The “P Word”
most of my life, I listened to her intricate plans for the big ceremony — she’d make her grand entrance in a designer ghagra, meet the fiancé her parents chose for her, and, final- ly, in front of all of the people she loved, be presented with her custom-made 5 carat diamond ring. When the day arrived, the mouthwatering aroma of her favorite dishes – butter chicken, daal makhani, jalebi – crept all the way up to her bedroom on the third floor. Guests flooded in. Her slender hands, weighed down by rows of iridescent glass bangles and thick coats of henna, clenched her sides. She looked perfect. Absolutely perfect. Then she felt something wet in between her thighs. She stared into the mirror for a few seconds, eyes widened. Suddenly she collapsed onto the floor, bursting into tears. On her engagement night, my cousin wasn’t allowed to eat with her family. She wasn’t allowed to see her fiancé for the first time or go to the temple. She wasn’t even allowed to greet the relatives who traveled across the world to be with her. Because she got her period. At the news of my cousin’s quarantine, not one guest objected. Apparently, meeting an “impure” woman would be far worse than not seeing the beautiful bride-to-be. God Written by SINDHU RAVURI Artwork Courtesy: FRANCHESCA SPEKTOR
Contrary to what you may see on television, my vagi- na doesn’t bleed translucent blue solvent. When I speak passionately or assert myself, it does not mean I am reach- ing that time of month. And, for the record, you know you can say the word, right? Period. The fact is, we have all been indoctrinated with a deep- seated stigma of menstruation. Somewhere amidst the patriarchal society we live in, cultural beliefs, and misogy- nistic media, the word “period” stopped being a benign, physiological function and became an emblem of degrada- tion and shame. “I learned in Asian mythology the origin story of rice — there (was) a rice goddess spilling blood on the field, which produced the crop,” Louise Tan, a producer of this year’s UC Berkeley Vagina Monologues, said. “As the time went by, these myths of rice developed around a more patriarchal culture, so the myth itself changed. It wasn’t a rice goddess spilling blood on field, but rather a woman being killed by men, which then provided the blood that yielded rice. So blood has grown to be associated with death and disaster.” Personally, I’ll never forget my first cousin’s engage- ment day, just a few days prior to her 25th birthday. For
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October 2018
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