Written by: Prashant Shrestha - 20117, Grade XII
Posted on: 18 December, 2019
“Hey, you are on your periods. Don’t enter the kitchen.” my grandmom said to my mother. I was at the age of 6 when I first heard this. And I was totally unaware of the ‘periods’ and the ‘barrier’ that stopped my mother to enter the kitchen. “Mom, what period is?” I questioned my mom. “Nothing.” She replied. And she gave me my toys to play with and at that instance, I didn’t care what period was and why my mother couldn’t enter the kitchen. Now all I could understand was that there’s something called periods that happened to my mom and that period won’t let her enter the kitchen. In the Newar community, there are lots of festivals to be celebrated. And during the month of December, we were invited to our maternal home for Yomari Punhi. We reached there early in the morning as it was just a few moments walk from my house to my maternal house. After reaching there we had our breakfast. When all the relatives gathered in the maternal house, now the work got dispersed. Kids started playing with each other. My mother and aunts started their work in the kitchen. And my uncles started to talk about politics, drinking, and playing cards. At mid-day we all kids, uncles, and aunts gathered at the kitchen to have our lunch. Everybody took their lunch and were having their lunch with a conversation regarding the social taboos and the decreasing rate of beliefs on social taboos. One of my cousins Subha who was on periods got up to add some Yomari. As she was heading towards the kitchen, one of my aunts said, “Hey you are on your periods. Don’t enter the kitchen.” And that was the same statement that my grandmom told my mom some years back and now that was the same statement that my aunt told Subha. Now here’s the point where the conversation got a new breakthrough. My sister totally disagreed with the thought my aunt had. She tried to convince her why the women were restricted to enter the kitchen during their periods in past times. She gave the clear clarifications to her saying, “At last the people had restricted the entry of the girls on kitchen or temples on periods because they need rest in their periods as it is a very sensitive time and a time of intense pain for girls.” But my aunt wasn’t in favor of accepting the fact. And again started arguing giving her some religious beliefs like “Women get impure during their periods and so on.” My aunt couldn’t get it and there are still some people who wouldn’t get it. But I got that thing in my mind and why my mother was restricted by my grand mom back then. It was all the wrong belief that was in the mindset of my grandmom. And I didn’t know why but I was also with the same mindset which got changed when I got the clarification for the restriction of women in the kitchen or in the temples during their periods.
