Meet Sir Arunachalam Muruganantham, he's the cool guy from India everyone's talking about. Or, at least, should be.
So what's so cool about him?
In 1998, he got married to Shanti, shortly after which, he decided to change the country. Noticing how Shanti used old paper and disposed of unhygienic cloth during her periods because commercial pads were too expensive, Muruganantham knew he had to come up with a way to solve the problem for millions of women in the country.What started next was a journey of research and a lot of persistence.
He looked for female volunteers who could test his inventions, but most were too shy to discuss their menstrual issues with him. He started testing it on himself, using a bladder with animal blood but became the subject of ridicule when the "sanitary pad" was discovered in his village. As menstruation is a taboo subject in India, it left him ostracized by his community and family.
It took him two years to finally realize that commercial pads are made of cellulose fibers and that the cost of it came mostly from the machines used to make the pads that were imported and cost around INR 35 million (544250 US dollars).So he set on his journey to make a machine that cost less, and so he did. This low-cost version now is the reason for hundreds and thousands of jobs, and a happy safe period for women in rural areas around the country.
Now well known as a social entrepreneur, he is one of the most popular TED talk speakers as well, and overall, a man who must be proud. How an uneducated man from a small village managed to make a difference to the life of thousands of women just by being sympathetic, makes this a remarkable story. While most of us come from privileged backgrounds and do nothing to improve the lives of the downtrodden, this one man stepped up from his comfort zone and did exactly that. While we live on continuing to chase all the shallowness and the meaninglessness of the world, he dared to look at the details and improve them.
While movies like Akshay Kumar starrer 'Padman' are coming out to bring this story forward, I do have a lurking fear that soon this shall die out too. It seems to me that we don't talk about what's important, and if we do, then we don't do it long enough. Rest assured, the original Padman will go on building the excellent network he has now established - but us?
We need to stop for a second and think.
Watch the trailer for this new movie here:
