II’m going to tell you a story about something that you don't hear that often. Some of you might think that I am crazy to open up on such a private topic to the world and the others might conclude that I am onto writing only these kinds of stuff. This happened about 14 years ago. Long 14 years! The year was '2003'. It was my 7th standard vacation, I was going to be a high school student soon! One day, when I woke up, I felt, something weird going on inside me. I soon realized that the clothes I was wearing had changed its colour partially. They had a few small dots of red colour here and there. I started thinking, "Is this blood?
Yes it is!
It happened. OMG!!!" .
I was not the kind of a girl who was completely unaware of such things. During my schooldays I had a friend named ‘Babitha’. She was my closest friend at that time. But unfortunately I lost her contact after that, as the school I was studying in had no high school section and all the students had to move to a different school after the 7th standard. She didn’t have a land phone connection, mobile phones were not that popular at that time. Hence, I lost our friendship. Okay, back to my story! It was at that time when she was on leave for almost 10 days . And finally when she came back, she secretly told me about the weird thing that just happened to her.
She joyously declared that she became a big girl!! And her family was indeed happy for her , they celebrated it (she belongs to a Tamil family). She got many sweets, garments, ornaments, etc as gifts. I still remember her saying that all of her family members were very happy, especially her mother. Babitha was the eldest daughter in her family. She was scared but her mother and the other family members cheered her up by telling her that it is actually something to be proud of. And, not to worry. I was expecting that the same things would happen to me too. But the celebration part? Of course NOT. Because I knew this is something to be shy of. So I never wanted everyone to know about it. But I was tensed and shy at the same time like any other girl. Finally, I decided not to disclose anything rather. I silently went to the bathroom and checked it myself . My vagina was bleeding indeed. When I was out of the bathroom my mother asked me
"Did you bleed? ".
To this day I still have no idea, how my mother found out so fast that I was bleeding, maybe she figured it out from the red dots in my clothes . I replied to her,
"Yes Mother".
There were two sisters in my home at that time . The others had got married. Mother asked me to sit on the verandah, which is in the backyard of my house. I sat there for hours. Neither did anyone come near me nor did anyone talk. I felt as if I did something wrong or something bad has happened to me. I started thinking about what Babitha had told me. 'Was she lying? Or Else If at all she was true, why is everyone behaving like this to me? Why is my mother’s face looking so serious as if I did a horrible mistake. Why are my sisters not talking to me. Oh No!! she lied to me. She is such a liar!!' My thoughts were floating beyond my imagination come.
Suddenly, some movie scenes flashed through my mind. In Tamil movies when a girl is menstruating for the first time, she will be treated like a princess (Though, I really don’t know how a princess is treated). She will be gifted with garments, ornaments; sweets etc. just like how Babitha had explained to me, she will be forced to sit on the coconut leaves which will be spread on the floor. And during all these events the girl seems to look very happy. But what is happening to me ?!. Maybe, Babitha too has seen these Tamil movies and she made up a story out of it which I easily believed . I’ m such a stupid.
I sat there for a long time. I felt bad, prohibited, untouched, cursed, alone, frightened. I remember well, my vagina didn’t bleed much like how it does now. My elder sister looked at me like I did something wrong. I decided not to talk to her at least for a couple of days. All of this was hurting me a lot. . I’m sure I would have over flowed with a lot of emotions at that moment but I really don't remember them all now. Have you noticed something, I was not given any cotton cloths or napkins... , what ?! Why didn’t my mother give me anything? Why didn’t my sisters ? Instead, they all stared at me, as if I became a bad girl. What would have happened, if I bled like now? I hated it. May be that was the first time I hated myself.
I prayed to god -
“Please give me a vagina that does not bleed ".
- This is the story of my first menstruation. :)
