In Farah Ahamed’s ‘Period Matters,’ menstruation isn’t always associated with shame

Through creative storytelling, a recently released anthology moves away from the conventional to a deeper, more honest cultivation of narratives about menstruation

The news spread like a swollen river flowing rapidly. A river with its own destiny through every village. From far away, people came in cars, buses, on motorbikes and on foot to pay homage to Lajja Gauri. After 1500 years, the 10cm tall, almost forgotten stone statue of the lotus-headed goddess had suddenly started leaking. Initially a drop, but then quickly a steady river of red liquid trickled from between her thighs. No one was in any doubt that the statue of the goddess was menstruating.

The miracle was discovered by a simple woman who swept the temple floor every morning, while supplicating the goddess. She said she’d nearly fainted when she saw the red liquid oozing from the statue. What was stranger than the goddess bleeding were the rivulets of blood that had lotuses floating in it. Unable to help herself, she picked up a bloom and held it to her nose. The white flower had the sweetest fragrance and made her feel dizzy. She rushed home to tell her family about the miracle. Soon, everyone in the village was kneeling in awe before Lajja Gauri.

Many picked the lotuses from the blood and carried them home. Within a few days they noticed a transformation in themselves. They felt more joyous and content, even though their circumstances remained unchanged. It was almost as if they had experienced enlightenment. People started whispering that the lotuses held some kind of magic. Others said it wasn’t the lotuses, but the blood in which the lotuses were growing that gave them their power–Lajja Gauri’s menstrual blood.

The villagers decided that the woman who discovered the bleeding Lajja Gauri was a special messenger from the goddess. Now, with a newfound authority, the simple woman resolved that from thereon, whenever a woman in the village was menstruating, she would have total respite. She would be absolved from all domestic duties, and could spend her time, during those five or six days every month, as she pleased. A special place–a house–would be built where the women could rest. There they could dance, sing or just relax. Lajja Gauri would be remembered and thanked for reminding the world of her power, and the need for menstruating women to heal and rejuvenate.

Paying obeisance

The statue of Lajja Gauri continues to bleed to this day. Her lotuses are collected by pilgrims from all over. Some are greedy and fill their baskets to export and sell in other countries. Others dry the petals and grind them into a powder, believing it to have magical, healing properties. Young children press the flowers between the pages of their books. Still others preserve them in special liquids and place them at the altars in their homes. Others eat the blooms, saying it is an aphrodisiac. And still others make perfume from them. One family planted the lotus and it grew into a tall tree with red flowers, with a trunk shaped like a woman.

But the braver ones are very few and far between. They dare to fill small bottles with the red sap, the sacred, menstrual blood of Lajja Gauri. They keep it in a revered place. They alone know its power, and they keep it a secret.

Imagining menstruation differently

In my poem What If in Period Matters, I imagine what it must be like for a sweeper woman to be paralysed in the same fate century upon century. She is scorned by society, the church and told to accept her destiny. This includes dealing with menstruation in the most undignified way possible; bleeding on a dirty rag. The rag symbolises the shame and stigma attached to menstruation in many cultures.

But what if menstruation were to be imagined differently, as I have, in the story above? What if it were widely accepted as true, that menstruation was a force for creativity and feminine power?

In her essay Aadya Shakti: Primal Energy, Lyla FreeChild explains how the image of Lajja Gauri came to her in a dream, where she saw herself as the goddess. In Raqs-e-Mahvaari: A Menstrual Dance, Amna Mawaz Khan reclaims the menstrual dance which she believes must have existed in South Asian culture from as early as the second century. Granaz Baloch writes how she broke Baloch Mayar, or the Baloch code of honour, to conduct the first menstrual health workshop in Balochistan. During the session, one of the participants, who’d never imagined she’d ever be asked to write or draw about menstruation, wrote a poem about herself as a young girl sailing happily on a river of blood on a boat, which was, in fact, a menstrual pad. In my essay on the Kalasha community, I recount how the Kalasha women go to a Bashali to rest during their period, because their culture upholds the belief that, ‘homa istrizia azan asan,’ or our women are free.

Taking creative liberties

When I began compiling Period Matters in the summer of 2019, 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, I realised, lay in complete creative liberty. There would be no brief on the genre or format, only an invitation to the contributors to share their stories in their own way.

I wanted to highlight how stories of menstruation could be told and interpreted through every genre and art form, to show how it influenced every aspect of life, and how it was subjective and affected by context: politics, religion, class and culture. My aim was to steer this collection towards an intersectional approach. It would strive to say something about our ideas in different spheres, whether it be academic, digital or entrepreneurial, as well as telling stories and making art, about menstruation.

The result is a breath of perspectives which reinforce the idea that experiences of menstruation are not limited to shame but could also be ones of creativity, rest and healing.

Not always taboo

Over the past three years, the book has been my lens on the world. Everywhere I went, whoever I met, the questions at the back of my mind were, what is their experience of menstruation? What was their first encounter like? How is their understanding influenced by their context? How do they feel talking about menstruation? How do they cope with it? What creativity and activism did their interpretation of menstruation inspire? Sometimes I had the opportunity to ask, other times I just observed.

In doing so, I also delved into my own encounters with menstruation. My earliest memory relating to periods goes back to when I was eight years old, growing up in Nairobi. I was watching Kenyan television, after Little House on The Prairie came an advert for Stayfree Maxi Pads. It began with a blonde girl in white jeans riding a bicycle, talking about Stayfree being “soft and fluffy,” and promising girls could be “free” to do anything they wanted. It showed blue ink from a dropper filling a sanitary pad and ended with the image of two blonde girls on horses galloping into the sunset. I was scared of horses, I didn't have a bike, I wasn't blonde and I had no idea what the blue ink blotting the pad was. I thought it was a magic potion which girls in other countries took to help them with their sporting activities. Later, I saw one of my older cousins with a packet of Stayfree, and I showed surprise.“Yes,” she said, laughing as she hid it under her jumper and went to the toilet. I imagined her having a secret life, riding horses and doing all kinds of exciting things which no one in the family knew about. One time I heard my aunt telling my mother, in half-Kiswahili and half-Gujarati, “Mgeniaiva che,” meaning, “The visitors are here.” For many years I never understood what they were referring to. It was a coded language shared by women in a world where the word ‘menstruation’ was not acceptable.

As I went about compiling the book, I was struck by the association of menstruation with goddesses and flowers. Tashi Zangmo, in her essay on the Buddhist-Bhutanese perspective, narrates her experience of “the powerful drip of red drip from the sacred lotus.” Siba Bartataki reclaims a forgotten part of her identity when writing about the Ambubasi mela which celebrates the goddess Maa Kamakhya’s annual menstruation cycle. In K Madavane’s short fiction, a young boy, Guna learns how the goddess Kali is also known as also Bhadrakali when she is menstruating. Writing about her work as a menstrual activist, Srilekha Chakraborty tells in Hormo- baha: Flower of the Body, how she 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.

What would it take for menstruation to be seen not only as a shameful subject covered in myths, but as a life-affirming, creative force? Would it need the intervention of a supernatural phenomenon where a thousand statues of goddesses start menstruating? Maybe it only requires creative storytelling.

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