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I am Not Down – 11:37
(LIFE Short Block)
Director: Jyoti Madnani Singh
Saloni, a class topper, is period-shamed in school after she gets her first period. At home, her uneducated but caring mother Asha tears the only vest of her husband to provide a clean cloth for Saloni’s protection and comfort as she has to take annual exams the next day. When Saloni’s father, Anil, comes to know that his only vest has been torn and used to absorb menstrual blood, he gets furious. He puts the cloth left for sun-drying into the fire and it turns into ashes. Saloni is shattered but Asha is determined, neither she wants period shaming for her daughter nor she wants her to miss exams. Through Saloni’s classmates, Asha comes to know about sanitary napkins, a hygienic alternative available at the health centre but Anil says that they can’t afford that luxury because of their poverty. It is then Asha decides that she will do anything possible to send Saloni to school to take exams as she doesn’t want her daughter to drop out of school after first periods as she had to do it because of the period stigma and poverty.
