‘Santhals Celebrate Menstruation As Hormobaha Or Flower Of The Body’

Nairobi-born, Farah Ahamed is a lawyer, writer and a third-generation Kenyan. She studied law at the University of London and worked as a human-rights lawyer before pursuing a creative writing programme at the University of East Anglia. Her latest book Period Matters: Menstruation in South Asia, published by Pan Macmillan India, is an anthology of essays, fiction, interviews and art on menstruation. Some of the contributors include Rupi Kaur, Shashi Deshpande, Lisa Ray, Tishani Doshi, Shashi Tharoor and Anish Kapoor, among other renowned writers and artists. It also includes lesser heard voices. First of its kind, Period Matters chronicles the region-specific, ancient and modern-day practices regarding menstruation. This includes menstruation as experienced by the transgender community, homeless and incarcerated in Pakistan and factory workers in Bangladesh. It also highlights entrepreneurial efforts, the menstrual rights bill, period leave in India and explores cultural and religious menstruation rites in Bhutan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Niyati Bhat interviewed the author for Outlook.

Q. What prompted you to work on an anthology of fiction, non-fiction and art on menstruation? Why did you choose to focus on South Asia?

A. I wanted to highlight how menstruation stories could be told and interpreted in every genre and art form. To show how it influenced every aspect of life. How it was subjective and affected by context and culture. It occurred to me that the diversity of menstruation experiences could best be reflected in a book which included both fiction and non-fiction.

I decided the anthology would move away from the conventional to a deeper and more honest cultivation of stories about menstruation. I asked myself: How could the different perspectives be best presented? Who would be the writers and artists to capture the diversity of representations? The answer lay in complete creative liberty. There would be no brief on genre or format, only an invitation to contributors to share their individual stories in their own way.

While travelling around South Asia during 2018 and 2019 and speaking to people about their menstruation experiences, I found that many of the issues around menstruation were similar to those of East Africa where I had been working on period poverty for the past decade. However, some were cultural specific.

My decision to focus on South Asia was motivated by two events. The first is when I was stopped and asked if I was menstruating as I was about to enter a Jain temple in India. The second is when I picked up a packet of sanitary pads while shopping at a supermarket in Pakistan and a male shop attendant rushed over and told me to hide them in a brown bag to avoid being humiliated at the checkout counter. I found both incidents disturbing—being questioned about intimate details of my body by a stranger and having my behaviour in a public space controlled because menstruation was associated with shame. I realized once again how much I had taken for granted.

The anthology highlights over thirty-five different perspectives. It opens up the conversation around menstruation to make it more inclusive and provides a glimpse into the way menstruation is viewed by people from different genders, backgrounds, religions, cultures and classes. Alongside the well-known artistic and academic contributors are those who are usually missing from the mainstream discussion. No one book can include every perspective, but Period Matters tries to illustrate the many different aspects of menstruation in South Asia while giving contributors complete creative liberty.

Q. In the book, Granaz Baloch writes an essay on the “revolutionary nature of a menstrual workshop in Balochistan”. Could you shed some light on how a menstrual workshop could be a game-changer?

A. One has to look at the specific environment of a person in order to better appreciate their menstruation experience. In Balochistan, the girls have a very different cultural context from the girls in the Kalasha Valley in Chitral, even though both are in Pakistan. In Balochistan, as Baloch explains in her brave essay, girls are expected to be married within two years of starting their period. Menstruation is shrouded in shame and never talked about openly and girls grow up not understanding why they bleed or how this is linked to getting pregnant.

In contrast, in Chitral, menstruation is accepted as a normal occurrence. The Kalasha women leave home when they are menstruating to go and stay in a Bashali or maternity home. I share this story in Period Matters. The entire family knows when a woman is menstruating and there is no stigma. The women discuss every aspect of their bodies, and there is a strong sense of sisterhood. They also believe a Goddess, Dezalik, has special powers to support them. In contrast to Balochistan, women in Kalasha control the conversation around menstruation. As they say ‘homaistrizia azan asan’—our women are free.

So, imagine if you were to educate a group of young women in Balochistan about their bodies, how empowering it would be for them. They would feel like they had more control over their lives. They could fight for their right to stay in school and not be married off. This is why Baloch speaks of ‘starting a revolution.’

Q. When we speak of menstruation, it is assumed we are speaking on behalf of women. But there are also those in the transgender community who menstruate but don’t identify as women. How do they navigate the issues of identity and the practical problems of menstruation?

