A Quote by Arunachalam Muruganantham
Even if I can take sanitary napkins to 10% of the poor women in India, it will be big achievement.
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As we know, menstrual hygiene is an issue women have been facing over the years. It's great that the initiative to provide low-cost sanitary napkins has been undertaken. It is an empowering step for many women.
The idea came from my wife, since in our village, women cannot afford to buy sanitary pads. When I asked my wife, she told me we would have to cut down half of our milk budget to buy sanitary pads. Moreover, while raw materials for sanitary pads cost 10 paise, the end product was sold for 40 times that price. So, I decided to create it on my own.
Why buy sanitary napkins from multinationals when we can make them at home and generate employment?
It is easy to say that there are the rich and the poor, and so something should be done. But in history, there are always the rich and the poor. If the poor were not as poor, we would still call them the poor. I mean, whoever has less can be called the poor. You will always have the 10% that have less and the 10% that have the most.
In prison, you're issued a number of sanitary pads per month. And many times, even when you're issued a number of sanitary pads, the guards will just come in and rip your room apart, rip your locker apart and take them.
I suffered a lot when I tried to make sanitary napkins and promote the idea. My family - including my mother and wife - deserted me. Villagers even tied me to a tree and beat me. But after seeing me successful now, they come and say that they all knew that I would become famous one day.
I wanted to tell my story because I believe that if I can inspire or motivate even 10 or 15 people to start losing weight, it's a very big achievement. If I've managed to do it, anybody can.
India is a big country. Here people are talented, they are motivated. If they train properly, I see no reason why India won't produce world class cyclists in 10 years.
I think a big part of feminism - and this is something I'm sure a bunch of women will take my head off for - but a big part of feminism is women allowing other women to just be the kind of women that they are.
There are really at least two Indias, there is an India or a shining India the one which the west seas usually through urbanize and there is an India outside some of the big metro policies and in even the tier two cities and in rural India which is completely different. It goes by the name of Bahar which is a traditional name for India.
It is the pride to play for India that keeps me going. Not many get a chance to play for India and I feel very fortunate to be still playing. The will to do well for India is a big motivation.
My vision is to make India into a 100% sanitary-pad-using country. Menstruation is no more a taboo.
Imagine: I got patent rights to the only machine in the world to make low-cost sanitary napkins - a hot-cake product. Anyone with an MBA would immediately accumulate the maximum money. But I did not want to. Why? Because from childhood, I know no human being died because of poverty - everything happens because of ignorance.
There is no reason to be disappointed. India will progress very fast and the skills of our youth will take India ahead.
I saw no poor men, except a few intemperate ones. I saw some very poor women; but God and man know that the time has not come for women to make their injuries even heard of.
In the Western world, women have no other choice. In India, no. And I'll explain the reason. It's a reason that also has to do with my own case. In India women have never been a hostile competition with men - even in the most distant past, every time a woman emerged as a leader, perhaps as a queen, the people accepted her. As something normal and not exceptional.
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