Everyone must have heard about superheroes while growing up, and to be exact superheroes take a great part of every child's growing-up cycle. This can be logically attributed to the fact that they are usually assigned with some superpowers or skills that make them stand among the ordinary crowd. This for children can be mesmerizing as they are easily fascinated with things.
However, the question is do superheroes only exist in movies? And is it necessary that they always should have some kind of superpower to be considered one? Well, "Pad Man" seems to have flipped the table around. Because as the name suggests this man was called with this nickname as he was able to create sanitary pads for less cost.
So, What's the Real Deal About This Movie?
"Pad Man" is a 2018 Indian movie with the actor Akshay Kumar- Laxmi in the movie- as the main lead. Unlike what the intro might have suggested he did not have anything extra about him, if anything he was like any other humble villager who did not get to complete his education, started working at an early age to support his mother and sister, and later on gets married.
The real plot of this movie starts when Laxmi starts wondering why women have to spend 5 days each month outside the main limits of the house without touching or engaging with anyone. The reason becomes clear as we're informed those so-called test days are obligatory for every female once she's on her period as for some reasons they think it's somewhat shameful or maybe not hygienic for her to be inside the house eating and living normally.
A concept although bizarre turns to be shockingly embraced by all villagers and great parts of India due to the simple and uneducated way of thinking they were brought upon. In the movie, he gets shocked learning that his wife uses a dirty worn-out rag instead of a sanitary pad and decides to get his wife one only to be faced with rejection from her side because the pads are too expensive for them to afford.
So, the story goes on and Laxmi decides to create one for his wife and tries multiple times but all his attempts end up failing. As hard as creating the pad was what was harder is the fact that his wife, sisters, and every female he knew would reject his offer to try the pads and give him feedback as they were too ashamed to even try.
Important Points That the Movie Highlights
While the attempt itself was hard for him considering he lives in a very preserved village and in a female culture that believes talking about such a thing is taboo, what was harder is the fact that he literally got excluded by everyone for having a very simple belief that is what if any of those women got an infection, a serious disease, or worse died from this? This was totally happening for many women but none seemed to care about the wellbeing of herself under the fear of shame.
Laxmi's perseverance to put an end to this by spending years inventing the machine that creates the same pads sold everywhere but for affordable prices ultimately works out and through hard routes and so much effort to convince the females with the help of a nice woman that he happens to meet by chance. I won't dig into further details as this sums up pretty much the highlight of the movie, but I do like to highlight the fact that a simple thing like using a sanitary pad is unfortunately not something that all women get to enjoy to this day as a necessity.
It was quite shocking for me to learn that only a small percentage was using pads, while others didn't to reasons mostly attributed to cultural norms. And this leads one to think how much more do people have to abide by these nonsensical human-made rules?
What this movie highlight is bigger than the message of making pads available for every woman; it sheds the light on the fact that in order for women to have their rights granted they should believe that they deserve them in the first place. Laxmi fought for a basic right that everyone should be equal and being equal means, no one has less of a chance than another.
Conclusion
Instead of saying mind-blowing, I'd rather say this movie is mind-opening and takes you to think about places and things that one with a simple mind would've never thought of as possible. I'd definitely recommend watching this movie in case you haven't yet even if you're not into Indian movies as this totally deserves all the attention it garnered and honestly maybe even more, that's how good it is!
Written By - Dana Asnan
Edited By - Kashish Chadha
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