City stand-up comics and slam poets got together to bust myths about periods

Dispelling myths, taboos and negative perceptions about menstruation, a slew of stand-up comics and slam poets took Hyderabadis on a laughter ride in a city café on Saturday.
Titled ‘Period’, the event was organised by city-based NGO Youngistaan to observe the World

Menstrual Hygiene

Day with an aim to spread awareness about the issue and make people comfortable talking about the “natural occurrence”.
The proceedings began with an icebreaking Q&A session hosted by

DJ Sharon Aamir

that saw the men in crowd answer questions such as ‘For how long does a period last?’, ‘How many times a girl needs to change sanitary pad in a day?’ and so on. After that slam poets Shrutika Choudhary, Dristhi Nagda and

Mahek

Jagda took to the stage one after another and left the audience in splits with their honest and in-your-face recitals. The poetry session ended on an emphatic note with Mahek’s affirmation: “So I now say without fear, I am on my period. I wear pads. I bleed.”
Next, it was time for the stand-up acts to weave their magic on stage. First to perform was Delhi-based comic

Alick Bailey

. His discourse was replete with jokes about Delhites and misconceptions on menstruation among men. His clean and observational style of comedy instantly clicked with the audience and tickled their funny bones.
But the star of the evening was

Hyderabadi

comic

Rajshekhar Mamidanna

who left everyone in the audience in splits by cracking jokes on the otherwise serious issue of menstruation. He ended his performance saying, “We need to start respecting women and get the ball rolling to have conversations on everything including

periods

and menstrual hygiene.” Before he bowed out, Rajshekhar didn’t forget to thrown in one of his most popular one-liners — “It’s okay to be an introvert. It’s okay to be an extrovert. But it’s not okay to be a pervert.”