Mela Mein Hue Mahvari Se Yaari

A decked up table with colourful sanitary pads and a chart saying “Aao kare Mahvari se yaari” & “Aoo apne pad banaye” was set up under a tree. It was the much awaited “dashamata ki Mela” in Jhadol and what better opportunity could we have got than this to carry on with our venture of “Whispering” out loud the word Mahvari. This is one of the biggest “Melas” in Jhadol district, which attracts more than seven thousand foot falls every year. We are already pursuing our project on menstrual health & hygiene in schools, but the purpose of setting up a stall in a “Mela” was to reach out to people of all ages and educate them about the necessary things which are needed to be maintained during periods. At the same time to promote the usage of cotton pads made of clothes which are very easy to make at home. For this we had put up demo sessions on how to make these pads and simultaneously made them available to people who wished to buy them. Two other stalls of games and one of “Bhaji” was also set up along with this so that we can allure some of the customers to fulfil out motive.  

The day started with perplexed eyes and stealing glances. As expected, people were more than reluctant to visit our stall. No amount of convincing, preaching or even coaxing could get a single person on the other side of the table. At one point of time we had to literally hijack people and pull them to make them listen to us. Highly scandalized people ran for their lives. However, as the day unfolded more and more people poured into the “Mela” and finally speculative minds gathered around the table of which most were men. Talking about menstruation to people is not easy that too when they don’t even understand the proper Hindi terms. This was the very first time somebody was discussing about periods with them that too in the public. People in this area are not at all used to the terms of “Mahvari” or “Pads”, having to break them up and explain it in simpler words were quite a tedious task. Still, what restored back our dedication was their keen attention and the appreciations made by a handful of people. We tried to bring awareness by incessantly repeating to dry any kind of cotton pad or cloth in the sun and not somewhere hidden for that is a major cause attracting germs. It is very important that men started encouraging the female members of their family to dry the napkins under the sunlight. Since, it is because them the ladies shy away from drying the pads outside.

There was a time when we decided to sing to the rhythm of a “dafli” saying “Ake to dekho” since there were hardly any person willing to come near our stall. Gradually, even women (mostly from the affluent background) started coming in and agreeing to our information about infections due to unhygienic practices, they shared about their plight as well. We focused on conveying our message and looked forward to questions and discussions. Most of the “adivasi” women were too shy to even utter the word, they patiently listened to us speaking but.   The news spread like wildfire and more and more enthusiastic faces turned up at our stall. Our initiative, started mounting the summit when more of young women and teenagers stood instigated by us and displayed the urge to know more.  Although, the colourful pads had a magnetic affect on this, but still our purpose was meted out as people went back with an affirmative nod.  

This was our first initiative, which has made us realize how much potential a “Mela” has in attracting the rural population. As the “Mela” stepped into its last phase, we thought it wise to wrap up as no one left energy any more. What we needed was some fun & frolic in this very “Mela” to rejuvenate ourselves; hence we got done for the day and headed for the rides. The most surprising thing was a woman had come looking for us to buy pads while we were away enjoying rides. Fortunately, one of our members was present at that moment over there. At the end of the day we managed to sell around thirty five pads and only “10 rupay ka bhaji” and touched around a thousand people if not more, who visited our stall.  This certainly determines that we have definitely left behind a trail for a better and safer menstruation in a place where it was much needed. 

    

 PS: "Mahvari se Yaari" would like to thank Anurag, Nishita, Ragini, Jibin and Abhilash for their unending support and hard work in making this "mela" venture a success.                  

