Many families in the South of India, who believe in the isolation of girls and women during their menstrual cycle, insist on them consuming pills to delay it in the event of any family function, family pooja, havans and cultural or religious get-togethers. Many mothers themselves hand over such pills to their young daughters who may just be in school.

There are two issues involved here – firstly the misconception that the menstruating girl or woman will contaminate the environment and hence should not participate in the event or should consume pills and delay the periods so that she may be part of the gathering. Secondly, the health of the girl/ woman consuming the pills is not given due importance. Although, I may not be presenting concrete scientific facts here, in the last four decades of my life, I have seen women and girls in my family suffer – while the girls have had problems  bearing children, the women have invariably developed cysts/ fibrosis which lead to hysterectomy, not to mention their suffering from extremely painful periods.

When I hear about ‘contamination’ because of menstruation, as a mental health professional, I simply smile to myself. It is indeed absolutely essential that utmost care is taken to maintain purity in the venue of any religious, cultural or social event, but does contamination occur only because of the presence of a menstruating woman? Why do we fail to recognize that contamination of the environment takes place through shameless gossip when people gather in such places? Don’t individuals contaminate the environment through their extremely lewd and cruel thoughts, their negative and condescending attitudes, and feelings of jealousy, dislike and even hatred for others?

Isn’t irreversible damage done through effortless and irresponsible gossip, most of which takes place in such gatherings? Are these not contaminations? If one had to use the parameter of physical contamination alone, then they must bar and keep in check anyone suffering from colds, sore throats, coughs, constipation and even belching or burping as all these in reality are signs of bodily contaminations.

Contamination in any gathering occurs mainly through the mind and this contamination is much more contagious. Religious heads and others conducting poojas and havans must take serious steps to prevent contamination and damage occurring through negative gossip and should encourage people to attend such events with positive thoughts and feelings rather than focus on whether the women there are menstruating or not. Families need to understand that the bodies of the women in the household are much more precious and it is not worth abusing the same through unnecessary medication. Overcoming this belief and attending the function is still an issue that needs to be worked upon.  Families need to understand that if a menstruating woman is polluting the environment, then so is a burping / belching man in equal measure. The men too should then be barred from attending the function. Why are we literates not thinking so?  They also need to understand that people are contaminating the religious environment to a huge extent through their thoughts, feelings and actions and a woman’s menstrual cycle fades palely in comparison.

Mahalakshmi Rajagopal, currently works as a Psychologist at Litchi Knowledge  Centre , Ghaziabad. She has been a practicing  mental health professional for the last fifteen plus years . She is passionate about self enhancement as a solution for various emotional blocks and  believes that all these above mentioned  practices are just inner blocks which need to be overcome by individuals . Her book “I am my own sunshine” is  receiving a lot of appreciation.

You can get in touch with her at: jikki.lakshmi@gmail.com

Edited by: Divya Rosaline

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