Twinkle Khanna on producing ‘PadMan’: Cinema is the only medium that has such a wide reach

Actress turned writer Twinkle Khanna will debut in production with ‘PadMan’. The film is a biopic on Arunachalam Muruganantham, the inventor of a low-cost sanitary pad making the machine in India.


Twinkle said she is hopeful that the biopic will bring a change, "If nothing else, I am hoping that it will start a conversation within homes. Something that has been hidden in the darkness, furtively wrapped in newspaper, will finally be in the spotlight so that a young girl can go up to her parents and say that she needs sanitary pads over the ubiquitous fairness creams.”


The story of his life is penned in Twinkle Khanna’s book ‘The Legend Of Lakshmi Prasad’. "The only reason that I decided to produce this movie after writing a fictionalized story about Arunachalam Muruganantham was because I felt it was an important story that needed to penetrate households across India. Cinema is the only medium that has such a wide reach. Everything else is secondary," she said. The official trailer of ‘PadMan’ has been launched. It went viral as it had such a great message.


"Awareness, education, and access to sanitary pads are the three things that would help in putting an end to period taboos. To what I see as nothing less than a tragedy that 20 percent of our school girls drop out of school when they start menstruating because they are unable to get access to sanitary pads or menstrual cups and have to rely on leaking pieces of cloth. Be fearless' is the sort of banal advice that is being bandied about glibly these days. I think unfortunately in the prevailing circumstances, you do have to have firm ground beneath your feet before you become ‘fearless' and a large part of that security comes from being financially independent. Because when you are dependent on someone, then you have to largely align yourself to his or her sensibilities. I, like most sensible, sane people, believe in the fundamental fact that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. I can't see how that is even debatable."



'PadMan' stars Akshay Kumar, Radhika Apte and Sonam Kapoor will also be seen in a special role in the movie, which is being directed by R Balki.