Postcards
Opening up the conversation
28-Jun-2022
The way we tell and share our stories about menstruation, whether it be through fiction or essays, art or dance, are ways in which we open up the conversation. I first came across Shashi Deshpande’s novels in the eighties when I was living in Kenya. When I read about the protagonist Saru menstruating in The Dark Holds No Terrors, I was shocked…
Street vendors in Karachi
28-Jun-2022
I interviewed these women sitting on the pavement selling dried fruits outside the main city market in Karachi. They laughed when I asked for their permission to speak to them about my book and the research I was doing, saying ‘foreigners’ are interested in the strangest of things…
Pre-launch
28-Jun-2022
On the 22nd of May 2022, Period Matters was pre-launched as part of International Menstrual Hygiene Day celebrations, at LUMS, a university in Lahore. The cover was revealed with an explanation of its art work, made by Lyla FreeChild with her menstrual blood. Amna Mawaz Khan’s menstrual dance, commissioned for the book, was shown publicly for the first time…
Sadan Shah Dargah
27-Jun-2022
The homeless women I interviewed lived here. They were very hesitant to talk about their periods, saying it was a private matter and if their husbands saw them talking to me, and found out they were discussing such personal issues, they would say their wives had brought dishonour to the family. We went behind the shrine and one of them talked more openly to me.
Autobiography of an anthology
27-Jun-2022
Over three years I made numerous lists, asking myself many questions. Who should be in the book? What new perspective will they bring? Are they the best person to tell that story? Period Matters has been a labour of love.
The beginnings
22-Jun-2022
Panties with Purpose started off as a campaign in 2011 to help a thousand girls in Kibera with four pairs of pants and menstrual products and to raise awareness about girls in poor areas of Kenya missing five days a month of school because of no access to menstrual products.