Expression

 Menstruation is a less spoken reality in our society, and the magnitude of the silence and shame surrounding this phenomenon increases as we enter deeper into the rural/tribal parts of India. Hence, carrying this courageous endeavor into rural schools was bound to receive some reactions worth noting. The sessions usually started with an uncomfortable atmosphere hanging about the room. In most cases, the bigger ones were either giggling or hiding their faces behind one another. But as the sessions started taking shape, we could see stern faces with grave eyes, trying to understand every bit of the “Mahvari Chakra”. The smaller ones on the other hand, sat there with a speculative mind, trying to figure out the bizarreness of the situation. Since menstruation is covered by many layers of myths and superstitions, girls by and large become extremely shy and tend to close up in a nut shell the moment we start talking. So under such circumstances we try to make our sessions more interactive in order to improve participation, but most of the time it becomes very difficult to bring someone up to read from a chart let alone sharing their troubles.    

In a certain school in “Brahmano ka Khedwara”, the sight was pretty impressive with girls coming up with queries and concerns. Whereas, in another school “Damana”, I distinctly remember a class six kid whose sudden laughter broke the silence in the room on the mere utterance of the word “andakosh”. As we progressed with our project further, we decided to take a session with a combined class of boys & girls together as a form of experiment. Since we wanted to get a clear idea on the responses of boys when spoken about this at the same time we believe it is equally important for them to have an understanding about menstruation as well. What came out was pleasant and distracting simultaneously. The boys were listening to us diligently with a positive smile, however the girls could hardly keep their heads up straight. A girl who was asked to come up and read out from a chart could barely stand out of nervousness and trembled so much that I had to ask her to get back. This proves that the dosage of shame regarding the concept of menstruation has been quite high in here. In another school in “Naya gao”, the kids almost sent us to the last level of hell with reactions of complete disgust, which left us feeling overwhelmingly guilty. Even though some of the eight standard girls had already started menstruating, yet it became a little difficult for them to accept the fact that this topic needs dialoguing. Nonetheless, they did find it worthwhile once their teacher started talking about it in the best way possible.

All in all, no matter what the reactions were, whether the girls opened up or not, this much we can say with a guarantee that the message was delivered successfully. At the end of every session they all joined us for the click with a very big smile.

Introduction

Jhadol, a “tehsil” located 50kms inside the district of Udaipur, Rajasthan is indeed a nature’s lovely creation. We have been living in this area for about a year and a half now and staying in close contact with the “adivasi’ people has provided us a lot of insights about their culture. A local story (which is quite famous) goes this way that one day God wanted to weaken the strength of women so He gave them lots of jewelry to wear, but since that did not work out, He cursed them with the cycle of menstruation. So, menstruation is not much discussed here and neither much encouraged if one tries to because we have tried it in the schools we work with, although there are exceptions like Kamlavati (an eighth grade student of Ricchawad school). The idea of doing a project on menstruation started while we were simply chatting with Nishita (a junior fellow of ours), who, after residing with an “adivasi” family for one month had come back with a lot of information. Most of the women in and around this area suffer from vaginal infection due to unhygienic usage of cloths during menstruation. In order to validate this we went over to the one and only government, public health center in Jhadol and discussed over the matter. The doctors confirmed us by saying that not only is it a reality in here, but it is also a reason for the growing infertility in women because at times the infection spreads on to the reproductive track as well. On researching a little more on “Kapda Ana” (the local term for menstruation here), we figured out that a huge number of myths and superstitions are still prevailing here. Hence, we decided to manifest this idea into action by undertaking a project by the name of “Mahavari Se Yari’. The solution to all these problems lies in creating a bunch of change makers who are still young enough to accept new ideas and act upon it. Therefore, we chose to work with girls from the 6^th to 8^th grade and also because they are easily accessible to us. They would not only be empowered by the knowledge that is necessary to know, but also be able to help any other women within their vicinity to come out of the wrong notions they have regarding menstruation.

We intend to cover around 25 upper primary schools in Jhadol district of Udaipur. We have already started with our project and the topics that we cater to in our sessions in schools are as follows:

·        Puberty

·        Menstrual Cycle & health

·        Hygienic approach

·        Homemade pads & its benefits

·        Fighting myths and superstitions

·        Social message

We hope to impact lives, your blessings and wishes are much needed.