Human Rights lawyer Farah Ahamed was born in Nairobi and is the Editor of Period Matters: Menstruation in South Asia, an anthology of writing and art. The book is available online from Gay’s The Word bookshop in the UK and Amazon. See www.periodmattersbook.com for more information. We asked Farah about Period Matters and her campaign for menstrual equity.

What inspired Period Matters: Menstruation in South Asia?

I’ve been working on period poverty in Kenya for the past decade. Through my campaign Panties with Purpose we have been carrying out reproductive health workshops and distributing underpants in schools. We distributed over 50,000 pairs to more than 16,000 girls. Reflecting on this experience, I had the idea that the diversity of menstruation could best be illustrated in a book which included every genre. I decided the anthology would move away from the conventional to a deeper and more honest cultivation of stories about menstruation.

What is the book about and how did you compile it?

For three years, I gathered together as many diverse voices as possible. From well-known artists and writers such as Shashi Tharoor, Rupi Kaur, Lisa Ray, Tishani Doshi and Anish Kapoor to the so called ‘invisible,’ and living at the margins. The anthology highlights thirty-five different perspectives which open 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. Period Matters carries the stories of factory workers in Bangladesh, Buddhist nuns in Bhutan, and an activist in Nepal. It highlights the entrepreneurial efforts around creating bio degradable pads and comic books for easier education, policy initiatives like the Menstrual Rights Bill and period leave debate in India. It illustrates how menstruation in Pakistan is experienced by the trans gender community, those with disabilities and are homeless. It explores cultural rites in Afghanistan and the menstruation challenges of refugees in Sri Lanka. It discusses period tracking apps and what ‘dignified menstruation’ really means. It shows how while for some the experience is still with stigma and shame, for others, like the Kalasha women in Chitral, menstruation is a time of creativity, and rejuvenation.

Why South Asia?

My decision 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 told me to hide it 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 realised once again how much I had taken for granted.

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

Since compiling Period Matters I’ve become more aware of the words used to describe menstruation in different languages and how these are intentionally not neutral. In Srilekha Chakraborty’s essay she says in Bengali menstruation is referred to as ‘shorir kharap,’ or being unwell. But in Jharkhand the Santals call it ‘hormo baha,’ or flower of the body. As she moved between the two places, and negotiated the differences in language, she realized how this altered her perception of menstruation to become more positive. While growing up in Kenya, I don’t remember periods having a specific name. 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 the phrase, or to what they were referring. It was a coded language shared by women in a world where the word ‘menstruation’ was not acceptable. In the digital space, as Alnoor Bhimani points out, the persuasive marketing language and data collected from period tracking apps have sinister implications on users’ self-perception and subjectivity.

How is the experience and memory of a first period important?

The book gives many examples of how we are shaped by our menstrual experiences and encounters. For instance, Shashi Deshpande writes about the shame she experienced. “Menstruation is not a rite of passage to adulthood; it is a sharp knife that flashes down, separating the girl from the woman in a moment. But it is only the body that accepts womanhood; the mind remains a girl’s mind.” In Zinthiya Ganeshpanchan’s essay, she tells how when she started her period she was given a ‘giraya’ or (betel nut cutter) to ward off evil spirits, and told to wear clothes provided by a washer woman, who was from a lower caste. This was to signify to the family she was ‘symbolically impure and unclean.’ In his short fiction, (translated from the French by Siba Bartataki), K Madavane illustrates a young boy Guna’s shock at discovering his sister is bleeding in the middle of a game. The cultural rites and rituals that follow, contribute to his feeling of alienation from her.

For a trans man living in Pakistan, Javed, (name changed), getting his period was the worst day of his life, because he says, ‘deep down I knew I wasn’t a girl.’ He describes his monthly dysphoria and how he tried to overcome it by working out at the gym. I interviewed a retail garment worker in Bangladesh, Sualeha (name changed). She said it even though early marriages was against the law, many families bribed officials to get fake certificates so that they could marry off their daughters as soon as they got their period. Other stories are more empowering. Siba Bartataki describes how writing for Period Matters about her first period and the Ambubasi Festival in Assam which celebrates a menstruating goddess, helped her reclaim a forgotten part of her identity.

What was your intention behind including art in Period Matters?

