Ola driver of Bengal, Rupa Choudhury, and I spread awareness of sanitary napkins on World Menstruation Hygiene Day. I am also working on a new project to help the victims of Cyclone Aila which created havoc in South Bengal in 2009 killing 45 people in the state. As many parts of Bengal was underwater for a long time, women used to wash themselves in the unhygienic water from the local ponds and lakes which caused them ulcer and other diseases. I am trying to help them get cured and want to work for their betterment in future.”
