In the Yatra survey, 99 percent of respondents said they faced some kind of restriction when they were menstruating. In the schoolyard in Uttar Pradesh where Khushi and Ankita tell me about periods, they also say this: when we are bleeding, we are not allowed to touch pickles, because we will rot them. This is such a powerful belief in India it inspired Whisper, a commercial sanitary pad company owned by Procter & Gamble, to launch a Touch the Pickle campaign, encouraging girls to break boundaries, smash taboos, and buy Whisper sanitary pads.
