Swati Bedekar, one of India’s real-life padwomen, takes us through her journey of battling discrimination and taboos, and meeting reel Pad Man, Akshay Kumar
Soumitra Das (BOMBAY TIMES; January 15, 2018)

It’s widely known that Akshay Kumar’s Pad Man, written and directed by R Balki, is based on Arunachalam Muruganantham, who invented a low-cost machine to make sanitary pads. While he’s the real padman, we met a real life padwoman from Vadodara, Gujarat. Swati Bedekar runs an organisation that manufactures and distributes low-cost sanitary napkins in rural Gujarat. She was one of the women achievers awarded recently on a TV show, alongside cricketer Mithali Raj and Manushi Chhillar (Miss World 2017).

Reliving her experience of shooting with Akshay for a TV capsule, Swati says, “He’s extremely down-to-earth. When I told the team that we would have to leave quickly from the shoot as we had a train to board, he made sure that my portion was shot first. Since Manushi has also been working towards improving menstrual hygiene conditions in Haryana, both of us were interviewed together. I felt happy because when a superstar like Akshay talks about the issue on TV, and makes a film on the subject, it really helps the cause.”

Swati’s journey began in 2010 when she was assigned a project in the Panchmahal district, where, as a science communicator, she was expected to work with 500 government schools to improve the education level of students. “Girls remained absent for about five to six days every month. Their parents told us that menstruation was the cause. We also found that women in rural areas used leaves with mud or synthetic cloth during their cycles, which was unhygienic. With my husband’s support, today we have 27 units in Gujarat, and 100 others in 11 states of India, which employ women and also potters, who design environment-friendly incinerators,” says Swati.

The task was undoubtedly challenging for her, given the deeply-entrenched taboos around menstruation. Swati says, “In rural areas, men were just unwilling to listen to us. I created messaging groups comprising those men and reached out to them. We educated them that these notions about ‘impurity’ are really silly. If fathers can gift their shaving kits to sons, why can’t they gift sanitary pads to daughters? This discrimination between boys and girls is sad and unacceptable. Initially, when we spoke about the issue at a gathering, women felt embarrassed with the men around, who were also indifferent on their part. While things are better now, we need to do more. Our daughters must not drop out of school for reasons like these; they deserve better.”