Even if I can take sanitary napkins to 10% of the poor women in India, it will be big achievement.
— Arunachalam Muruganantham
When I speak a serious subject in an informal and humorous way, it has bigger impact. So much so, when BBC made a small documentary, they first thought of having a voiceover for me. The producer liked my English so much, he said they were retaining my original voice.
The world has a shortage of solution providers. Everybody want to be in the 'Forbes' list.
India and other developing nations need non-farm sector activity. So what we are doing, we are giving small microbusiness to the rural women, especially the farmers' wives.
'Padman' was about my early life and struggles, including my wife calling me a psycho and leaving me.
There should be awareness on menstrual hygiene among men as well.
I have not hung a single award on my walls, including the Padma Shri.
The choice is yours: Do you want to exist, or do you want to live?
Nobody in the society will talk about menstruation... it's a taboo in my country. That's why I'm branded by society as a psycho.
My argument is that there is already an automated machine to make pads. What I did - I reverse-engineered it to 'simple.' Anyone who wants to compete will have to come out with a simpler machine.
My life is a brave one. I didn't put any restrictions.
When I work in the remotest villages, it reminds me of who I am... India is not built on 14 metros and 100 cities. It's made up of 600,000 villages.
The most difficult thing is changing people's mindset.
Being the son of a handloom weaver, I have knowledge of cotton and some other material.
Most of the students whom I have lectured were inquisitive to learn and contribute towards my vision. So, the youth who want to achieve in life can do a lot for society.
The idea came from my wife, since in our village, women cannot afford to buy sanitary pads. When I asked my wife, she told me we would have to cut down half of our milk budget to buy sanitary pads. Moreover, while raw materials for sanitary pads cost 10 paise, the end product was sold for 40 times that price. So, I decided to create it on my own.
Luckily, I'm not educated. If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop.
Every year, in our country, we churn out more job seekers rather than job creators. We have to look at new business models, identify a problem, and work on a solution for the same. Today, the machines I have created have provided employment to many women in the rural areas across the country. Why can't youngsters follow suit?
When I tell a foreign audience that 90 per cent of Indian women have no access to sanitary napkin, there is a visible disbelief. But there is hardly a ripple when I say the same thing to an Indian crowd.
I didn't take the money route because I saw my parents struggle for survival.
Social entrepreneurship is like a butterfly, sucking honey from a flower, but the flower won't die. They're helping the flower to make pollination.
The taboo regarding menstruation exists across the world, even among the educated.
Wherever I went and spoke about menstrual hygiene, I was beaten up by people. I used to cover my cheeks with both my hands whenever I went to speak on the subject, so how could I ever imagine that someone would make a film on such a topic?
My nature is such that even if I failed 9,999 times, I'll attempt for the 10,000th time again.
I converted a problem into an opportunity.
The government should include menstrual hygiene in the curriculum.
I may fail today, but if I have another idea tomorrow, maybe it will work.
My plea is that don't wait for a girl to become a woman to empower them. Empower a girl's life by giving sanitary pads to them. With pads, we give them wings.
I'm ecstatic to be known as pad man, as it makes a difference to women's lives.
What kept me going was my desire to provide a hygiene product for my wife.
I got married at 24. It was an arranged marriage.
I don't have any plans to make money for myself. All I wish to do is empower rural women in our country.
My vision is to make India into a 100% sanitary-pad-using country. Menstruation is no more a taboo.
I have accumulated no money but I accumulate a lot of happiness. If you get rich, you have an apartment with an extra bedroom - and then you die.
We keep discussing nuclear power and other issues, but we should spare a thought to the basic needs of our women.
It took me eight years of trial and error to design the machines that would make low-cost pads: just Rs 2 each, compared to those made by the MNCs that are priced anywhere above Rs 6 to Rs 100.
The strong creation created by God in the world is not the lion, not the elephant, not the tiger - the girl.
Every father, brother, and husband should know about menstruation. It is not just about women; it is about men, too.
Quality napkins are made in villages at a cost of just Rs 2 per piece with my simple and cost-effective machines.
I never thought someone would make a film on my story.
I always say, 'Be near science and technology, and you will never fail.'
Why buy sanitary napkins from multinationals when we can make them at home and generate employment?
I know that if I had got educated, I might have ended up as a call-center employee.
I am the son of a hand-loom weaver. I have a connection with yarn. I thought, 'Why not try to make an affordable sanitary pad for my wife?'
You can send women to the Moon or Mars later. First, provide sanitary pads to them.
To break the age-old taboos and to see girls and women use pads was a difficult task.
A male can be a boy, a man, a love/husband, a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, but they don't have any knowledge what's happening inside a woman's body. That's what I had learnt in my early married life.
To help my mother, I started working as a workshop helper. There I learned welding and other tools.
There are two kinds of students: those who study and work to survive, while others who want to be achievers.
My wife was gone, all other girls failed to cooperate, so I decided to wear a pouch of animal blood myself and test out my pads by wearing them myself. The discomfort I felt for those five days cannot be explained in words; I bow to every woman on earth for going through this every month.
