I used a menstrual cup and here’s why I think you too should make the switch
The striking thing about great ideas is that, once discovered, one wonders why no one thought of it earlier. Having used a menstrual cup during my periods this time, I can’t stop thinking why this discovery took so long!
To be honest, I do not have a very difficult period. Pain is rare and the blood flow is moderate. Yet, periods come with their usual discomforts. Mood swings, the urge to cry my heart out and snap at people. Friends, who have been at the receiving end, know it! 
Periods are especially difficult during winters. There is pain, even if moderate, and it is enough to distract me from work. But I have a higher endurance for physical pain.
The difficult part about periods during winters is the constant unease that you feel due to the use of sanitary napkins. It is a problem during summers too — but winters make it messier bringing out the snappier, angrier and more irritable variant of you.
I lived with the discomfort for years, thinking I am lucky, unlike many women forced to use cloth to soak up the blood and blessed in comparison to the many others who use cow dung and mud for the purpose. Guess that had to do with how I have been brought up, always told to look at those who have less than me!
Sorry about the digression, but periods are an emotional and emotive issue for women — digressions are inadvertent.
Some female friends told me to stop using sanitary napkins. Now, I am also a guilty capitalist who is constantly weighing my carbon footprint and trying to cut down on whatever possible for the sake of the environment.
Since I got to know how discarded sanitary napkins were harming the environment, I had imagined pads discarded by me just staying there — not degrading, simply adding to the waste of the world.
Yet when a friend called and said she was ordering one for me, I said no at the first go. But then, your friends know how to draw you into something. She asked me to imagine the waste I am going to add to the world by not making this small change in my life.
And boy! What a change it has been.
Menstrual cups make you forget you are going through your periods. Yes, the first day of use is uncomfortable but the next day onwards, life literally changes.
But using it is not easy if you don’t know how to take things easy!
The trick is to stay calm. Follow the instructions scribbled on the packet and putting it in is a cakewalk. The real challenge is taking it out. The mantra stays much the same — stay calm.
The one things you can’t do without if you are using a cup is the comfort of your own bathroom. For many women, that is a luxury. But if all menstruating women in India could be handed over a cup each, it is so many problems solved together. With more and more women getting access to toilets, this is achievable indeed.
Not only would it give women a healthier and more hygenic life, saving them from so many life-threatening diseases, it also prevents tonnes of non-biodegradable waste being added to the environment.
Menstrual cups are long-lasting products. With most cups offering a shelf life of about 8-15 years, no woman needs to buy more than perhaps two or three to last her menstruating age.
This is a revolutionary product for women. We need mechanisms to ensure more women can access them.
Those who can, I have only this to say — please shed your inhibitions and make the switch.
To the men reading this, ensure the women in your lives use it too.