A. Period Matters carries two trans perspectives.

I interviewed Farzana and Chandan in Lahore about their experiences as transwomen. Despite the many difficulties they faced living ostracised on the margins of society, they said what was most important for them was being accepted as women and feeling feminine. Because menstruation is so central to the idea of being a woman, they resorted to mimicking menstruation rituals every month. This included applying red dye to a pad, and complaining about cramps and back aches. But, accessing health care, finding jobs, being acknowledged as ‘normal’ is an ongoing struggle for them.

In contrast is the experience of Javed, a transman working in Islamabad. He experienced extreme dysphoria every time he had his period and dreaded it every month. This was because deep down, he knew he was a man and therefore getting a period felt unnatural. When he started taking hormone replacement therapy, and his periods stopped, it was the happiest day of his life.

Q. How does language contribute to the erasure and denial of experiences associated with menstruation?

A. Sensitivity around the names we give menstruation is something I’ve been thinking more about since compiling Period Matters especially because it brings together words related to menstruation from different languages: Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Santhali, Gujarati and many others.

While growing up in Kenya, I don’t remember a name being used to describe periods. One time I heard my aunt telling my mother, in half-Kiswahili and half-Gujarati, ‘Mgeni aiva che,’ meaning ‘The visitors are here’. For many years, I never understood to what they were referring. It was a coded language shared by women in a world where the word ‘menstruation’ was not acceptable. I’m not sure there is a Gujarati word for menopause either. If there is, I’ve never come across it. There is shame and secrecy around the subject. In her essay, Srilekha Chakraborty mentions how growing up in Bengal menstruation is referred to as ‘shorir kharap’ or being unwell. But when she was in Jharkhand the Santhals referred to it as ‘hormobaha’ or flower of the body, which is more positive. There are other examples in the book which make one reflect on how words are never neutral and can imply shame or celebration.

Q. Period leave in the workplace is thought to be a positive step and yet the shame and stigma that one carries from their community and cultural experience also seeps into the corporate set-ups and everyday life. So, what is the debate around period leave?

A. In her feminist essay, Radhika Radhakrishnan makes a case for paid period leave at the workplace. She argues that it must be institutionalised to make it easier for women who are unable to negotiate for themselves individually, due to the stigma and shame associated with menstruation. She notes that period leave acknowledges and makes visible the pain that women endure while on their cycle which they traditionally had to tolerate. And finally, period leave takes a step towards restructuring the ‘toxic capitalist’ workplace making it more equitable and healthier for menstruating women rather than prioritising their productivity.

Radhika notes there are a number of counter arguments, including that there will be increased discrimination and a backlash. But more importantly, she points out that the provision of period leave is likely to benefit privileged working women, while the majority of Indian women working in the informal sector, who are the most oppressed by taboos, do not have access to even clean running water or private toilets.

Q. Menopause is another aspect that is treated with secrecy as if this phase in a woman’s life doesn’t even exist. How does the book explore this issue?

A. In some contexts, menopause is being talked about openly. There is attention on the subject because women’s professional output is being compromised rather than their health or rights. Some workplaces are helping their employees to cope by introducing a menopause policy. But there are many who suffer silently at home or in the informal sector and there is no support available for them.

In her moving essay, Lisa Ray writes about how her menopause was triggered by an illness. She speaks openly about the symptoms, the fear, the confusion and her journey to finding herself again. An actor, and writer with an interest in visual arts, she was able to find reassurance and support from a community of female friends.

Period leave and menopause workplace policies are both aimed at supporting women, but only the privileged few are able to have the discussion about it.

For many millions of menstruators, the struggle is more basic, and focussed on dignified menstruation, which means the right to have an experience which is free from stigma and shame, with access to a choice of menstrual products and clean sanitation.

Q. How do homeless women navigate the struggles of menstruation without the obvious resources available to most?

A. While collecting stories for Period Matters, I interviewed homeless women in Multan living near shrines. They revealed that menstrual products were unaffordable and they made pads from ash which they collected from the shrines. They shaped these into blocks and then wrapped them in cloth. They said this was a good option because it was cheap and absorbed the blood. Bathing and toilet facilities were a problem and they had to rely on public washrooms, which were often male dominated.

