The story of Arunachalam Muruganantham from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, is a fascinating one. He never really set out to be a superhero. He also didn’t understand why menstrual cycles should be something best kept under wraps. Facing opposition from the many women in his life, Muruganantham, albeit found it difficult, but eventually managed to invent a low-cost sanitary pad making machine and has subsequently began an awareness drive on using hygienic methods during menstruation.
Padman‘s trailer, directed by R Balki and starring Akshay Kumar, Radhika Apte, and Sonam Kapoor, tries to convey Muruganantham’s story. Except here, the superhero is not Muruganantham but Akshay Kumar. The trailer catches him putting a sanitary pad on an underwear, talking to his wife about it who goes on to utter the lines: “We women would rather die of an illness than continue to live in shame.”
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He further goes on to make pads out of cotton and distribute it to women, who glare at him for attempting to talk about the ‘P’ word. He faces a lot of opposition until Sonam Kapoor’s character appears in front of him. “Why is a superhero sitting on the ground instead of flying?” she asks.
It does take guts for a mainstream actor like Akshay Kumar shown putting a sanitary pad on an underwear and trying it out but one hopes that the film manages to remove the stigma around menstruation and doesn’t end up being how great Akshay Kumar is. With the tagline of superhero, Muruganantham’s story definitely gets commercial now.
The film, with music by Amit Trivedi and Komail Shayan and cinematography by PC Sreeram, will release on January 26, 2018.
Watch the trailer here: