“Earlier, during my periods, I would not bathe for four or five days,” says Sitara Devi (name changed), sitting outside her mud house in a village in Gaya district. “I believed that if I bathed, the bleeding would increase. I was always anxious about stains, about smell, about what others would say. I felt I had no control.”

In another village nearby, two sisters, Chandi Kumari and Khushi Kumari (names changed), remember a different kind of silence. “We are sisters, but we were taught to hide our periods even from each other,” they say.

“When I started menstruating, my mother told me not to tell anyone because people might judge me for starting early. We felt that periods were something to hide. Later, we realised that hiding only increases shame. Sharing knowledge gives confidence and strength,” explains Khushi.

For many girls and women across rural Bihar, menstruation has long meant isolation, confusion and hushed endurance. In villages where access to sanitary products is limited and privacy is scarce, periods mould daily routines in ways that often go unnoticed by the outside world.

It is in this landscape that 34-year-old Surbhi Kumari has chosen to work, not as an outsider imposing change, but as someone who understands the weight of that silence from within.

Growing up in silence

Surbhi was born and raised in Gaya, Bihar, in an environment where restrictions on girls were normalised. “Being a girl meant knowing your boundaries. We were not allowed to step out after sunset. We were taught to adjust, to lower our voices, to avoid questioning elders. And menstruation was something you managed secretly, without ever naming it,” she tells The Better India.

Her first experience of menstruation came when she was 13 and studying in Class 7. She remembers sitting in her classroom, unaware that a dark red stain had spread across her skirt. Some boys began whispering and laughing, pointing towards her. She did not understand what had happened.

“I genuinely thought I was seriously ill,” she says. “No one had explained menstruation to me. I thought something inside my body had gone wrong, and I remember feeling terrified.”

At home, her mother handed her a piece of cloth and told her that this was normal, that it happened to all women. The explanation was brief, and the embarrassment remained. Like countless girls across rural India, she entered adolescence without language, without guidance and without confidence about her own body.

Growing up in Gaya framed her thinking in subtle but powerful ways. She saw women wake before dawn, cook for extended families, tend cattle, work in the fields and care for children, all while observing restrictions around food, movement and ritual during menstruation.

“I saw immense........

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