But it is not a challenge restricted to the homeless. In Tashi Zangmo’s essay, you read about how nuns in Bhutan, when visiting remote villages they suddenly get their period, have to strip the clothes of a scarecrow to make some kind of pad. From an interview with Erum, who spent six years incarcerated in Pakistan from 2003 to 2009, you read how incarcerated women share their strips of cloth. From interviews with Bangladesh factory workers, we hear about how they don’t have proper disposal facilities in their washrooms, while in Lahore, sweeper women share that they have no access to public toilets and even at home, their situation is desperate.

Q. In the light of the cultural stigma attached to menstruation, how do literary works depict menstruation and its various aspects?

A. In my essay on menstruation in fiction, I explore how more than a dozen male and female authors approached the subject. For both, it has been a difficult subject to broach, and there has been a marked difference in their depictions. Female authors, when writing about menstruation, have shown sensitivity to the cultural taboos surrounding it, an understanding of the accompanying bodily changes and the anxiety of lack of information. They have illustrated it as a time of healing and female solidarity, when women occupy a different space—metaphorically and literally. For example, Shashi Deshpande was one of the earliest writers to discuss menstruation in fiction. In The Dark Holds No Terrors, her 1980 novel set in India, the protagonist Saru talks about the torture. ‘Not just the three days when I couldn’t enter the kitchen or the puja room. Not just the sleeping on a straw mat covered with a thin sheet. Not just the feeling of being a pariah, with my special cup and plate by my side in which I was served from a distance, for my touch was, it seemed, pollution. No, it was something quite different, much worse. A kind of shame that engulfed me.’

In contrast, male writers generally have presented their female protagonists as objects of male fantasy, obsession and voyeurism. For instance, take Czech writer Milan Kundera, in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984). As author-narrator, he makes a bizarre comparison between his protagonist’s Tereza’s period and that of her dog, Karenina. ‘Why is it that a dog’s menstruation made her light-hearted and gay, while her own menstruation made her squeamish? The answer is simple to me: dogs were never expelled from Paradise.’

I highlight other examples in my essay.

In his short story translated from French by Siba Bartataki, K Madavane offers a male gaze on menstruation, which is compassionate and more humane. It is the story of a young boy, Guna, who witnesses his sister getting her period for the first time. Guna shares the trauma he experiences and his struggles with understanding the rituals around his sister’s transition to womanhood. In my short story, Hot Mango Chutney Sauce, I illustrate the intrusive male gaze on homeless girls. Fiction allows us to imagine aspects of menstruation which we don’t usually think about.

Q. The book mentions menstruation rituals as practised by different communities. What do the rituals women observe around menstruation depict?

A. While compiling Period Matters, what struck me was the diversity of rituals around menstruation. Some were restrictions, others were celebrations and still others were myths and tales which glorified or stigmatised it. It is interesting to reflect on how menstruators navigate different spaces. Do they maintain their traditions when they leave home and engage with a different context? How does interacting with other practices around menstruation affect their own sense of self, their own subjectivity? I am curious about how menstruation rites and practices and context, including class, caste, culture and religion, affect identity and self-perception. But also, how these are fluid?

In her essay, Siba Barkataki shares how the Ambubasi Mela was a significant festival celebrating a menstruating Goddess. However, when she moved to Delhi, she stopped observing it. Writing about the memory many years later awakened her to a sense of loss. She wanted to reclaim the memory as part of her identity. Similarly, Zinthiya Ganeshpanchan shares how Sri Lankan celebrations around the first menstruation involve bathing in turmeric milk, receiving presents, hosting a feast and wearing clothes from a person of a lower caste. But are these rituals widely observed by diaspora Sri Lankans? This is interesting to think about. Radha Paudel talks about how some families, even though living far from Nepal, hold on to traditions. In contrast, Mariam Siar, born in Afghanistan to parents who are both doctors, does not observe any of the rituals or rites practised in her home country. Srilekha Chakraborty talks about how her own body perception and understanding of menstruation changed after her interactions with the Santhal women, where she was a ‘diku’ or outsider in Jharkhand. And in his essay on digital period tracking apps, Alnoor Bhimani explores how a user’s subjectivity is affected by their interface with apps with consequences that are more subtle but sinister.

