The Divine Flow

Three days in a month, my mother would hang around looking cool in her bedroom. She would read magazines and novels in a supine position, her head resting on a block of wood fashioned like a pillow. She would sometimes practise drawing kolams - patterns that are made with rice flour at the entrance - in an unruled notebook and would ask me which ones I liked. Amma wouldn't take part in household activities nor go out shopping or attend functions. When pestered with questions, she would say, 'I'm on my monthly three-day vacation!'

The family - like many others in the community - has long since discontinued with the seclusion tradition as archaic and regressive. Yet, ancient tradition revered the Sacred Feminine and regarded the menstrual flow as affirmation of life. At Assam's Kamakhya Temple - one of the nine Shakti Peeths - the annual Ambubachi Mela celebrates the Sacred Feminine in the Devi's annual menstrual flow. The spring water from the Yoni - symbolising the power of procreation - and pieces of red cloth are distributed as prasad.

What would my grandmother - if she were alive today - have to say about recent medical research that finds menstrual blood to be rich in stem cells! A US company promoting this concept says that women can collect their menstrual blood, after following instructions carefully to avoid contamination, and send it to the laboratory where it will be put through a purifying process and stored for future use in the treatment of diseases like cancer. This practice could help remove superstitions and taboos associated with 'those' days.