Of Menstruating Men and Peeved Women

A friend of mine recently landed himself into a remarkable and unexpected kind of soup. The results of this incident were so shocking, at least to my friend and I, that days 1 through 5 of the female cycle will never be the same to us again. Without any delay, here’s what happened:

It was about a quarter to seven in the morning. No, no one was fresh and bouncy, everyone had been up all night preparing for PAF (Performing Arts Festival), which is quite a major event around here and taken rather seriously too. Anyway, my friend, always cheerful, was doing his best to keep the spirits of the team high. His attempts were directed in the only direction he knew anything about, that of one-liners and situational guffaws. As is always the case, the opportunity to yank out a laugh presented itself soon enough.

A freshie (first year) had decided to become the centre of all attention. Not for very fun reasons either. This kid had a presentation at 12.30 the same afternoon. You know, the kind of presentation that you uninterestedly make in class to elucidate some irrelevant point to a bunch of other uninterested no-good freshmen. He was cribbing that he needed to go, that this presentation meant the world to him, that they couldn’t keep him here like this, that this whole PAF thing was a sham etc etc. Funny story, no one was asking him to stay either. To quote the director verbatim, he said, “Arey jaa na yaar, kaunsa bahut badaa role kar rahaa hai tu (Whatever, leave if you will, its not as though you’re playing any major character anyway).”

Of course, this only sparked the freshie’s anger even more and he began to make faces that can only be analogized with the mating behavior of a baboon. He danced around yelling his dissent. He called out names that in another institute would call for some serious ragging or at least a thorough washing of his mouth with soap. He threw his hands around in a funny little tantrum, much to everyone’s amusement. In short, he was behaving erratic. Perhaps even hormonal. In fact, if you thought about it in a funny way, you might even say that he was PMSing. Yes you might say that, but would you get away with it?

Back to my friend, who was noticing all this and waiting for the right moment to quip in. As this kid jumped off the stairs in the Open Air Theatre and was just about to leave, my friend found his chance. He called out, “Toto,” this was the silly name his character had in the play, “Tera period chal raha hai kya? (Toto, is it that time of the month?)” Just as expected, the crowd couldn’t stop laughing for the next minute or so. The solitary girl who was still around at this hour was having difficulty standing because of how much she was laughing. Toto, of course, walked off in a huff.

Anyway, when practice was supposed to resume again that evening, there was a very noticeable dearth of ladies. A grand total of zero had shown up. Somewhat irate, the director called up the ladies. The response at the other end was startling, to say the least.

Director: Hi, how come you guys aren’t at the practice yet?

Ladies: We’re not coming.

Director: Not coming, what? Why not?

Ladies: Why should we come, if you guys talk like this…

Director: Like what?

Ladies: Hrmph…you know what I’m talking about, we’re not coming.

As one can imagine, the director, with only a day left for the PAF, had little choice but to beg and plead with the ladies. The team spent another hour or so cajoling the ladies into showing up and assuring them that nothing of the sort would happen again, even though none of them had any idea what had happened. They came ultimately, they were always going to, I mean a lot was at stake for their hostel as well.

When they did ultimately decide to turn up, word trickled out slowly that their reluctance to practice may have had something to do with someone having said something disrespectful about women and their periods. A little shell-shocked, my friend began to investigate. He knew one of the ladies better than the others and asked her what had happened.

“Some bastard thought he could get away with being a Male Chauvinist Pig”, she said to him. When my friend gently indicated that he may have been the aforementioned pig and tried to explain himself, he was greeted with a tirade of the sort that one expects only from parents, teachers or bosses.

He tried telling her that the kid was behaving erratic, that the joke was directed at the kid and not the lady. That it is common to ascribe hormonal behavior as menstruating, that the joke was a joke because it was directed at a guy, that he meant no ill, that he had picked up that kind of joke from certain women itself, but all in vain. The lady was convinced he was sexist. She talked down to him and told him, “I can’t believe it’s you who I’ve been abusing all day, I had a higher opinion of you.” After some more chiding, she left him with the classic, “Periods hona koi gaali hai kya? (Is it a bad word (sin) to menstruate?) ” and walked away.

By this time, even my friend was quite convinced that he was, in fact, a sexist bastard. The discovery that the girl he had seen laughing so hard that morning had gone back to her hostel and spent the larger part of the day crying didn’t help his happiness levels much either. Confused and seeking redemption elsewhere, he narrated his tale another one of the ladies. She summarily dismissed his explanation with, “Don’t lie, you made the period joke because he wasn’t dancing with the others, didn’t you?”

Finally, one of the ladies told him the only thing that made sense to him that day, “Just don’t say anything about this periods-weriods at all yaar”. Exhausted and convinced of the force of that argument, he gave up and resumed practice.

I’m not sure what really happened to spark off such a reaction that day, but one thing’s for sure, my friend has deleted PMS/Period jokes from his repertoire for good. Quite a pity too, I rather enjoyed them while they lasted.