The crossing of culture and religion cannot help but affect the identity of the menstruator. Tashi Zangmo shares how Buddhist practices were influenced through interactions with Hindus and explains how those interactions help to solidify practices or introduce new norms around menstruation. Class, occupation and caste also play a role. In Ayra Indrias’ essay, she points out how during their menstrual cycle, sweeper women in Lahore feel ‘thrice dirty’. Their lower caste and class, occupation with dust, and then finally the shame and disgust associated with periods makes them feel completely worthless.

Q. How does the book illustrate how women or people with disabilities manage menstruation?

A. In Period Matters, I tried to highlight stories which do not make the mainstream conversation on menstruation. One of them is how menstruators with disability cope or how caregivers have to accommodate looking after the menstrual needs of the person with disability. Ayra Indrias interviews a woman Fazilat who shares how she looks after her daughter Reshma who is autistic. It is difficult to imagine what it must be like, if you have never given this any thought. So, the essay is an eye opener to the challenges of those living with disabilities in certain environments. Menstruation is a very personal bodily experience, and each person’s unique circumstances make it even more specific.

Q. Are there any examples of how women manage their periods during natural disasters in South Asia?

A. When a natural disaster occurs like an earthquake or floods or a pandemic or there is a war, the last thing on people’s minds is periods. Ayra Indrias interviewed poor women who’d lost their jobs, to find out how they managed during the recent pandemic. During the days of Partition, in the middle of the violence and mass migration across the borders, there must have been women who had their periods. How did they manage on the crowded trains, walking long distances and without proper toilets? Victoria Patrick’s poem gives an insight to this.

Goonj is an organisation in India which works with women during times of natural or environmental disasters. In Period Matters, they talk about how they support menstruators in rural, tribal communities and migrant workers with programmes like Not Just a Piece of Cloth, training and health workshops. They have managed to assist thousands of women with education, re-usable cloth pads and private bathing spaces.

Q. How did you curate the art for the book?

A. In Period Matters, I wanted to highlight how menstruation stories could be told and interpreted in every art form. From embroidery to mural painting, dance to acrylic, neo miniature and even menstrual blood, I tried to collect as many different examples as I could. Srilekha Chakraborty mobilised the youth in Jharkhand to paint wall murals with positive menstrual messages. One is an illustration of a Gulmohar tree with red flowers symbolising period blood with young girls playing under the tree, plucking fruits and reading. Another shows a young woman wind surfing on a pad, happily in control, sailing down a river of blood, which symbolises her menstrual blood. These are images which educate and reclaim female dignity.

I commissioned Amna Mawaz Khan to choreograph a menstrual dance which can be viewed through a QR code in the book. In her explanation, she shows how she interprets her cycle, resists oppressive patriarchal practices, and embraces her femininity through dance. Anish Kapoor was accused of appropriating women’s bodies to make his menstrual art. Rupi Kaur was asked to remove her photographs from Instagram, because they violated the guidelines of the platform. Both artists refused to back down. I knew they had to be part of the book to show art as activism. In her embroidery and paintings, Sarah Naqvi makes a bold statement about the female body and menstrual products. The viewer is asked to stop and think about ordinary objects usually hidden from view and associated with dirt and shame become beautified and art. The cover of the book is a detail taken from ‘Aadya Shakti’ by Lyla Free Child who harvested her menstrual blood to make the painting. Her art defies norms about what is acceptable and embraces the power of menstrual blood.

In the anthology, you will also see how art is used for learning. Illustrations from participants of the menstrual workshop held in Balochistan show how young women came to a new understanding of menstruation. In Shahzia Sikander’s ground-breaking neo miniature, ‘The Scroll,’ a faceless young woman moves through a domestic space, carrying out everyday activities. The painting possibly depicts her passage from menarche to menopause within the oppressive constraints of her household.

Q. Lastly, could you please share how your poem What If was created for this book?

A. I wrote it in response to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem What if You Slept? The poem is about a dream. The sleeper finds herself in heaven where she picks a ‘strange and beautiful flower,’ and on waking finds the flower in her hand.

In contrast, my poem What If, from the point of view of a poor sweeper woman, is about her living nightmare. Rather than a flower, it is a broom she will find in her hand for centuries. Because of her gender, class and caste, her occupation is fixed. She has no escape from this destiny which includes bleeding on a dirty rag during her period. I wrote the poem moved by the stories of the sweeper women of Lahore. Similarly, the poems of Tishani Doshi illustrate other aspects of menstruation.

Niyati Bhat is Delhi-based culture writer of Kashmiri origin and a research scholar at JNU, New Delhi.