JOIN USOften discussed in hushed tones and behind closed doors, menstruation is a topic not many feel comfortable talking about. Menstrupedia, however, is changing all that, discovers A Varsha Rao
Priya, a young doctor, is explaining the concept of puberty to her younger sister and her friends. She throws light on the physical and emotional changes every girl goes through in her life. Beautifully illustrated in colourful comic panels, Menstrupedia comic is every girl’s go-to guide for periods. As I read through the chapters on sanitary pads, pre-menstrual syndromes and hygiene measures in the book, I wish I had something like this for my initial days of dealing with menstruation.
Started out as a year-long research at the National Institute of Design, Menstrupedia took shape when Aditi Gupta realised that finding a reliable guide for the biological process, which is normally shrouded with myths, was a Herculean task for most girls. Shocked at the general lack of awareness, she felt there was a dire need for a trustworthy source of information on periods and thus ventured into a field that is generally spoken about in hushed voices. |
Giving Aditi’s ambitious venture a strong backing was her batchmate and co-founder, Tuhin Paul. The journey together was an eye-opener for him too, as he realised the amount of pain and inconvenience that females go through every month during their periods and how they are often treated impure because of it. Tuhin says, “This problem wasn’t all about women’s health and hygiene, but it was also a ‘communication design’ problem. Our project gave us enough reasons to create an appropriate guide for menstruation.” Aditi continues, “So, we created a prototype where we explained menstruation through the medium of comics, using characters and stories and tested it with young girls. We took this comic to schools in Mehsana, Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and Ranchi and received a very positive response from girls, parents as well as teachers.”
Rajat says, “The idea of using storytelling in a graphical format to solve such an acute problem for girls was very exciting for me and I wanted to participate in any way possible.”
Systems in place
“After working for three years in e-learning industry and having saved some money as an initial investment, we quit our jobs and started working full-time on Menstrupedia in 2013, with Rajat Mittal joining us as our third founding member. With his technical skills, our team was pretty much complete,” enunciates Aditi. The dedicated efforts made way for an innovative website that hosts a colourful comic book, a quick guide on menstruation, puberty and hygiene, a blog and Q&A forum. The comic book, as Aditi puts it, is a friendly guide to periods, which helps girls and women to stay healthy and active during their periods, where every little detail about menstruation is displayed comically. “ There is a very basic and essential information about menstruation that every girl should be provided with, so that she is better prepared to take care of herself during her cycles and we want to make this essential information entertaining, easy to understand and accessible to girls around the world,” explains Aditi.
Tuhin doesn’t believe that menstruation is just girls’ domain. “If a family member is in discomfort or distress, is it only that member’s concern? Unfortunately, girls are raised to keep it a secret and boys are raised to be not concerned about it. My mother had never let me get a hint about her periods or any discomfort due to it. Our textbooks hardly do a good job in explaining the process. After much research, I realised that many were oblivious to the basic facts and were holding onto myths. I was also shocked to know that girls as young as nine were being subjected to restrictions and discriminations in their own family.”
But portraying such a sensitive topic in a fun way seems tricky. “Portraying menstruation comically was a necessity in order to make it appealing to our young audience. However, we were extremely careful to make the illustrations culturally sensitive and not look objectionable in any way so that parents and teachers wouldn’t have any problem in accepting it. It was appropriate to have these stories enacted by cartoon characters,” avers Tuhin.
The comic has become a successful initiative, with mothers whole-heartedly recommending it to every girl above the age of nine and even to boys above the age of 12. The registered footfalls of about two lakh puts a stamp on their success; the fact that more than 5,000 girls have been educated using their books and 15 schools in Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kanpur and Udaipur have the comic as a part of their regular curriculum validates their efforts. Currently, the team is planning to bring out Gujarati, Nepali and Spanish versions of the book and even an audio-visual app of the same.
Rajat sums it up, “Majority of the population still try to skirt around the issue but with the recent wave of menstrual activism, the tide is slowly but surely turning.” Tuhin adds, “People are talking about menstruation without feeling embarrassed or hesitant. Parents are using the comic to teach their daughters about menstruation easily. Menstrupedia is playing an effective role in making the subject taboo-free.” And that’s quite something.