The rural Indian inventor whose machine to make sanitary pads shattered a taboo and inspired a film, Pad Man

There is a scene in the film Pad Man in which Bollywood star Akshay Kumar’s character discovers his wife hanging up a dirty old rag to dry. She conceals it under the sari which is already hanging on the line.

It is something she uses, washes, and reuses. When he realises that it is the cloth she uses for her periods, he asks: “How can you use that? I wouldn’t even use that to clean my scooter.”

The film, released on February 9, is about the real-life mission of an ordinary villager, Arunachalam Muruganantham (played by Kumar), to help poor Indian women by inventing a revolutionary machine to make cheap sanitary pads.

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It is a bold film for a highly conservative country where even talk of sex is taboo – so taboo that most Indians use the English word “sex” as there is no easy word in Hindi. Menstruation is a sordid secret, never to be discussed, even within a family.

After this encounter with his wife, Muruganantham becomes determined to end this nonsense over menstruation.

His life story is made for the screen. A man who is mad enough to think he can change the world and ignore the scorn of those around him – including the dismay of his own wife. She is so horrified at his messing around in public with wads of cotton wool and goat’s blood (he has to check the absorbency of his pad, poor man, otherwise what’s the point?) that she leaves him in horror.

If this story doesn’t provide the dramatic tension vital for a film, what does?

It is even a love story. Muruganantham, a social activist in a village near Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, threw himself into his crusade out of love for his wife, Shanti, because he adores her and wants to safeguard her health.