From India: the Brilliant Santitary Pad Inventor

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Brilliant and a bit crazy as so many inventors and creative minds are. This is such an inspirational story--as well as a funny one--that I had to post it. It has nothing to do with the erotic or fetish aspect of the subject. It's all about the inventive mind and how obsessed it can get (we know that feeling, don't we?) when it wants to solve a particular problem. It is, as well, about that rare, selfless individual who does what he does not for fame or fortune, but because one small change could alter the lives of so many, the poorest and most downtrodden. He has a vision of the way things could be, and he knows, as no one else seems to, that this dream can be realized

Arunachalam Muruganantham's invention came at great personal cost - he nearly lost his family, his money and his place in society. But he kept his sense of humour.

"It all started with my wife," he says. In 1998 he was newly married and his world revolved around his wife, Shanthi, and his widowed mother. One day he saw Shanthi was hiding something from him. He was shocked to discover what it was - rags, "nasty cloths" which she used during menstruation....When he asked her why she didn't use sanitary pads, she pointed out that if she bought them for the women in the family, she wouldn't be able to afford to buy milk or run the household.

Wanting to impress his young wife, Muruganantham went into town to buy her a sanitary pad. It was handed to him hurriedly, as if it were contraband. He weighed it in his hand and wondered why 10g (less than 0.5oz) of cotton, which at the time cost 10 paise (£0.001), should sell for 4 rupees (£0.04) - 40 times the price. He decided he could make them cheaper himself.

Read the rest of the story here. His experiments, which go on for a few years, include using goat's blood and such and eventually lose him not only his dismayed wife (she came back), but also

The villagers became convinced he was possessed by evil spirits, and were about to chain him upside down to a tree to be "healed" by the local soothsayer.

It is a great story. I'd say that I wish I could have written it, but I'm much happer that it really happened.

 

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Some of the things I read about India make me wonder why no one goes in there, takes it over and tries to give these people, especially the women, some type of decent life.