Health and Hygiene - Every Women’s Right

We all read about our rights and duties in school and the right I am talking about today is something very close to women. So close that we tend to keep it as a secret, which should not be disclosed. A secret which should not be discussed, but today I want to discuss about it here with everyone. We are talking about periods.

To some it may sound very normal, what’s big deal, it’s just the monthly menstruation. We women face it every month and we are so familiar and comfortable with it that we tend to take it very lightly. But do you know that this is that time of month when many women risk their health and life. In Urban India when we the fortunate one choose between hundreds of sanitary napkins based on colour and fragrance, there are many other women in same country who use unhealthy methods like dirty old cloths, ashes, plastic and what not. They do not use sanitary napkins because mostly they cannot afford it. In a family where every expense is calculated and is made based on importance, buying sanitary napkins are never considered important. Old women will preach the young one’s about how they used to wash and use the same cloth many times, how buying napkins will add extra burden on monthly budget.

Women are very sacrificing by nature; they prefer buying milk for their family then buying a packet of sanitary pads for themselves. And the men of house are mostly kept away from such topics or are least bothered about it. Because of which they are always unable to see the health risk women of family is facing by using unhygienic methods to control menstruation flow. However all men are not this ignorant, there are some men like Arunachalam Muruganatham. The man who invented a machine to create low cost sanitary napkins, which are less than one third of the price of other napkins available in market. He was not very rich neither from big city, but he had a big dream to bring change. He was concerned about the health of his wife and sisters and that is want moved him towards this invention. He started a business not to make money but to improve the quality of living of women in India by providing them the basic necessity of hygiene during those days.

Today because of the monopoly of big brands such basic necessities are sold on such high prise that low earning families are not able to afford them. We need to help others by letting them know about the cheaper alternative Mr. Muruganatham had came up with. We should educate the women and make them more aware about importance of hygiene. Stop treating menstruation cycle as taboo and talk openly about it. let’s spared the word so that more and more women get to utilize this benefit (hygienic and cheaper sanitary  pads). Let’s start this from our home by talking to our maids and house helps first, they too work equally hard as we do for our family and they too have equal right of living a healthier life. When a man can think for us and then why can’t we women think of each other’s well being J

PS: This post id written for The Idea Caravan contest by Franklin Templeton Investments on indiblogger.

Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012.

SMTP- CarorPati turns RoadPati : Book Review

Monsoon in Bangalore is very much unexpected; suddenly the sunny day turns into a rainy one and pours water on all your weekend plans. However that makes the weather best suited for lazy afternoons on couch, when you need just a mug full of coffee and a good book to enjoy a lazy day. I always like reading fiction more than other type of literature. So when I got to lay my hands on this book I was not sure what I should expect out of this book as this is from a debutant writer, but as the title of this book suggests I was sure to see many twist and turns in the story.

Writer of this book Ashutosh Bhatia is basically from Jaipur and is CEO of a renowned Information technology firm. And I think that is why he decided to base this story in the Pink city of Jaipur and the protagonist Aaryan is related to the IT field.

Story starts with teenager Aaryan, who is freshly out of school and is confused about his future. He has big dreams, wants to do something really big with his life but lacks determination. He wants to do something today but by tomorrow his plans change. He keeps making mistake but his family supports him and tries to guide him on right track. He wanted to become a fashion designer, and then when his family agreed to his choice he decides to take admission in local college for Bachelor in commerce, then on his mother’s suggestion he joints a computer course and develops interest in website development. That is where his story towards success starts. He starts with a small business of website development and then slowly grows to all areas of IT industry.  In this journey of success he faces many turning points, some leaves him with bitter taste of failure and some lets him face success. He climbs up, falls down and then learns from his mistakes and tries to climb up again.

 

In this whole process of him becoming a freelancer to a CarorPati businessmen he learns many lessons and meets many people who touch his life in different ways. His elder brother always guides him to what is right for him and his love interest Shona always stands by him in his thick and thin. One side Aaryan learns from his mistakes but other side he always makes sure to make a new mistake and one such mistake makes him turn from a CarorPati to a RoadPati. However that teaches Aaryan the lesson for his life and he starts to work towards making it big all over again.

This one is a good inspirational story, with clean language (something which can be read by teenagers as well as elderly). There is no complex love story involved here, and it mainly deals with a man’s journey towards success and how some mistakes can make him loose everything he has earned.  There were few things which could have been better, like the sudden disappearance of the track of Sandra and the Buddha girl. The reason for which his employee takes such big revenge from him was not very convincing for me. For someone who is not from IT sector, all the technical programming terminologies used in book can be confusing. Also if little bit more attention was paid to the language (grammar and flow of story) then that would have been great for this book

 

If we ignore these flaws then for a debutant writer this is a wonderful job done. Writer has succeeded in creating story of an ordinary boy who has extraordinary dreams and with his hard work and skills he finally makes it big in life. It can be inspirational for people who have similar dreams and a good read for readers who avoid love stories. Many of us will be able to relate ourselves with the confused teenager Aaryan and for people who work in IT and programming this will be more fun story as they will be able to relate with late night working and project pressures .For me this is an average book with a motivating story of an ordinary man. I congratulate Ashutosh Bhatia for his first book and wish him luck for his future, hope to read some more good stories from him in future.