Radha Paudel[1]
The below question is the
most common one while I was speaking no matter whether I am in village or
capital or Nepalese community in aboard.
Q: Do you enter in to temple during
menstruation?
A: Is this question to me? I have done 13
days mourning during death of my mother in 2009 along with my sisters and
brother. Shocked, bite their tongue, shake their body, give big smile etc. are
there responses I noticed. Few are furious and charged me as anti-Hindu and
many stuffs. To me, this is all ignorance and hegemonic perception around
menstruation.
Not only me, my sister,
nieces, sister-in law, brother, father and myself, do put on Tika during Dashain, Tihar, do sarade (annual death ritual), enter in to
Pashupati (Kathmandu), Mankamana (Gorkha), Tripurasundari (Baitadi), Ugratara
(Dadeldhura) and so on along with pad in between vagina and panty. We belong
with Hindu religion and enjoying celebrations in our own way as always that we
do not have any barriers due to menstrual blood.
My father 80 years old,
never ever school going man though he never insisted us to do Rishipanchami, cleansing ritual since I
taught my parents about physiology of menstruation since 1992 when I was in
Nursing college. Before that my late mother, sisters and myself followed the
restrictions. Means my sisters went to cowshed for 7-21 days without seeing father,
brother, sun etc. I never do this ritual in my life. I am still alive with many
achievements. It's just incompatibility in understanding between nature and science.
My response to all
audiences of my talk program, any temple has have statute of goddess, it never
put the notice due to impurity or dirty blood. Likewise, the priest in Muktinath, a popular Hindu temple, is
women and they never stop the worships. We never can see any notice or
interruptions in restaurants, hotels, offices, buses etc. where menstruate
girls and women are working or travelling but nothing happen.
The menstrual blood is
perfectly pure blood, shedding from the inner liner of the uterus which is
prepare for receiving a baby for 40 weeks. Can we imagine the baby from the
impure or dirty blood. Often educated people asked me it is dirty blood that is
why we need to segregate. Indeed, menstrual blood is not collecting blood at
all. It just tears and start bleed when the circumstances not allowing to have
baby.
I know, this is somehow
guided from religion. We can't change the position of nose in our face, men
never can change their sex, we never can stop earthquake because of nature. The
rest of things such as restrictions during menstruation, religious practices
etc. all are constructed by human that can change by ourselves. Here, I urged
to choose whether you treat yourself as human being or animal. If you are human
being let's accept science and enjoy the nature, let's do dialogue on
menstruation at family, community and everywhere for peace and prosperity.
[1] Activist
for Menstrual Rights and Rural Transformation, Author of Madan Purskar winning
book Khalangama Hamala, Awardee of many national and international awards for
her tireless work on peace, human right, empowerment. This article is prepared for club as asked by Sharmila Shrestha, PhD.
