Ever since I was a kid, I was told to hush up about ‘that time of the month’ like it was a criminal activity. Even worse, being a religious person I was told it was super wrong and unclean to worship in front of God when you were shooting blood out of your womanly parts. I always wondered why I couldn’t pray If I was on my period. Twenty-two years later, I still don’t have the answer. However, what I do have is a wild imagination. So here is why I think women should not be allowed to pray during ‘that’ time of the month.
1. Where did the Prasad go?
Women on their period are known to be hormonal. We love anything sugary and sweet that melts in the mouth. The sugar high gives us temporary relief from the constantly nagging ‘Aunt Flo’. So imagine this: a girl on her period enters the temple and the pundit is busy checking aunties out. Sorry, I meant checking God out. Then it’s the pooja time and he decides he needs to go and lecture everyone about the benefits of appeasing God. The girl gets a kick from ‘Aunt Flo’ and she tip toes into the back room and eats all the Prasad that has been offered to the Gods by devotees and the pundit plans to resell to the shops. When he comes back all the Prasad is gone and he is now facing the prospect of a loss. What a shame!
If this is the reason why women aren’t allowed in any religious place, then it makes sense. ‘That time of the month’ has turned this girl into a thief resulting in a loss for the temple. Just imagine if you have more than one girl on their period entering the temple. The temple would turn into a loss making machine. We wouldn’t want that would we?
2. God is my Frenemy.
Further elaborating on the hormonal point, we all know girls during ‘that’ time have mood swings multiplied by a thousand. Have you thought what would happen if there was a woman praying to God, laughing and thanking him for all the dresses he had made in the world and the next minute crying about how her red saree doesn’t match her shoes and the fact that he hasn’t made enough shoes in this world. Then the next minute, she feels elated by the fact that wedge heels are more in abundance than stilettoes and then cries about how stilettoes look sexier and now it’s a moral dilemma for her. The pundit wouldn’t know what to do. Should he bless her or pray for her soul (shoes)?
God being a frenemy might make a scene in the religious place. If anything, that woman risks being thrown into the mad house. This reason to avoid religious places during ‘that time’ makes more sense for the well-being of the lady.
3. The Pseudo Murder Scream
One day you are walking happily on the road and suddenly it feels like your intestines are grinding against each other, almost dirty dancing to their own tune. Then imagine that your abdomen is falling through a black hole and your body has employed a little elf to stitch(using the nerves as strings) that black hole from the inside. That is exactly how period cramps feel. They attack you in the middle of nothing and then leave you feeling like nothing.
Just imagine this. A woman on her period enters the holy place. She has no logic defying mood swings or sweet cravings to empty a store room full of Prasad. She is smiling and she is happy. All of a sudden she gets a cramp. It’s the unbearable kind and she lets out a scream (not for long- almost like a loud gasp of astonishment). Now imagine 10 women like these. Now 50. Now a 100. 100 screeching women is going to make the religious place sound like a murder house as opposed to a place of worship. The frown that accompanies the pain is even worse. One will get to see a lot of pissed off women gasping for breath because of these cramps. Poor Pundit won’t know why a lot of angry women have left the temple.
However, I never did get the ‘unclean’ logic (a woman on her period can’t enter a religious place as she is unclean). What does one mean by ‘unclean’? Did they check every microbe on the woman’s body to see if she had any bacteria or did the lady in question roll around in a patch of mud? What if I told you I swam in a pool of disinfectant and bathed with savlon for a living? Will I then be allowed in a temple? So many questions and no hypocritical self-proclaimed religious entity to answer. At least my reasons are better than theirs.
