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So I tried to do a small good thing for my wife.

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It makes me to stand here,

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the fame, the money I got out of it.

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So what I did, I'd gone back to my early marriage days.

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What you did in the early marriage days,

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you tried to impress your wife. I did the same.

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On that occasion, I found my wife

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carrying something like this.

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I saw. "What is that?" I asked.

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My wife replied, "None of your business."

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Then, being her husband, I ran behind her

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and saw she had a nasty rag cloth.

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I don't even use that cloth to clean my two-wheeler.

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Then I understood this -- adapting that unhygienic method

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to manage her period days.

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Then I immediately asked her, why are you [using] that unhygienic method?

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She replied, I also know about [sanitary pads],

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but myself and my sisters, if they start using that,

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we have to cut our family milk budget.

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Then I was shocked. What is the connection between

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using a sanitary pad and a milk budget?

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And it's called affordability.

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I tried to impress my new wife by offering her a packet of sanitary pads.

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I went to a local shop, I tried to buy her a sanitary pad packet.

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That fellow looks left and right,

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and spreads a newspaper, rolls it into the newspaper,

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gives it to me like a banned item, something like that.

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I don't know why. I did not ask for a condom.

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Then I took that pad. I want to see that. What is inside it?

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The very first time, at the age of 29,

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that day I am touching the sanitary pad, first ever.

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I must know: How many of the guys here have touched a sanitary pad?

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They are not going to touch that, because it's not your matter.

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Then I thought to myself, white substance, made of cotton --

35
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oh my God, that guy is just using a penny value of raw material --

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inside they are selling for pounds, dollars.

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Why not make a local sanitary pad for my new wife?

38
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That's how all this started, but after making a sanitary pad,

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where can I check it?

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It's not like I can just check it in the lab.

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I need a woman volunteer. Where can I get one in India?

42
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Even in Bangalore you won't get [one], in India.

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So only problem: the only available victim is my wife.

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Then I made a sanitary pad and handed it to Shanti -- my wife's name is Shanti.

45
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"Close your eyes. Whatever I give,

46
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it will be not a diamond pendant

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not a diamond ring, even a chocolate,

48
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I will give you a surprise with a lot of tinsel paper rolled up with it.

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Close your eyes."

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Because I tried to make it intimate.

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Because it's an arranged marriage, not a love marriage.

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(Laughter)

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So one day she said, openly, I'm not going to support this research.

54
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Then other victims, they got into my sisters.

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But even sisters, wives, they're not ready to support in the research.

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That's why I am always jealous with the saints in India.

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They are having a lot of women volunteers around them.

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Why I am not getting [any]?

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You know, without them even calling, they'll get a lot of women volunteers.

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Then I used, tried to use the medical college girls.

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They also refused. Finally, I decide,

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use sanitary pad myself.

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Now I am having a title like

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the first man to set foot on the moon.

65
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Armstrong. Then Tenzing [and] Hillary, in Everest,

66
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like that Muruganantham is the first man

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wore a sanitary pad across the globe.

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I wore a sanitary pad. I filled animal blood in a football bottle,

69
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I tied it up here, there is a tube going into my panties,

70
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while I'm walking, while I'm cycling, I made a press,

71
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doses of blood will go there.

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That makes me bow down to any woman in front of me

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to give full respect. That five days I'll never forget --

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the messy days, the lousy days, that wetness.

75
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My God, it's unbelievable.

76
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But here the problem is, one company is making napkin

77
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out of cotton. It is working well.

78
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But I am also trying to make sanitary pad with the good cotton. It's not working.

79
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That makes me to want to refuse to continue this research and research and research.

80
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You need first funds.

81
00:04:04,933 --> 00:04:08,251
Not only financial crises, but because of the sanitary pad research,

82
00:04:08,251 --> 00:04:11,967
I come through all sorts of problems, including

83
00:04:11,967 --> 00:04:14,370
a divorce notice from my wife.

84
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Why is this? I used medical college girls.

85
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She suspects I am using as a trump card

86
00:04:20,319 --> 00:04:22,775
to run behind medical college girls.

87
00:04:22,775 --> 00:04:26,018
Finally, I came to know it is a special cellulose

88
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derived from a pinewood, but even after that,

89
00:04:28,426 --> 00:04:30,428
you need a multimillion-dollar plant like this

90
00:04:30,428 --> 00:04:33,790
to process that material. Again, a stop-up.

91
00:04:33,790 --> 00:04:37,550
Then I spend another four years to create my own

92
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machine tools, a simple machine tool like this.

