Padman challenge a wasteful gimmick, doesn't do justice to an honest biopic

PadMan Challenge a wasteful gimmick, doesn't do justice to an honest biopic

PadMan Challenge a wasteful gimmick, doesn't do justice to an honest biopic on Business Standard. The team came up with a promotion plan" that took what was a great, honest biopic, and turned it into a conversation that questions very seriously whether the Pad Man team are living under a rock

Latest News The marketing team of Padman have managed to turn the #PadmanChallenge into a social media campaign. The likes of Aamir Khan, Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif and Akshay Kumar are seen posing with sanitary napkins in their hand on Instagram to erase the stigma around menstruation.

However, this author debates how Bollywood unfortunately, even when trying to be on the right side of things, doesn’t quite get it entirely right.

Let’s get one thing straight, Arunchalam Murganantham is a hero. In an area of the world where educated men still begin to curl their shoulders awkwardly at the mere mention of menstruation, for a man from small-town India to approach the topic with such candour, sincerity and innovation is incredible and at the time he chose to do so - was desperately necessary. When asked, "What did you use before sanitary pads?" many of the women from the pre-Arunachalam era's answers were shocking for just how basic, uncomfortable and mainly useless they were. "Leaves." "A rag."

"Nothing." "Paper napkins." "Newspaper." “Sand.”

To imagine that 1 in 5 Indian girls drop out of school because of the shame and problems associated with menstruating, when the first sanitary pads were available commercially to women in the west in 1888 is heartbreaking. So yes, almost two decades ago when Muruganantham came up with his low-

cost sanitary pad machine (it cost $1000 as opposed to the regular machines that cost $550,000) this was revolutionary. And a biopic about him isn't just important, it's really bloody well deserved. Hat's off to Twinkle Khanna whose short story about Muruganantham - The Sanitary Man Of Sacred Land in her book The Legend Of Lakshmi Prasad - is what kicked off the conversation that led to her finally producing the film starring her husband. It's no secret that she's had a deft hand in reshaping Akshay Kumar post such degrading sexist disasters such as Kambakkht Ishq, and Pad Man is a step in the right direction. Not just for Akshay Kumar who is seen as a red-hot-blooded leading man, but for the Indian film industry itself.

And yet, once again, even in their wonderful attempts to “raise awareness”, they haven’t quite got it right.

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