While curating art for the book, my aim was to highlight how menstruation stories could be interpreted through art forms. I wanted to show how menstrual art or menstrala was being used for activism, to raise awareness and a form of self expression. For example, the cover of the book is a detail taken from ‘Aadya Shakti’ by Lyla FreeChild who harvested her menstrual blood to make the painting. She was inspired by a dream where she saw herself as the goddess Lajja Gauri menstruating. Her radical art defies norms about what is an acceptable medium and embraces the restorative power of menstrual blood.

Amna Mawaz Khan’s menstrual dance, which can be viewed through a QR code in the bookshows how she used raag and classical movements to interpret her menstrual cycle. She wore her mother’s outfit to reinforce her birth connection, and coincidentally practiced her dance thirty times. The red paint on her feet was her way of showing defiance and resistance to patriarchal practices around menstruation, and acceptance of her own femininity.

Sarah Naqvi’s embroidery and paintings makes a bold statement about the female body, and shame. She asks the viewer to reflect on ordinary menstrual products, like tampons, pads and underpants, which are usually kept hidden from view and associated with dirt and shame, as pieces of embroidered art. Anish Kapoor’s images are interesting because his is a male gaze on menstruation. When this art for showcased in a gallery he was accused by some of appropriating women’s bodies for his art. Similarly, Rupi Kaur was charged with violating the guidelines of Instagram with her menstruation photo series and asked to remove them. It is interesting to think about how women’s bodies are being policed.

In a more positive vein, Srilekha Chakraborty’s wall murals in Jharkhand painted by young people have helped change the perception of periods in the area. One mural shows a girl wind surfing on a pad, sailing confidently down a river of menstrual blood. In this way, menstrala or menstrual art reclaims menstrual dignity.

What can you say about the poetry in the book?

No book about South Asia is complete without the mention of Partition. Victoria Patrick writes a poem in Urdu about the challenges of getting her period during those violent days. It makes you wonder how women must have coped then, and how they struggle today, when they are displaced, migrant workers, homeless or living through times of conflict and natural disasters. Tishani Doshi has two poems in Period Matters which are like art themselves because they are in the shape of a vagina and a menstrual cup. They are wry comments on hysteria and Pliny the Elder’s mansplaining periods.

My poem What If is in response to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem What if You Slept? His 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 is about a poor sweeper woman’s living nightmare. Rather than a flower, she finds a broom in her hand. Her occupation is fixed for centuries because of her gender, class and caste. There is no escape from this destiny which includes bleeding on a dirty rag during her period. I was moved to write it after reading about the plight of women sweepers in Lahore.

You interviewed entrepreneurs for Period Matters. What did they reveal?

Jaydeep Mandal’s innovation and design of India’s first bio compostable pad, Anandi, goes beyond the ‘Pad Man’ story. He explains how he developed the pad, making it the industry’s gold standard. Aditi Gupta’s Menstrupedia comic books, offers easily digestible messages for boys and girls through cartoons for learning about periods. These books have been translated into seventeen languages to help educate children. And the NGO Goonj shows how they repurposed discarded cotton to make reusable pads to help women during times of instability. Environmentally sustainable options for menstrual products are much-needed and hopefully the efforts made in South Asia, highlighted in Period Matters, will motivate more researchers and entrepreneurs, to explore this area further.

How does Period Matters speak to the cry of ‘women, life, freedom’?

At the moment women in Iran are using menstrual blood to write these words on the walls of buildings to show their solidarity with all women experiencing hardship. The Kalash community in Chitral have a saying ‘Homa Istrizia Azan Asan’ or our women are free. By this they mean the women are free to make their own decisions and this includes rituals around menstruation. There is no shame or stigma attached. During their period or when they give birth, the Kalash women take refuge in a private space called ‘Bashali,’ which is a menstrual building or maternal home. They go here to get respite from their domestic duties. Their food and blankets are left at the door of the Bashali and men are never allowed to enter. Even the women’s family are not permitted to disturb her. Inside the Bashali, the women tell stories, discuss their bodies, gossip, sing and dance.

The Kalasha women’s response is one of emancipation, where a sisterhood of women recognize and nurture each other. Their experience highlighted to me what could happen if women were given the opportunity to explain menstruation on their own terms; they would take control of the conversation and celebrate their bodies. I hope Period Matters encourages people to be more open to the diversity of experiences of menstruation and the potential of creativity. Creativity is a key that can open many doors.