93
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In this machine, any rural woman can apply the same

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00:04:43,459 --> 00:04:46,303
raw materials that they are processing in the multinational plant,

95
00:04:46,303 --> 00:04:49,995
anyone can make a world-class napkin at your dining hall.

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That is my invention.

97
00:04:53,212 --> 00:04:55,935
So after that, what I did,

98
00:04:55,935 --> 00:04:59,398
usually if anyone got a patent or an invention,

99
00:04:59,398 --> 00:05:02,941
immediately you want to make, convert into this.

100
00:05:02,941 --> 00:05:05,991
I never did this. I dropped it just like this,

101
00:05:05,991 --> 00:05:09,575
because you do this, if anyone runs after money,

102
00:05:09,575 --> 00:05:13,292
their life will not [have] any beauty. It is boredom.

103
00:05:13,292 --> 00:05:15,303
A lot of people making a lot of money, billion,

104
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billions of dollars accumulating.

105
00:05:17,457 --> 00:05:19,703
Why are they coming for, finally, for philanthropy?

106
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Why the need for accumulating money, then doing philanthropy?

107
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What if one decided to start philanthropy from the day one?

108
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That's why I am giving this machine

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only in rural India, for rural women, because in India,

110
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[you'll be] surprised, only two percent of women

111
00:05:36,491 --> 00:05:39,832
are using sanitary pads. The rest, they're using a rag cloth,

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a leaf, husk, [saw] dust, everything except sanitary pads.

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It is the same in the 21st century. That's why I am going

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to decide to give this machine only for poor women across India.

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So far, 630 installations happened in 23 states

116
00:05:53,001 --> 00:05:55,637
in six other countries.

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Now I'm on my seventh year sustaining against

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multinational, transnational giants -- makes all MBA students a question mark.

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A school dropout from Coimbatore, how he is able to sustaining?

120
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That makes me a visiting professor and guest lecturer in all IIMs.

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(Applause)

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Play video one.

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(Video) Arunachalam Muruganantham: The thing I saw in my wife's hand, "Why are you using that nasty cloth?"

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She replied immediately, "I know about napkins, but if I start

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using napkins, then we have to cut our family milk budget."

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Why not make myself a low-cost napkin?

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So I decided I'm going to sell this new machine

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only for Women Self Help Groups.

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That is my idea.

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AM: And previously, you need a multimillion investment

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for machine and all. Now, any rural woman can.

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They are performing puja.

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(Video): (Singing)

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You just think, competing giants,

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even from Harvard, Oxford, is difficult.

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I make a rural woman to compete with multinationals.

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I'm sustaining on seventh year.

138
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Already 600 installations. What is my mission?

139
00:07:34,719 --> 00:07:36,580
I'm going to make India

140
00:07:36,580 --> 00:07:40,584
[into] a 100-percent-sanitary-napkin-using country in my lifetime.

141
00:07:40,584 --> 00:07:42,569
In this way I'm going to provide not less than a million

142
00:07:42,569 --> 00:07:44,627
rural employment that I'm going to create.

143
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That's why I'm not running after this bloody money.

144
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I'm doing something serious.

145
00:07:49,683 --> 00:07:54,032
If you chase a girl, the girl won't like you.

146
00:07:54,032 --> 00:07:56,430
Do your job simply, the girl will chase you.

147
00:07:56,430 --> 00:07:58,781
Like that, I never chased Mahalakshmi.

148
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Mahalakshmi is chasing me, I am keeping in the back pocket.

149
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Not in front pocket. I'm a back pocket man.

150
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That's all. A school dropout saw your problem in the society

151
00:08:11,679 --> 00:08:13,711
of not using sanitary pad.

152
00:08:13,711 --> 00:08:16,011
I am becoming a solution provider. I'm very happy.

153
00:08:16,011 --> 00:08:18,854
I don't want to make this as a corporate entity.

154
00:08:18,854 --> 00:08:22,857
I want to make this as a local sanitary pad movement

155
00:08:22,857 --> 00:08:25,710
across the globe. That's why I put all the details

156
00:08:25,710 --> 00:08:29,074
on public domain like an open software.

157
00:08:29,074 --> 00:08:33,636
Now 110 countries are accessing it. Okay?

158
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So I classify the people into three:

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00:08:37,636 --> 00:08:44,558
uneducated, little educated, surplus educated.

160
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Little educated, done this. Surplus educated,

161
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what are you going to do for the society?

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Thank you very much. Bye!

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(Applause)