BY LAXMI BASNET
On a sunny day in July, when I was enjoying my vacation with my friend and while returning home, I saw something horrifying, at least that’s what 10 years old me thought.
I grew up in a joint family with grandparents, my own parents and my brother. I was 10
years old when I got my first period. I still remember vividly, calling mother for help and I had to wait in the toilet for an hour because she wasn’t home. I kind of knew what was
happening, but dint know what to do about it. And when she finally came, she handed me a thick cotton pad and to layer that another cloth pad underneath it.
As sophisticated the Nepali society was back then when I first got my period, it was inevitable for me to not go through the ‘‘shame of bleeding’’. As I wasn’t allowed to talk to or look at my male member of my family, and they treated the period as something I should be ashamed of. Well, I was not but, people in my family were too ashamed to face me, they all left the house to avoid me, and I stayed with my mother for 10 days. At the beginning it was fun being alone in the house with no one to tell me to run to the nearby store to buy them something or make them tea.
At that time, I was in fifth grade, and nobody got their period in my class or maybe they
were too ashamed to speak about it. Only in 7th grade, most of the girls in my class, got
their period and the school also conducted a class about Mensuration for the girls which I was grateful for.
It wasn’t the fact that, when I experienced period cramps and I was called dramatic
because apparently no one in the family had the cramps so it was unlikely that I got it?
made me mad Even though when I think about it makes me sad, but it was the fact that I wouldn’t celebrate the festivals.
I didn’t celebrate Dashain and Tihar in the first year of me getting my period and
consecutively next 3 years because my mensuration cycle at that time on average was
about 15- 18 days even though I didn’t have any health issues and followed the prescribed vitamins. I remember crying miserably and being home alone on festivals while every other family member went outside to relative’s house and had their forehead filled with bright tikas while mine was empty.
Then skip to 2019 , on the day of the Dashain tika, I woke up at 4:30 with the blood stained bedsheet because I got my period , I was really confused because my mensuration cycle eventually got better and on average it was about 20-25 days but , I got my period a week prior to the date I was supposed to maybe it was because of the chores we have to do to prepare for the festivals.
I started crying and pleading in front of my mother because since the year I got my first
period and till then I was only able to celebrate festival one time in last 6 years. She came up with the idea to hide the fact that I was on my period and just celebrate the festival through it. Although it was scary at the beginning, I did celebrate Dashain while I was on the period.
And after that I didn’t really care about getting my period on festivals because I would be able celebrate it anyways and not only that, but I was also allowed to enter the kitchen like a normal person without anyone poking at me. I don’t really know what made my mother change her mind, but it makes me think that just a little support from the people can change the perspective and the stigmas surrounding the period. And I am forever thankful for the steps she took to leave the stigmas in the past.
Now, I do celebrate festivals while I’m on my period and embracing this side of myself,
while there is still a long way to go in breaking a lot of other deeply rooted stigmas but every small step, we take helps to make this stigma a thing of the past.