Renuka Shahane reflects on starting menstruation at 10, recounts mother drawing diagram to explain
Renuka Shahane is an Indian actress, best known for her portrayal of Pooja Choudhury Nath in the cult classic movie, Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! The actress has often used social media to create awareness about matters important to her.
Recently, she opened up about her childhood struggle with menstruation. During a chat, the popular TV and film actress recalled having her periods when she was 10 years old. Read on!
Renuka Shahane says she lived most of her life with periods
While talking about menstruation and the taboo around it in society on We Are Yuvaa podcast, Renuka Shahane revealed that she had her periods when she was 10. Sharing how it affected her life, the Tribhanga writer and director stated, “I am 58 today and I have lived most of my life with periods.”
She added that because of her biological cycle, she enjoyed her childhood physiologically for a very short time. Since she wasn’t able to understand what was going on with her body, her mother came to her rescue.
“I was lucky because in my case, my mom drew a diagram to explain how this works. I was lucky because at my home, they used to discuss all this very openly,” she stated adding that she couldn’t really understand what was happening and the reason behind it. However, Shahane was assured by the people around her that it wasn’t something bad.
Renuka Shahane opened up about feeling lonely in school
In the same interview, the 3 Storeys actress recalled feeling lonely in school as she couldn’t speak to her friends about her periods. She stated that none of her friends in her class had their periods for the next three years.
Hence, she had to wait until they got their periods to share things. “For them, it was three years later. At that time, I was feeling very lonely. You feel like you cannot speak about this to anyone.” But luckily, she could speak about it to her mom.
However, she admitted that it has some impact on a child’s psychologically as they are becoming bigger in ways that nobody is aware of. Moreover, nobody was talking about it in the school
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