Mother Care Sanitary Napkins, as they call their product, has a range of napkins, from ones for heavier-flow days to panty liners. There is another variant for women who do not wear panties, which is particularly necessary in rural India. This variety has an elastic belt to hold them up.

The team has an interesting strategy that so far has generated sizeable profits: They sell napkins in small quantities, even one or two at a time. They've also sent napkins to Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Singapore after individuals and charity organizations there placed orders. This morning the team is working on an order of 2,000 napkins for Nigeria.

* * *

Arunachalam Muruganantham's $500,000 business venture operates from a room smaller than a tiny New York City apartment. Jayashree Industries is based in Singanallur, another part of Coimbatore.

When he was 16, his father died and the science-loving teenager dropped out of school to support his family. His next life-changing event came when he married 17-year-old Shanti in 1998. His wife had never used a sanitary napkin, and she relied on an old piece of cloth for her monthly period. "Napkins are expensive. A cloth can be used repeatedly," she confessed to him.

In 2010, the research agency AC Nielson conducted a nationwide survey that found that 70 percent of women in India cannot afford sanitary napkins, and only 12 percent of the 355 million menstruating women in the country use them. Just 2 percent of women in rural India use sanitary napkins, even though three-quarters of the population lives there. "Even countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are better," says Bhagyashri Dengle, executive director of Plan India. (The NGO provided technical expertise for the survey, which was sponsored by a leading manufacturer of sanitary napkins.)



Many Indian women even use paper, sand, ash, or even leaves during their periods, and doctors warn that these unhygienic habits can lead to cervical cancer and other infections. Until two years ago, sanitary napkins had a luxury tax of 14 percent, but it was reduced to 1 percent after pressure from advocacy groups and NGOs.

"If the government thinks sanitary napkins are luxury items, how will it convince poor women to use them?" Dengle said.

Muruganantham was concerned about his wife using one piece of cloth for months at a time, so he gave her some sanitary napkins as a gift. A pack of six cost him 11 U.S. cents. (You now get the cheapest cotton pack for about 30 cents.) Muruganantham concluded they were indeed expensive for something that's only stuffed with cotton, so he set about trying to make his own.

Even though Shanti's response was not encouraging, Muruganantham was obsessed with making a napkin that would have win her approval. When Shanti refused to be his subject, he turned to his sisters, and when they warned him against pursuing such a "disgusting" mission, Muruganantham turned to medical students from his village. This sparked rumors about him befriending young girls "for sex," so his wife left him.