Junk The Taboo. Period.

Besides the lasting damage it causes to clusters of created memory that move and endure in society바카라�s neural pathways, fake news can at times become a collective Freudian slip바카라�an introduced error in the news cycle can reveal something society has actually tried to hide all along. One such instance broke into view, with some attendant verbal violence, during the recent Sabarimala temple entry flare-up. What has always been invisibilised, suppressed in visual form, came out in words. A local TV channel flashed the news that a young woman activist planned to desecrate Ayyappa바카라�s shrine by smuggling in a sanitary pad soaked in menstrual blood in her pilgrim바카라�s holy kit. The premise was extended when, based on this newsflash, textile minister Smriti Irani said 바카라�one would not take a sanitary pad soiled in blood to a friend바카라�s place바카라�. There you had it: two things were revealed at once. One, it put its finger on the nub of the male fear at Sabarimala. But more than that, this spoke the unspeakable. This was the exact thing that had all along made us resort to a whole bag of censoring ruses­바카라�to evade, elide, skirt around. Be it in the blue ink metaphor of sanitary pad ads or the uncountable euphemisms used to refer to womens바카라� monthly cycle of bleeding in all of world바카라�s languages. Now, 바카라�sanitary pad soaked in blood바카라� became a national meme. These were mere words, but they carried an unmistakable graphic quotient바카라�meant to repulse, almost weaponising the blood-soaked pad, an everyday object of women. The activist was imagined as planning an attack into an exclusionary sacred space, smuggling a pad like a gun or a grenade.

Is just the mention of that visual so explosive for the public space? Recent fantasies, or rather anxieties, around the idea of the 바카라�feminazi바카라�­바카라�casual, misplaced epi­thet바카라�may have something to do with it in this case. Imagine, then, an activist-trooper armed with a bloody pad, ready to breach fortress Sabarimala! For, the celibate male deity had by then been granted a citadel wall of 바카라�non-menstruating humans바카라�.

Even outside of that festival of anxieties, the landscape over the past couple of years has been marked by a series of visual detonations. Each one confronted, in its own way, the unconscious codes that govern what is kosher and acceptable when it comes to menstruation, that universal, biological, 바카라�living바카라� topic that remains taboo in various spaces, in equally varied ways. In each case, repression begat a defiant mini-insurrection. The urge to break the suppressed sil­ence visually always existed, of course, as with Judy Chicago바카라�s 1971 art work 바카라�Red Flag바카라� (see It바카라�s Bloody Art, Isn바카라�t It!), but with the coming of the digital age, new spaces have opened up, well beyond the art world. This is especially so in India바카라�s context. You can see the dots link up in our overlapping maps of multiple realities: Instagram, Facebook, India바카라�s streets and universities, the PM바카라�s postbox, and as far afield as New York바카라�s subways.

The first noticeable 바카라�detonation바카라� came rather innocuously, in March 2015, with an Instagram upload by Indian-origin Canadian poet Rupi Kaur. A click from her photo-series titled Period, which depicted stains of menstrual blood바카라�on a woman바카라�s clothes and on her bedsheet바카라�was taken down twice by Instagram because it supposedly violated its community standards, which generally pertain to nudity, gore and violence바카라�that바카라�s when people realised the menstruation taboo even existed on that visual platform for Generation Z. The inevitable happened: the silencing itself made a loud sound. After critical headlines, Instagram restored the image, with an apology to Kaur. The image has since gone viral, spilling to Ted talks, magazines and blogs, becoming a constant internet footnote on the subject.

Part of a college project, Kaur바카라�s photo-series had meant to resist the visual taboo. But all she was exp­ecting was the usual backlash from trolls. But the episode actually reaffirmed the value of the image, for her as for everyone else. Instagram, a platform that is said to induce 바카라�pressurisingly pretty바카라� pictures, itself had to rectify its initial discomfort with the topic.

Back home, in 2016, the spiralling debate around that viral Rupi Kaur post was to emb­olden another online end­eavour. 바카라�I now felt social media was a good medium to make an impactful statement,바카라� says Nikita Azad. Thus began her #HappyToBleed campaign on Facebook바카라�irked by some atrocious comments by a Travancore Devaswom Board official about the des­irability of a machine that could scan women for 바카라�purity바카라�, i.e. to see if they were menstruating or not. Nikita invited women to post pictures holding sanitary pads with rebellious messages against the taboo. Hundreds of women joined the campaign; virality was again at hand. Azad, then a student at Punjabi University, Patiala, eventually became one of the petitioners in the case in the Supreme Court.

