KATHMANDU, APRIL 20

I enter my office, and somebody asks me, "How are you today?" I simply reply, "I am fine."

This comes not from my conscious thought process but as an automatic response, as I have been asked this question a thousand times, and I have been accustomed to replying with the same answer, which is "I am fine". As soon as this phrase slips out of my mouth, reality strikes me, and the conscious mind suddenly reminds me that I am not fine.

I think of changing my response, and let that person know that I am indeed in pain. I want to tell him that "I woke up with a terrible cramp in my stomach that brought tears to my eyes. I was nauseous and didn't feel like eating anything.

My mood swings were crazy, and my brain was all dizzy."

If I had told him this, he would have sympathised with me and would have asked me, "Why, what happened?" As soon as I would have said what happened to me, his sympathy would have vanished.

Though he would not have shown any emotions on his face, thoughts would have raced across his mind: "Oh, a period is a natural process. Why make a big fuss about it?"

Therefore, I continue doing my work, hiding my pain. The knots on my forehead betray my plan, and a female colleague asks me, "You look so tensed up today. Is everything ok?"

With her I can be open and say, "Oh my stomach is hurting really bad. I am on my period."

She, as a female, understands immediately, and to console me starts telling me about her own painful period stories.

As she is telling me her story, I begin to wonder why we, females, have to hide our pains, especially when our uterus is shedding blood, our stomach is churning, our head is spinning and our body is vibrating with fever and pretend like nothing has ever happened.

Would men have done the same if they were to bear the pain? Would they have borne their pain in silence and not let the world know about it? Would they not have cried in agony and sought consolation from others? But it is us women that have the ability to hide our inner pain and completely switch our minds to the task at hand.

It is us who go through this monthly cycle of bleeding, not once, not twice but from puberty to menopause, every month, every year, and yet we are able to put a smile on our face when someone asks us "how are you" and simply reply saying "I am fine, thank you."

A version of this article appears in the print on April 21, 2022, of The Himalayan Times