Bloody hell

Hi, hello. You. Yes, you. Come here a while, let’s chat for a bit. About what? Well, there’ve been a couple of things on my mind lately. What? Well, I’m glad you asked. Yes, please sit, get comfortable, I’ve been waiting to tell you.

When I bled for the first time, aged 9, my mother, to my complete bewilderment, smiled at me. You see, I was sure I was dying of some disease which had not been explained by medical science yet. She gave me the “You’re a woman now” talk and although I can’t say I was happy about it, I was relieved that my life wasn’t in mortal danger. Now, if I were to venture a guess, I’m pretty sure almost all of us girls get this talk at one point, quite early in our lives. But for the benefit of the uninitiated, here’s a brief summary of an understanding most pre-teen and early teen females have, either as a result of a lengthy lecture or gradually, through experience:

1. They are called periods. As inconvenient as they are, you will be dealing with them right up to you late-40s (approximately).
2. You may or may not get cramps. They feel like Death has got hold of your very insides. Keep muscle-relaxers in your bedside table.
3. When disposing off your pads, make sure you wrap them up in black plastic bags or newspaper or something. Let no one know there are bloody pads in those packages.
4. Stained panties, pants, shirts and sheets are to be washed separately. Be conscious of them, hide them, no one should be able to guess that you’re on your period.
5. You may get moody, but try not to make a huge deal out of everything.
6. Hot water bags. They don’t work, but let’s all pretend that they do.
7. Do not say you are “on your period”. Euphemisms like ‘shorir kharap’ (illness), ‘arrey ye’ (oh, that thing) or even ‘uggghh’ are better alternatives.

Okay. No, that isn’t by any means an exhaustive list and a lot of it is based on personal experience or what I’ve seen of and heard from the people around me, but everyone gets a basic picture, right? While numbers 1 and 2 are understandable, the rest of the list makes me want to tear my hair out, to say the least.

See, I can hear you thinking Feminazi, but answer me this — Why the hush-hush, the silence? Who are you trying to hide what from? You are saying you didn’t know that most women have vaginas? That they bleed once they reach puberty? Well, rise and shine buddy, THEY DO. And what exactly is your problem with pads again? The packeted ones, which you refuse to buy, to deliver when someone is in need of them? Yes, those. I’m not even talking about the bloody ones.

Speaking of blood, everyone seems to be okay with it when it’s gushing out of wounds and cuts and severed heads. We’ve made TV shows and movies that portray violence-induced blood and awarded them with a viewership so high that they have gone on to make records, win awards. So why the face when it comes out of a woman’s vagina? Just because it isn’t aesthetical? Didn’t they teach you in school? Class ten, I think? Did you skip the chapter because of the diagrams? What did you think we had down there? Glitter? Confetti?

No, I’m calm. Very calm. I ask these questions because I was driven to ask them. Having been brought up in a female-dominated household, it took me a while to realize that talking about periods is a taboo; a preventive taboo. And I tried to understand it, gain an objective view.

And excuse you me but, no.

If you’re going to shame me about something that should be celebrated instead, you push me to think that I have something that I should be ashamed about. I don’t.

Here is what I am ashamed about, though: the fact that you try to shame me about it. The fact that there are women who are ashamed about it. The fact that we’ve been indoctrinated with period blood taboos to such an extent that we’ve managed to normalize it. Yes, normalize it. Don’t you use shame to sell sanitary napkins? Don’t you make artists take down pictures from social media sites for their depiction of what essentially is my standard Monday morning adventure when I’m on my period? Don’t your models prance around in skin-tight leggings to upbeat notes showing no panty lines, no pad bulges?

If you think you’re being reverent to us by not speaking out loud about something that is so very intrinsic to being a menstruating woman, I suggest getting of your high horses. You’re not. And don’t harbour any illusions about us being weak or vulnerable when we’re on our periods. Yes we can get moody sometimes, but common sense and rationality does not escape us.

So next time you see or hear about periods, period blood or pads, woman up and deal with it.