Arunachalam Muruganantham
The early twenty-first century saw a growing global conversation around access to affordable menstrual health products, particularly for women in communities where cost and availability posed real obstacles. It was in that setting that Arunachalam Muruganantham, born on October 12, 1962, in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, came to be recognized as an inventor and businessperson.
Muruganantham is a citizen of India, and his roots in Coimbatore shaped the practical orientation he brought to his work. As both an inventor and a businessperson, he directed his efforts toward a problem that sat squarely in the domain of social need. The combination of those two roles — technical invention and business thinking — defined how he approached his work and how it came to be understood by those who evaluated it.
That evaluation ultimately reached the level of formal government recognition. Muruganantham received the Padma Shri, awarded specifically in the category of social work. The fact that the honor was conferred under that category, rather than under commerce or industry, says something about how his contributions were officially classified — as work whose value was measured in social terms. That award stands as a concrete, documented acknowledgment of what he contributed.
Quotes by Arunachalam Muruganantham
If you chase a girl, the girl won't like you. Do your job simply, the girl will chase you.
I had been getting queries from regional filmmakers to do a movie based on my work. But I did not want my work and mission - to create awareness on menstrual hygiene - to be restricted to only a part of the country. In fact, I wanted to do the movie in Hollywood.
Luckily, I'm not educated. If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop.
A male can be a boy, a man, a love/husband, a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, but they don't have any knowledge what's happening inside a woman's body. That's what I had learnt in my early married life.
Wherever I went and spoke about menstrual hygiene, I was beaten up by people. I used to cover my cheeks with both my hands whenever I went to speak on the subject, so how could I ever imagine that someone would make a film on such a topic?
What kept me going was my desire to provide a hygiene product for my wife.
When I work in the remotest villages, it reminds me of who I am... India is not built on 14 metros and 100 cities. It's made up of 600,000 villages.
We keep discussing nuclear power and other issues, but we should spare a thought to the basic needs of our women.