Why treat sanitary napkins like radioactive isotopes, asks Twinkle Khanna in new column

Have you ever panicked if you had to get a sanitary napkin out of your bag and carry it to the washroom, because there are male colleagues around? You probably also tuck a pad in your pocket and place your arm protectively over it so that no one figures out what you are carrying.

With so many women without means to buy sanitary napkins in our country and many more without access to education and hence treating menstruation as a taboo, you’d think educated women like us would be more comfortable with physiological functions of our bodies.

However, despite education, we fail to let go off some taboos. And we willingly trap ourselves in them.

That’s why actor-turned-interior designer Twinkle Khanna’s latest column on menstruation and the many taboos around it strikes a chord with many.

She starts with commenting on how sanitary napkins are delivered in packaging that renders them unrecognisable, as if there’s deep shame in exposing the packages in public.

“Point to be noted, milord: Why are sanitary napkins treated like radioactive isotopes? They are wrapped in layers of plastic and newspaper, then someone ties a string over this mysterious package and then it’s put in a bag of its own — separate from any vegetables or cereal boxes that it may contaminate by its very presence,” she writes.

When you are done cracking up over her incisive sense of humour, consider what she said. How many women protest when the chemist wraps up packets of sanitary napkins in newspapers or stuffs them in black polythene hurriedly as if both the parties should be embarrassed about the purchase? Not many, honestly.

We have to take a definitive step to disperse the taboo around menstruation and as Khanna says, the first step should be treating the sanitary napkin as any other daily use commodity.

Read the complete column on Times of India here.