Smriti Irani may or may not be squeamish towards menstrual blood, but her remarks show ability to write winning dialogue

A few years ago, I heard on the grapevine that an architect friend had been commissioned to build a house by a wealthy techie just outside Chennai. Among other specifics, he wanted the house to have a high level of security and a panic room — a safe and well-stocked room to hole up in, in case of an emergency. There were other things he wanted, but the panic room was high on his list, as was a room with a sort of drain. Not a bathroom, asked the architect friend. The client became blunt. No, he wanted a room for his wife for the days she had her period, and the drain was so she could wash herself while in there. This bizarre and cruel brief floated back to Bengaluru, and we were prompt in giving this room its right name: a moral panic room. I thought of that room after hearing Union minister Smriti Irani’s puzzling remarks about Sabarimala on Tuesday . She was reported as having said: “I am nobody to speak on the Supreme Court verdict because I am a current serving Cabinet minister. But just plain common sense; would you take sanitary napkins steeped in menstrual blood and walk into a friend’s home? You will not. And do you think that it is respectful to do the same when you walk into the house of God? So that is the difference. I have a right to pray. I do not have the right to desecrate. That is my personal opinion.” [caption id=“attachment_4161249” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Union minister Smriti Irani. PTI[/caption] At this point, I had no clue what Irani was talking about, so didn’t feel ragey right then. Perhaps “taking” sanitary napkins was a metaphor for wearing sanitary napkins? As in menstruation was a dirty thing to bring into the house of your god? Or was it potentially menstruating? In which case one could always say things like would you take a used condom to a friend’s house, then why take your testicles to Sabarimala? This was all very strange, but it did remind me that a couple of years ago, Gyandev Ahuja, the BJP MLA from the Ramgarh Assembly constituency in Rajasthan’s Alwar district, had announced, in a rare feat of purely imaginary data journalism, that every day, 50,000 pieces of bones, 3,000 used condoms, 500 used abortion injections, 10,000 cigarette “pieces”, among other things, are found at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. At JNU, where, according to Ahuja, girls and boys dance naked during functions. At JNU, Irani’s “Not Happy Memories Place”. The upper-caste Hindu’s peculiar obsession with other people’s bodily fluids seems to have lent a sort of pornographic manohar kahani-esque vocabulary and imagery to the speech of the BJP leadership. But then, a little later on Tuesday, Irani called the whole thing "fake news" , tweeted at Michael Safi, a journalist with The Guardian, promising a video to prove that it was fake news. She then tweeted a few more times, promising to clarify but only further confusing the rest of us. One, she said that as a Hindu married to a Parsi, she is not allowed to enter the Parsi temple but wouldn’t approach any court to contest it out of respect. Two, menstruating women do not enter Parsi temples. Three, and my friends, if you understand what’s going on in this tweet, please let me know: “As far as those who jump the gun regarding women visiting friend’s place with a sanitary napkin dipped in menstrual blood — I am yet to find a person who ‘takes’ a blood soaked napkin to ‘offer’ to any one let alone a friend.” Nobody said anything about anything blood-soaked until you did, Smriti-ji! Even our captains of industry making millions on sanitary pads have always masked the source of their fortune in a mysterious blue liquid for girls who like to wear white pants when they have their period. Irani is ordinarily a clear speaker, so I can only conclude that her remarks, and then her tweets, are deliberately meant to create confusion while pretending to be Confucious. Her last tweet on the subject should be your true clue that Irani has borrowed a leaf from the book of Kellyann Conway, the infamous “alternative facts” member of the Donald Trump administration, who is truly gifted at sowing furrowed brows and dropped jaws across the American sub-continent. Irani tweeted, “But what fascinates me, though does not surprise me, is that as a woman I am not free to have my own point of view. As long as I conform to the ‘liberal’ point of view I’m acceptable. How liberal is that??” Sister, I am not sure who you think you are acceptable to. Your own side hates women in power and has been rejoicing at every mistake of yours because that is a little less time spent on the Great Leader’s gaffes. Liberals know they are supposed to like women in power, but you know you are just as bad for liking them. So a powerful right-wing woman is a perfect outlet for all our irritations. And the fact that the promised video will never surface doesn’t matter since truth, or purity, or menstrual blood has nothing to do with Irani’s speech. Imagine Irani’s gall to talk about videos that will disprove fake news, given the scandal around her beloved JNU videos, which forensic reports concluded had been doctored. The main suspect in that video drama was Shilpi Tewari, Irani’s aide. But Irani’s political (and non-political) career has been marked by gall and the blessed faith in our fragmented attention span. The diffused spreading of rage and confusion among a wide swathe of those involved in gaining entry for women inside the Sabarimala temple — feminists, anti-caste activists, menstruation-positivity folks — is what she intended, and that has been achieved. Look at Irani’s other self-proclaimed picture from Tuesday, one of domesticated femininity, patience, maternity and tradition-loving. Ready To Wait — Outside the Fire Temple. This portrait is fascinating. No woman who was ready to wait for anything could make it to the Cabinet of any Indian government, forget this one. I have no particular interest in establishing the true or faked squeamishness of Irani towards menstrual blood. But her continued ability to write her own winning dialogues and give herself meatier roles than the director or producer intended, now that’s a skill to be surveyed closely. And for that, the rest of us have to leave our own moral panic rooms. The Ladies Finger is a leading feminist digital magazine