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I'm Colin Lowther.
And I'm Megan Nolet.
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Aronecelum morgananthem sits at a table looking at disposable sanitary pads.
These pads are not normally something a man would think about.
Women use them to collect blood during their periods.
They are very helpful during this monthly blood flow, also called menstruation.
But many men do not know how important they are.
Muruganantham is different.
He understands how important sanitary pads are.
And he is trying to learn How to make them cost less so that every woman can have one.
This goal is extremely important to him.
It has cost him friends.
It has even cost him his marriage.
But it will also change how people in India treat menstruation.
It will provide better health. for all women in the country.
Today's Spotlight is on Arunachalam Muruganandam, the Padman.
Arunachalam Muruganandam was born in Coimbatore, a city in southern India.
His parents were poor farmers.
He did not receive much education.
When he was 14, his father died.
He had to leave school to help his family survive.
Still, Muruganandam wanted to learn.
When he married, he noticed that his wife Shanti was collecting pieces of paper and cloth.
He asked her what they were for.
She did not like to talk about it.
But finally she told him that they were for her period.
She would use old pieces of paper and cloth to manage her period.
Sometimes she would use the same materials over many months.
She knew about commercial sanitary pads, but those cost too much money.
If she bought those, she would not have enough money to buy milk.
Many other women where Muruganandam and Shanti lived were in the same situation.
Women living far from cities did not have enough money for sanitary pads or there were no pads to buy.
This surprised Muruganandam.
He did not know much about a woman's period.
But he knew the cloth could be dangerous.
If it were dirty, it could cause infection.
It put his wife at risk.
But she did not want to talk about it.
Being on her period caused her a lot of shame.
Muruganatham spoke English. to NPR in 2018.
I was concerned about staying clean.
I was worried that not being clean would affect a woman's health.
I knew that the lack of good sanitary pads restricted a woman's ability to move around.
It took away her spirit.
This was something I wanted to help with.
So, Muruganantham began studying sanitary pads.
He cut one open.
He discovered that it was made of cheap materials.
They would not cost much to make.
If he could learn how, he could make sanitary pads for his wife.
And she would not be in danger.
Soon Muruganantham began to experiment.
He made sanitary pads from different materials.
He asked Shanti to try them out.
But progress was slow.
He could only try one new pad per month.
And his wife was not happy with his interest in sanitary pads.
So he began to ask other women to try his pads.
Many of them also turned Muruganantham down.
They believed he was strange for wanting to talk about menstruation.
They did not even want to talk about it themselves.
Maruganandam did not understand why women felt such shame.
He saw menstruation as a natural process.
But many people in India did not agree.
Speaking about menstruation is a taboo, something not done in a culture.
This may be because of India's main religion, Hinduism.
Geeta Pandey is a writer for the British Broadcasting Corporation.
She writes, that menstruating women are not clean.
So, during her periods, a woman cannot enter the temple.
She cannot touch statues of religious worship.
She cannot enter the kitchen or even touch food.
Because of this, women in India do not know much about their periods.
They hide that they have them.
They might stop going to school or work during their periods.
Some may even believe that menstruation is evil.
This also made Muruganandam seem very strange.
Some people even believed that Muruganandam was evil.
At one point, his wife left him.
People in his family did not want to talk to him.
Even his mother thought he was a devil.
Muruganantam spoke to YourStory.com about one incident.
Once my mother saw me with used sanitary pads spread out on the table.
She started to yell and cry out in fear.
The whole village gathered.
They spread a story that I drank girls' blood.
But still, Murugan Anthem did not give up.
He experimented with different sanitary pads for nine years.
He found new ways of making them.
After some time, he created a machine that would make sanitary pads more easily.
It did not take up much space.
And people could use it in any place that had electricity.
Soon people began to notice Muruganandam's work.
And he began making more machines.
He could have made a lot of money selling these.
Instead, Muruganandam decided to give the machines away.
It was not his goal to get rich.
He only wanted women to have safe menstrual health.
Today, Muruganandam is very well known in India.
He is known as Padman.
He has set up hundreds of his machines in places far away from cities.
More importantly, Murugan Anthem's work has got people in the country talking.
People still do not talk about menstruation in many places.
But more people know about the issue.
And they know it is not something that they can avoid.
Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of India.
In 2020, he became the first Prime Minister to speak openly about menstrual health.
Since then, the government of India has worked to educate its people.
Muruga Nantham's family also returned to him.
He and his wife Shanti are together again.
Their daughter Pritisri, uses her father's invention for sanitary pads, and he continues to work toward giving people better supplies for menstrual health.
In 2022, he spoke to the Women on a Mission conference about his continued work.
I used to read about people talking about sending women to the moon.
I thought, but first, provide each and every woman in India with a sanitary pad.
Then think about sending them to the moon.
Is menstruation talked about where you live?
Can women get the menstrual supplies that they need?
Why or why not?
You can leave a comment on our website or email us at radio at radioenglish.net.
You can also comment on Facebook at facebook.com slash spotlightradio.
The writer of this program was Dan Chrisman.
The producer was Dan Chrisman.
The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States.
All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight.
You can listen to this program again and read it on the internet at www.radioenglish.net.
This program is called Becoming Padman.
You can also get our programs delivered directly to your Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app.
We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program.
Goodbye.
