'Period. End of Sentence': A documentary explores menstruation taboo

Oscar-nominated short documentary, Period. End of Sentence, conveys an impactful message in 25 minutes. A period should end a sentence and not the aspirations of young girls. A period is not the end of a story. A period should not mean the end of school. And yet it does — for millions of girls in India.

The documentary addresses the taboos around menstruation and the challenges that women face in terms of fear, and lack of education and support. The stigma around how period blood is “bad blood” and how a woman is considered “impure” during her period is strong and deeply rooted. Hence, the effort to combat this stigma is both time-consuming and difficult.

Directed by Rayka Zehtabchi, this Netflix Original is set in Hapur district, 60 km outside of New Delhi, where women have limited or no access to sanitary napkins. In some cases, they can’t afford them and end up using dirty rags or leaves as an alternative. In others, the women are embarrassed to even accept that they menstruate. When few young men are asked about periods, they say they have heard about menstruation. “It is an illness. It mostly affects women,” is their general refrain.

The documentary created by “The Pad Project”, a California-based non-profit, is the result of an initiative started by a group of students of Oakwood High School in Los Angeles and their teacher, Melissa Berton. Berton is also one of the producers for the film. Guneet Monga, who has also produced The Lunchbox and Masaan, is the other. In 2012, Berton learned about period-related hardships in India while attending a session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

Through Berton, students of Oakwood High School learned about the issue of girls dropping out of school because of periods, and that it costs the same amount of money to have milk for a week as it does to have a week’s supply of sanitary pads. And, if they have to choose between sanitary napkins for their daughters and milk for the family, parents invariably choose milk.

So the students decided to raise money through crowd funding to buy and distribute “Padman” Arunachalam Muruganantham’s low-cost sanitary pad-making machine. The cost of the machine and raw material for one year of production was $11,000. It took the students six years to collect the money. To create further awareness and get more funds to install more machines, they decided to make a documentary, for which Zehtabchi came on board.

Melissa Berton (left) and Rayka Zehtabchi attend a reception for their film in Los Angeles

In the film, one is introduced to Sneha who wants to work for the Delhi Police. Along with studying for her exams, she is also funding her training by earning wages at Muruganantham’s sanitary napkin plant in her village. But she has told her father that she makes diapers. One also meets other girls from the village, many of whom don’t even know what a pad is. When asked if they know what a period is, many of them lower their heads and giggle, staring at the floor. Some among them are those who were forced to drop out of school once their periods started. Through the course of the documentary, one sees how these women go from being shy and reserved about menstruation to comfortably addressing the issue and educating other women about it.

The film also sheds light on the negligence and lack of knowledge about female hygiene. “Girls see that they are bleeding and use whatever cloth they can find. Imagine how harmful and dangerous that is,” says an elderly woman in an interview.

A report by the NGO Dasra titled Spot On! revealed that nearly 23 million girls drop out of school annually due to lack of proper menstrual hygiene management facilities. This includes the availability of sanitary napkins and awareness about menstruation. The report added that in the absence of a toilet at home, 66 per cent of women manage their menstruation in open spaces.

It also chronicles the change in the mindset of women, who are now taking matters into their own hands as they make and sell low-cost sanitary napkins with the help of Muruganantham. “Menstruation is the biggest taboo in my country,” Muruganantham says in the film. “Our mission is to turn India into a 100 per cent napkin-using country from the current level of less than 10 per cent.”