How a women’s mag in India pulled off a coup
Journalist Rekha Nambiar was floored by the success of Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar’s #PadMan challenge where celebrities scrambled to post their pictures holding a sanitary napkin on social media. The PadMan challenge and the eponymous movie were aimed at de-dogmatising periods — one out of five Indian girls drops out of school because of shame and a lack of awareness regarding menstruation. Rekha told her colleagues at Grihalakshmi, a women’s magazine published from India’s tiny state of Kerala, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to replicate the phenomenon. But they needed another universal subject that they could address.
February 10. The Grihalakshmi team under editor Moncy Joseph went into a huddle at their Calicut office to conceptualise the International Women’s Day edition. There was nothing on the plate. Ideas that trickled in weren’t inspiring. That’s when Rini Raveendran, another journalist, brought up the issue of a husband getting hammered on Facebook for posting a photo of his 23-year-old wife Amritha breastfeeding their child. At the receiving end from a patriarchal public, the couple who tried to highlight issues faced by breastfeeding moms in Kerala, deleted the post.
The sense of empathy that filled the newsroom generated a spur. That’s our topic: Breastfeeding! It was a chorus: no voice of dissent among the editorial team where females outnumber males 7-3.
With February 20 being the print date, it was all systems go from day one. Rini was assigned to write the main article. Further debates on whether it should just be a cover story or a full issue led the team to run a campaign to stop shaming women who breastfeed in public. The involvement of leading writers was thought to be necessary to make the mission a success. The topic given to women writers was the aesthetics of the body. K Rekha declined as she was already writing a story dealing with the issue. S Sithara said as a leukaemia patient she was away from the world of pleasures. All roads led to Indu Menon, considered a successor to the late author Kamala Das and a bold voice of the New Woman, who contributed an article about how she fought the shame of having a big bosom and finally grew to be a “goddess of breastfeeding”.
So far so good. Moncy wouldn’t leave any stone unturned to meet his deadline. The biggest issue faced by any magazine is its cover. This subject needed to be handled well. Celebrity photographer Jinson Abraham was in Rajasthan on assignment when he got Moncy’s SOS. They agreed that the cover should feature a celebrity rather than a model. On Jinson’s radar was a south Indian actor with a three-month-old baby. She was quite keen on the photo shoot but withdrew at the eleventh hour facing stiff resistance from her family. Next was an actor-feminist who also consented but withdrew a day before the photo shoot fearing public backlash. Jinson tried to rope in other models who also backed off at the last moment. It was fast becoming a Grihalakshmi versus Goliath situation.
“We realised the enormity of the mission as we ran into hurdle after hurdle. We were so disappointed — we thought the project wouldn’t take off at all,” Moncy says.
February 15 was the closing date for the edition. With just a few hours on hand, Jinson was still searching for his subject when he received a “Hi” message from an old friend, former Flydubai air hostess and actor-poet Gilu Joseph. She was like a godsend. He messaged back asking if she could help find someone to take up a breastfeeding photoshoot. “In no time I got her call. She did not want to put anyone at risk, so was ready to take up the assignment herself,” Jinson reminisces. “I asked her, are you sure? She said, ‘Yeah, why not?’ I knew her background. She lives with her mother and two sisters, one of them a nun, so I told her to take her time and think it over.” Gilu was certain her family wouldn’t agree. “So I did not ask for permission. I only let them know. They support me on the cause, but not on the shoot. They’ve never seen any such photo of mine in 27 years. And when one fine morning if the world thrusts the Grihalakshmi cover at them and abuses my deceased father and me, they will naturally feel hurt. I understand all that but I was resolute. I was sure my family wouldn’t disown me,” says Gilu. “When Moncy called to warn me of possible repercussions, I told him it’s time our society changed. I said I have just one condition: Stand by me whatever happens. And he did.” “I’ve known Gilu as an actor, blogger and poet. As a normal practice, we carry an interview with the cover page personality. Being a writer herself, I asked her to do a column about breastfeeding and what she created — My body, my freedom —was the icing on the cake for the campaign,” Moncy explains. “Women should breast-feed freely, without a sense of fear or inhibition. That’s my message,” says Gilu. Overseen by journalist Reeshma Damodar, the one-day photo shoot was a breeze. Jinson had a pre-shoot brainstorming with his team where every possible controversy was dissected. Can’t we portray motherhood outside of marriage? Why should there be traditional flagposts like mangalsuthra and vermilion? Should the model look at the baby or the camera? From the various images captured, the cover that appeared was chosen to portray a breastfeeding woman challenging a gawking world from the confines of Indian traditionalism.
“There wasn’t an attempt to dress up the model like a Hindu bride as they accuse. I am a Roman Catholic. There are members in my family who use vermilion,” says the photographer. Gilu agrees. “I like wearing a bindi. Tomorrow, if I were to get married, despite belonging to a Christian household, I will probably wear sindoor (vermilion) again, because I would choose to do so.”
The resident of Kumily in Idukki district of Kerala says she has no regrets. “I have always listened to my heart. It was a wonderful opportunity to work for a cause that wanted to debunk the myth that breastfeeding in public is a sin and something to be covered up. Never mind if a hundred thousand people throw stones at me. If I am able to inspire a single man or woman about the necessity to celebrate motherhood, that’s an achievement. The fact that the campaign has provided a platform to debate the taboo itself is a revolution.”
“The events have not shaken me. I celebrate life, everyday. I don’t carry emotional baggage. I was flying for eight years during which I have delivered babies. People have died in my hands. That’s part of my work. As is this. I happily welcome every single day and whatever life brings me,” says the actor.
Moncy feels that there was a misogynistic attempt to shout down Grihalakshmi by manufacturing queries over the cover. “In the end truth prevailed. A local issue is suddenly a global talking point. The outcry has subsided as international media and organisations like Unicef supported us. There were positive reactions from the US, Australia, Canada, Germany and other nations where social issues take the front seat,” says Moncy.
“Breastfeeding cubicles are not the real solution. It has to start with a purification of hearts. Our attitude towards the breast must change. We must stop seeing sex in everything, and start to respect the right of mothers to breastfeed their children fearlessly.”