“Manzil Milegi.. Bhatak kar hi sahi..
Ghumrah to wo hai.. Jo ghar se nikale hi nahi..”
My name is Ashita Rohiwal and I am in Jaipur from last 7 months now. I won’t say i am familiar to it by all aspects. I am still in urge to explore the city. Jaipur is a mix of tradition and modernisation as a city. From Raja maharajas and their fights to competing with every other metropolitans, the city has seen it all. I have been bought up in delhi.. that city has my heart but since i hail from Rajasthan itself Jaipur touched my soul. I always had this dream of living my life independently. And jaipur is now not only a place where i study but is a place which is my home. I am doing my PGDM from Jaipuria Institute of Management. I landed in jaipuria from doing my MBA with lots of dreams and aspirations but gradually it landed me with ground realities of life and culture we have in Rajasthan and India. We have a credit course in trimester three namely WISH. Wish programme is an internship which i started doing for marks but ended up with harsh reality of life and urge to help more and more women and men in need. Through Wish i got to be associated with Praveen Lata Sansthan where i had my mentor Bharti Ma’am who is amazing in her job. My first impression for her was everything a student has for their teachers. But as each day passed my respect for her and for the work she does grew more and more. Today i look to her as an inspiration and a role model. Me with my teammates was working on their two campaigns #spotlessdame and #respectshe . I am more close to spotlessdame. It gave me a platform where I connected to women and girls who were in real pain regarding this natural process of life, who were facing everyday criticism and took periods as a taboo which is very common in Indian Society. Here are some of the stories covered by me and my teammates.
“Laxmi Age 35, Stated We are uncomfortable to talk about Periods and discuss about the challanges during those days.The worst was when I lost my husband and I went into depression because of over bleeding and having no access to sanitation living in slums nor talked about it to anyone.Only I could use was Cloth Rags.”
“Shruti, age 14 has still not got her periods and had zero knowledge about it. She got scared and nervous after knowing about periods but the interns made her comfortable and relax and made sure she had no fear in her heart untouched. Free sanitary pads were distributed among all the girls and left them with smiling faces.”
“Mahesh, 23.Auto Driver- stated that he used to eve tease girls and didn’t respected them until an incident happened to him.. he was sitting in a public transport and tried to tease a girl but she came out to be his friends sister and he felt so humiliated and embarrassed. That was the last day he did such an awful act. After that incident he realized that what he was doing was wrong and later came up to stand for every girls safety.Although in case of mahesh he realized late the value to solicitude for girls Esteem.But today educates his friends around him to stand for girls right while they work on grounds to build safe travels.”
“Banwari lal, Age 38 who didn’t had much idea about periods and got married to shanti devi in a very young age.
When he first came across about periods he felt disgusted and didn’t touched his wife for days but his elder sister made him understand that it is a normal process and he eventually got comfortable to it. Now he buys pads himself for his wife and our team gave him more knowledge about how he can take care of his wife.”
“Sita devi, Age 30 stated that she has been using pads and cloths both but mostly she uses cloth because of unavailability of pads to her.. she could not ask her husband or son for it as they considered it a taboo and she doesn’t leave home much.”
“Chandra Rani, age 29 when we first saw her she didn’t look like a woman of late 20s instead she looked as if she was in her late 30s. Her hardships had taken all her healthiness from her face. She was beaten and thrown out of her house in middle of night. Her children were taken away from her. Today she feels she is no one and has no identity”
And then with these disheartening stories there was a ray of light with sangeeta ji.
“ Sangeeta , Age 35 was working as a anganbadi head in her area and handling all the duties on her shoulders all alone. She created awareness in her area regarding every issue a women could possibly face. She gathered all the ladies and helped us succeeding our campaign.
These are only few stories out of my 6 day experience. But I won’t stop here i will take this experience and learning with me for life and will continue creating awareness regarding menstrual hygiene. We as a team covered mainly all slum areas of Jaipur including Gandhi nagar, Shipra path, Jawahar nagar etc. Me and my whole team ( Akhil , Sonali, Tejas , Rashi, Shruti , Kshitiz, Richpal , Ashutosh, Vipin, Prateek and Prateek vijay ) . This is my story and this can be your story too. Just get out of your comfort zones and look around. You never know another laxmi and shanti is waiting for you. I will always be thankful to bharti Ma’am, PraveenLata Sansthan and my Institute of giving me this opportunity.
