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

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.”