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Pad Man(2018)
Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) 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.
Releases
Original Release | Feb 9, 2018
Box Office
Results
$740,313
$1,670,192
$27,374,828
$29,045,020
Director & Top Cast
Technical Specifications
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Other Details
Country of Origin: India
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 and purchases sanitary napkin for her as she uses dirty cloth during the cycle which is unhygienic. Gayatri (Radhika Apte) asks him to return the napkin packet as its to expensive.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 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. But he is caught, and his sisters have to leave the society. Finally, with no other option, Laxmi tries his pad on himself and keeps improving his product. Laxmi is again caught when the pads he wore himself also leak. This time it is witnessed by the entire village and a Panchayat is formed. Laxmi is then criticized in his village for taking up such initiative following which his family disowns him and he is forced to leave his village. But his hopes don't die he starts to research on how to make low-cost sanitary napkins for betterment of women.He goes to the city and works as a house help in Professor's apartments to continue his research on the difference between cotton and cellulose fibers. Finally, he gets a young boy to conduct 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 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. Pari falls in love with Laxmi but backs off when Gayathri decides to finally come back into his life. Laxmi delivers a passionate speech at the UN HQ in NYC and ends up receiving the Padma Shri Award from GoI.
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
