The Real Padman or The Menstruation Man of India

India is still a developing country. One major reason is population. Majority of people still lives in rural places and without much awareness of hygiene or due to low per capita income there are still a lot of socio-problems in the country as well as many parts of the world. One such issue is menstruation cycle, its awareness, sanitary pads, its taboo as well as high-cost of sanitary pads available in the market. Fighting all these odds is a ninth-standard dropout from a rural India who is famous as ‘The menstruation man of India’ or ‘The real padman’.

Mr Arunachalam Muruganantham a.k.a PADMAN was born in 1962. His parents were hand-loom weavers in Coimbatore, India. When Muruganantham reached teenage, his father died in a road accident. After his father’s demise, he dropped out of school and started working as a welder in a workshop.

“NO HUMAN BEING EVER DIED BECAUSE OF POVERTY. EVERYTHING HAPPENS BECAUSE OF IGNORANCE.”

How did the real PADMAN get the Idea of making low-cost sanitary pads?

One fine day, he saw his wife carrying ragged clothes and newspapers to use as sanitary napkins during her menstrual cycle/periods. While cross-questioning, his wife told, the sanitary pads are costly.

He was UTTERLY SHOCKED to see the MRP of the pad because pads only contained cotton and cotton is cheaply available. He realized that only 10-20% of country’s women can afford pads.

Hence, he decided to build low-cost sanitary pads.

Initial STRUGGLE OF The Menstruation Man:

• To try his idea, he took his wife’s help. However, his wife felt her rags were better.
• He continued experiments with different materials.
• His wife supported initially but got frustrated and left him after a while.
• He even tried to seek help from medical students but due to the sensitivity of the matter, he did not get proper results.
• Losing all hopes on others, he started to test the pads on himself with the help of a pump and animal blood.
• He was even forced to vacate the village as people got suspicious and feared an evil power has possessed him.
• Despite all the problems, he was all set on a mission to produce low-cost sanitary pads for all the women in his country.

“NO ONE CAN PREDICT WHAT YOU CAN DO. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE YOURSELF.”

JUMP BACK MOMENT for the real PADMAN:

• After 2 years of continuous experiments, he figured out the right material used to manufacture sanitary pads.
• After 4 years, he also came up with a low-cost machine to produce low-cost sanitary pads.

Milestones achieved by social entrepreneur Mr Muruganantham

• Since then, PADMAN has built 250 machines in 18 months and deployed them in few rural states in North India.
• The padman has first patented his machine and now he is a proud owner of Jayashree Industries.
• Has deployed 4800+ units across India and provided employment to more than 20,000+ women.
• He has delivered talks across the globe which includes TED Talks, INK Talks etc.
• A bollywood movie named PADMAN is made based on the journey of inventor and social entrepreneur, Arunachalam Muruganantham.
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Awards and Recognition received by Mr Arunachalam Muruganantham

• He has won many recognitions and awards at various national and international levels.
• In 2009, he won national innovation award for his machine out of 900+ entries.
• He was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2014.
• In 2016, he has been awarded the Padma Shri by Indian Government.

STOP INTERFERING YOUR LEARNING WITH YOUR EDUCATION

Jumpwhere’s take on THE REAL PADMAN:

We at Jumpwhere salute the efforts of Arunachalam Muruganantham who is tremendously trying to remove the taboo of the sanitary pads from the society as well as create awareness and provide low-cost sanitary pads to the women. We at Jumpwhere think, if anyone is focused to learn and innovate, we will surely succeed even without any formal education.

Also, read:

• How Poor kids are cracking IIT entrance exams
• The unknown story of Hardik Pandya
• It’s possible to achieve GOALS if they are SMART GOALS
• Not only SKILL-SET but ATTITUDE also matters