No More Mansplaining

I began to call one barely known Facebook friend after another to see who might assist. Before long I had a host of offers from unexpected quarters of their company, cars and phones!

If the kindness of strangers saved my bacon, it was also this generosity that led Delhi’ites in their thousands to turn out in support of the protesting women of tenacious Shaheen Bagh, and JNU and Jamia students, under attack from rightwing goons. With love so unexpectedly given precedence, it was no wonder that Delhi went on to democratically sweep out hate.

A college in Kutch too was painting the town red. Not with satin hearts and red velvet cupcakes, but with blood. The principal of this Hindu sectarian institution, which prohibited menstruating women from participating in regular activities, suspected a large percentage of her students of lying to her so they could study unhindered (the gall! the depravity!). She ordered 68 of them to strip to prove their period-free status. The students complained and the enforcers were arrested. Briefly.

That might make educational institutions think twice before humiliating harmlessly ovulating students again, but will it make even a dent on the taboo around menstruation? Not while “godmen” like Swami Krushnaswarup get away with decreeing that menstruating women who cook will be reborn as dogs, and the men who eat their cooking, as bullocks. The word you want is the