Pad Man(2018)

PG-13
Rated PG-13 for thematic material
2h 20m
- Comedy
- Drama

Release Date: Feb 9, 2018 | Limited

Upon realizing the extent to which women are affected by their menses, a man sets out to create a sanitary pad machine and to provide inexpensive sanitary pads to the women of rural India.

Official Website

Releases

Original Release | Feb 9, 2018

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Box Office Results

Results

Opening Weekend US & Canada:
$740,313
Total US & Canada:
$1,670,192
Total International
$27,374,828
Total Worldwide:
$29,045,020

Current Showtimes

Your Location or

(U.S. Only)

Director & Top Cast

R Balki
Director

Swanand Kirkire

Technical Specifications

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1

Other Details

Country of Origin: India,United States,Hong Kong

Language: Hindi

Summaries

Plot Summary

Laxmikanth Chauhan (Akshay Kumar) is a partner cum tool operator in a workshop. He is against how woman are treated in his society during the five day menstrual. When he gets married, he decides to make things better for his wife Gayatri (Radhika Apte). Laxmi is deeply in love with his wife and will do anything for her comfort and happiness. When Gayatri is temporarily banished from the household during her menstrual periods, Laxmi is caught unaware due to his lack of knowledge about the subject. He became worried after seeing Gayatri use an unhygienic rag during her periods. Gayatri tells him he should not interfere in this feminine topic.Undeterred, Laxmi buys sanitary pads for his wife, which are rather costly. Gayatri tells him to return it, as using such costly napkins means cutting off milk expenses. Crestfallen, Laxmi goes to work, where a worker gets injured. He immediately applies a pad to the injury, despite the others referring to it as "impure". The doctor lauds Laxmi's quick thinking and says that it is the cleanest choice to stop the bleeding. Excited, Laxmi buys some cotton, cloth, and glue and makes a temporary pad, which he thinks is a better replacement for the costly one.Laxmi then decides to make sanitary napkins himself at lower cost. He convinces his wife to use it but they are of no use he tries to make it much better but fails. Laxmi wants to get real time feedback on his new product, but not even his sisters (Subhadra (Jyoti Subhash), Sonali (Mrinmayee Godbole), Jyoti (Parul Chouhan) & Aabha (Soumya Vyas)) would help him. They all criticize him. Laxmi finds that his local dispensary doctor has been transferred and hence he doesn't get any help there.Laxmi waits outside the gate of the local medical college and after few days convinces one medical student to get her colleagues to try his product. But none of her friends cooperate with her. Laxmi doesn't give up and tries to entice a neighborhood girl (who just started having her periods) to try his pads. To add to his woes, his meeting with the student makes his wife think that he is having an affair. Laxmi tries to give his sister pads, which leads to embarrassment in front of her in-laws. Next, he tries it on himself by attaching a balloon filled with goat blood, which leads to him getting blood all over his trousers in public, resulting in humiliation.Laxmi is then criticized in his village by the Panchayat for taking up such initiative following which his family disowns him and he is forced to leave his village. This act causes him to be branded "a man with loose morals" by the entire village. Gayatri's brothers take her away and Laxmi decides to leave, pledging to fight the taboo surrounding menstruation. Laxmi starts to research on how to make low-cost sanitary napkins for betterment of women.He goes to the city of Indor and works as a house help in Professor Sandeep Sharma (Rakesh Chaturvedi) apartment to continue his research on the difference between cotton and cellulose fibers. The professor's son Manas (Wahib Kapadia) introduces him to the Internet and helps him get information. Finally, he conducts some google search to find one company in the US that exports cellulose fibers. He calls US to place an order. The company does send him samples. Now he finds a pad making machine, fully automated, but highly expensive. Laxmi learns the basic processes involved and sets about creating a machine on his own. He soon needs capital and borrows money from a local money lender to fund his build. After a few months of experimenting and manufacturing, Laxmi has his machine and his pads, made of cellulose fibers. Now all he needs is an audience to test it on.Pari Walia (Sonam Kapoor) is a Tabla performer, who is in Indore for a performance, when her periods start. But her assistants can't get a pad anywhere in town as the shops are closed for a festival. They run into Laxmi who gives one pad to them. The next day Laxmi goes to meet Pari to get her feedback on the pad. Pari says that it's like a normal pad. Laxmi's joy knows no bounds and he calls Gayatri to give her the news. Gayatri gets upset at his obsession with menstruation, and her brother warns him to stay away.Pari is offended at first, but then is moved by Laxmi's story and why he is doing this. Pari loves the product and is sad to learn that Laxmi has debts of Rs 90,000Pari invites Laxmi to a IIT Delhi innovation competition that carries a prize of Rs 2 Lakhs. Laxmi demonstrates his machine that can produce a pad for Rs 2, instead of Rs 11 for an imported pad. He gets the President's award. Pari wants Laxmi to get a patent and then sell the rights to his machine to a bigger firm for Crores in profit. But Laxmi refuses to do that and decides to help the millions of women in India with cheap pads. But even after receiving a national award, Laxmi does not earn the respect of a village society that views his invention as a blot on their way of life.Pari likes Laxmi's vision and gives up a lucrative corporate life to join Laxmi in his mission. The product is a roaring success when Pari starts selling it door to door herself. Soon she manages to recruit an army of female sellers who join Laxmi and Pari. They brand the pads "Pari" and sales shoot upwards.Then Pari suggests to Laxmi to enlist a bank that helps women all over India to buy Laxmi's machine, who can then pay back the bank with proceeds from Pad sales. This provides employment to women and sanitary napkins as well. Laxmi delivers a passionate speech at the UN HQ in NYC and ends up receiving the Padma Shri Award from GoI.Pari falls in love with him, which makes Laxmi conflicted as he has feelings for her too. However, she steps back for his happiness, with Laxmi telling her she helped make him a new man. Laxmi returns to a hero's welcome in his village. The film ends with Laxmi and Gayatri finally reuniting, and Laxmi finding continued success with his endeavors.

Storyline

Biography of Tamil Nadu activist Arunachalam Muruganantham, whose mission was to provide sanitary napkins to poor women of rural areas who used rags or leaves because sanitary napkins were rare. After he did not get fruitful results from his family and a medical college he approached, he decided to try it himself by filling a football bladder with goat's blood and roaming around with it for a day to check the absorption rate of the sanitary napkins he made. — alex.mjacko@gmail.com Laxmikanth Chauhan is a partner/tool operator in a workshop. He is against how women in his society are treated during their menses. When he marries he decides to make things better for his wife Gayatri; he purchases sanitary napkins for her because she has been using dirty, unhygienic rags. Gayatri asks him to return the napkins because they're too expensive. He decides to try to make them himself for less money and convinces her to use them, but they're not better; he tries to improve them but fails. Laxmi is then criticized in his village for taking up such initiative; his family disowns him and he is forced to leave his village. But his hopes survive and he researches how to make low-cost sanitary napkins for the betterment of women. — alex.mjacko@gmail.com