I had been getting queries from regional filmmakers to do a movie based on my work. But I did not want my work and mission - to create awareness on menstrual hygiene - to be restricted to only a part of the country. In fact, I wanted to do the movie in Hollywood.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

My plea is that don't wait for a girl to become a woman to empower them. Empower a girl's life by giving sanitary pads to them. With pads, we give them wings.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Power Life Woman

You can send women to the Moon or Mars later. First, provide sanitary pads to them.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Women Men You

Social entrepreneurship is like a butterfly, sucking honey from a flower, but the flower won't die. They're helping the flower to make pollination.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Won Utter T

Even if I can take sanitary napkins to 10% of the poor women in India, it will be big achievement.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Women Men Will

Why buy sanitary napkins from multinationals when we can make them at home and generate employment?

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Men Home Why

There are two kinds of students: those who study and work to survive, while others who want to be achievers.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Work Who While

My nature is such that even if I failed 9,999 times, I'll attempt for the 10,000th time again.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Time Nature Times

'Padman' was about my early life and struggles, including my wife calling me a psycho and leaving me.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Life Wife T

The strong creation created by God in the world is not the lion, not the elephant, not the tiger - the girl.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

God World Tiger

The most difficult thing is changing people's mindset.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Thing Thin T

I didn't take the money route because I saw my parents struggle for survival.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Money Use Us

Every father, brother, and husband should know about menstruation. It is not just about women; it is about men, too.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Women Men Very

When I work in the remotest villages, it reminds me of who I am... India is not built on 14 metros and 100 cities. It's made up of 600,000 villages.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Work Age Who

I converted a problem into an opportunity.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Unity Unit UN

I never thought someone would make a film on my story.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Would Tory Thought

The government should include menstrual hygiene in the curriculum.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Men Government T

My vision is to make India into a 100% sanitary-pad-using country. Menstruation is no more a taboo.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Men Vision Using

Luckily, I'm not educated. If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Learning Your You

I am becoming a solution provider. I'm very happy. I don't want to make this as a corporate entity. I want to make this as a local sanitary pad movement across the globe.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Men Want Very

I always say, 'Be near science and technology, and you will never fail.'

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Technology Science You

My life is a brave one. I didn't put any restrictions.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Imagine: I got patent rights to the only machine in the world to make low-cost sanitary napkins - a hot-cake product. Anyone with an MBA would immediately accumulate the maximum money. But I did not want to. Why? Because from childhood, I know no human being died because of poverty - everything happens because of ignorance.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

The taboo regarding menstruation exists across the world, even among the educated.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

A male can be a boy, a man, a love/husband, a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, but they don't have any knowledge what's happening inside a woman's body. That's what I had learnt in my early married life.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

It took me eight years of trial and error to design the machines that would make low-cost pads: just Rs 2 each, compared to those made by the MNCs that are priced anywhere above Rs 6 to Rs 100.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

I have not hung a single award on my walls, including the Padma Shri.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

When I tell a foreign audience that 90 per cent of Indian women have no access to sanitary napkin, there is a visible disbelief. But there is hardly a ripple when I say the same thing to an Indian crowd.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

I am the son of a hand-loom weaver. I have a connection with yarn. I thought, 'Why not try to make an affordable sanitary pad for my wife?'

Arunachalam Muruganantham

A lot of people making a lot of money, billion, billions of dollars accumulating. Why are they coming for, finally, for philanthropy? Why the need for accumulating money, then doing philanthropy? What if one decided to start philanthropy from the day one?

Arunachalam Muruganantham

If you chase a girl, the girl won't like you. Do your job simply, the girl will chase you.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

I had been getting queries from regional filmmakers to do a movie based on my work. But I did not want my work and mission - to create awareness on menstrual hygiene - to be restricted to only a part of the country. In fact, I wanted to do the movie in Hollywood.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

There were offers from a few Bollywood filmmakers, but I was sceptical as to whether those films will do justice to my vision or even my life. I was also apprehensive because what if I sign an agreement and give the rights to some filmmaker, and he shelves the project?

Arunachalam Muruganantham

I have been working in north Indian villages, so I know the truth. Compared to the south Indian states, north India is less developed, and there's little awareness on menstrual hygiene.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

I suffered a lot when I tried to make sanitary napkins and promote the idea. My family - including my mother and wife - deserted me. Villagers even tied me to a tree and beat me. But after seeing me successful now, they come and say that they all knew that I would become famous one day.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

My wife gone, my mum gone, ostracised by my village. I was left all alone in life.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

I have accumulated no money but I accumulate a lot of happiness. If you get rich, you have an apartment with an extra bedroom - and then you die.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

My wife was gone, all other girls failed to cooperate, so I decided to wear a pouch of animal blood myself and test out my pads by wearing them myself. The discomfort I felt for those five days cannot be explained in words; I bow to every woman on earth for going through this every month.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

The idea came from my wife, since in our village, women cannot afford to buy sanitary pads. When I asked my wife, she told me we would have to cut down half of our milk budget to buy sanitary pads. Moreover, while raw materials for sanitary pads cost 10 paise, the end product was sold for 40 times that price. So, I decided to create it on my own.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

I don't have any plans to make money for myself. All I wish to do is empower rural women in our country.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Most of the students whom I have lectured were inquisitive to learn and contribute towards my vision. So, the youth who want to achieve in life can do a lot for society.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

To help my mother, I started working as a workshop helper. There I learned welding and other tools.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

I got married at 24. It was an arranged marriage.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Being the son of a handloom weaver, I have knowledge of cotton and some other material.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

What kept me going was my desire to provide a hygiene product for my wife.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

To break the age-old taboos and to see girls and women use pads was a difficult task.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

I'm ecstatic to be known as pad man, as it makes a difference to women's lives.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

I may fail today, but if I have another idea tomorrow, maybe it will work.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

My argument is that there is already an automated machine to make pads. What I did - I reverse-engineered it to 'simple.' Anyone who wants to compete will have to come out with a simpler machine.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

I know that if I had got educated, I might have ended up as a call-center employee.

Arunachalam Muruganantham

Nobody in the society will talk about menstruation... it's a taboo in my country. That's why I'm branded by society as a psycho.

Arunachalam Muruganantham