Since all debates are nat­ional debates these days, the Sabarimala issue, spilling past the local, has exh­umed many anxieties around menstruation at a time when the space for discussions, of all political colours, is opening up. Interestingly, it has been an enabler of sorts, prompting people to visibilise menstruation in their own way.  

Padmini Ray Murray rem­embered the temple board official바카라�s comments during a game jam in 2016, an annual event where she and her team had to make a video game, the theme being 바카라�ritual바카라�. Thus came about Darshan Diversion, a game where women try to climb up floors to reach the temple top, the passage blocked by priests ready to send them back if they are menstruating, indicated by a blinking red light. 바카라�This could be fun, I thought,바카라� says Ray Murray, who also teaches at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore. The game wasn바카라�t meant to be very public바카라�you can바카라�t buy it online. But it was showcased this October in the Bangalore edition of We The Women, a show created by journalist Barkha Dutt. Dutt tweeted about it, bringing it out in troll territory. 바카라�I also started getting trolled on Twitter after that,바카라� says Ray Murray. The game had to be pulled out of the Mumbai edition of We The Women in November as things got volatile, both on Twitter and at Sabarimala.     

But November saw the battle joined on anot­her front. Standing in front of a red stage in Ernakulam, a few hundred people gave the cry Arppo Arthavam! (Malayalam for 바카라�Hurray Menstruation!바카라�) The protest visuals included a wing-shaped flag made of sanitary pads. 바카라�The visuals were important, since the experience is always been kept in the dark,바카라� says Malayalam writer C.S. Chandrika. Arppo also bec­ame a hashtag under which women were invited to share their stories about the stigma. In response, and complementing the celebratory aspect of the protest, young artists like Shehi Shafi drew the artwork this issue is using on the cover.

Away from the confrontations, we all have been witness to the visuality of menstruation evolving at its own pace, mindful of the reigning, and changing, not­ions of acceptability. 바카라�The idea introduces itself very casually in the household space,바카라� says filmmaker-­writer Paromita Vohra about sanitary pad ads on TV. 바카라�They help prompt a discussion without really putting anyone in a spot. In this sense, it바카라�s interesting how the blue liquid on TV actually un-taboos menstruation.바카라� Vohra thinks the coded, allusive visuality of these ads makes the idea more accessible to people by keeping things within the comfort zone.

The themes are broadening too, after almost two decades of the post-liberalisation ads: Whisper바카라�s 2014 바카라�Touch the Pickle바카라� campaign, for inst­ance, addresses a common menstruation myth. Then you have something like Padman, the Akshay Kumar starrer inspired by the innovation of Arunachalam Murugananthan. That also brought discussions to the most unusual of places바카라�such as reality TV, during the film promos.

바카라�There are also spaces like Menstrupedia, which further relax things,바카라� says Vohra, of a website that seeks to spread awareness and break taboos around the subject with videos, posters and, recently, a comic book. 바카라�We are trying to change the narrative by portraying periods in a positive light,바카라� says Aditi Gupta, Menstrupedia바카라�s founder. 바카라�Since our visuals are positive, we don바카라�t shy away from showing blood either,바카라� she adds.

So, spaces for discussion are opening up in non-confrontational ways too. But stigma has a way of cornering your everydayness, alm­ost demanding and in turn generating a mass of critical response: Kaur바카라�s post was a regular one until Instagram made it the issue; Ray Murray바카라�s game was a fun, critical take in internal gaming circles that got pulled into the Twitter troll vortex and the often-outrageous comments around Sabarimala prompted protests like #Happytobleed and #arppoarthavam.

바카라�Women will make art out of the materiality of their lives,바카라� says Vohra. She ref­ers to the 바카라�pads against sexism바카라� protest in Jamia Milia Islamia in March 2015, where students wrote anti-­sexist comments on sanitary pads and stuck them around the campus. 바카라�As you get into spaces where you can be more vocal, your level of engagement bec­omes more detailed,바카라� adds Vohra.

Visuals also set precedents. When the government imposed a luxury tax on sanitary napkins in their initial GST policy, university students wrote messages on pads and mailed them to the PM and the FM. That was about economic policy interfering in everyday reality. The next one that tries to suppress this evolving narrative will eng­ender another form of visible resistance. Watch out for these spaces, and junk the squirmy taboo pickle.