Talk about it.PERIOD!

This International Women's Day, we should inspire inclusion by ending period-related stigma and discrimination

- Madhumita Pandey

I was nearly 12 when I first got my period. My mother had recently relocated to Mohali for work and at the time it was just my father, older brother, grandparents and I in Delhi. I remember seeing bloodstains on the bed sheet and running straight to the bathroom. My father must have seen the stains, too, as a few minutes later my grandmother knocked on the bathroom door and told me to throw my clothes in for washing and take a shower.

I do not remember being scared, just uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. When I came out of the shower, my father handed me a sanitary pad and told me that I would have to use it for a couple of days. He showed me how to open it and where it goes and then I was off to give it a go. The next morning while getting me ready for school, he said, "You might feel eager to tell your friends but please do not tell everyone that you are wearing a pad." He must have known me pretty well as the first thing I did once I got to school was telling my closest friends that I had gotten my period!

Years later, my mother would tell me what had transpired while I was in the shower. My father rang my mother and told her that I had got my period. She instructed him to go to the pharmacy and get some sanitary pads. In the meantime, he told my grandmother to help me get cleaned up. When my mother came home the next weekend, she made sure I got to spend enough time with her to get all my doubts cleared, including how I thought a sanitary pad was just an adult diaper for women who went to work (and who can blame me, haven't we all seen the sanitary pad commercials with the blue liquid!).

This has remained a key positive memory of my life. But as I grew older, I realised that not everyone's memory of how they got their first period was a pleasant one.