Project Kathan

B, Kerala

Conversation through Instagram (voice notes), January 13, 2025

Coming from a very conservative family, whenever I used to express my health issues, probably having late period, or like when I used to have a lot of pain in my period cramps, my parents always used to say that you are a girl and you’re supposed to deal with it, so that used to be a little questionable fact, tbh. That’s how it was.

I still remember this incident from when I was in the 5^th standard. So I was supposed to use a public toilet, and I accidentally went to a male toilet. And that’s where all the men started staring at me like they were predators. And the lady outside, she looked at my face and she was like, “why can’t you understand, this is a male toilet, and do you think you’re a fool or something”, and she literally disgraced me, it was more like, you know, an insult type of it, for a 5^th standard kid, it was more like that. Yeah, so much bias that is happening, and I don’t know how to explain.