Twenty-nine-year-old Mukta Gundi took part in a US-based competition and made a 5-minute long video on menstrual health
Can you explain years of research done on your Ph.D through dance? When US based Science Magazine opened a competition to Ph.D students around the world, Mukta Gundi from IIT Gandhinagar sent in her entry. Her topic? Menstrual health among adolescents.
The 5-minute long video has Mukta and her friend Nupur Joshi depict the confusion of a young girl as she first starts menstruating as well as the restrictions that society imposes on her.
A Bharatnatyam dancer herself, for Gundi this was an opportunity to bring together her two favourite topics – dance as well as her work. "I started my Ph.D on menstrual health on adolescents two years ago," Gundi says. "It is generally believed that art and science cannot go together but the concept of this competition is so beautiful," she added.
Gundi holds a masters in Public Health from Indiana University in the US but her interest in public health was piqued after she spent a year in the tribal area of Gadchiroli in Maharashtra. "I worked with Dr Abhay Bang's organisation and it was there that I got interested in public health and community medicine," she explains.
Working for the past two years on her Ph.D, Gundi has spent a lot of time interviewing girls in rural Maharashtra. "They have a lot of questions and sometimes I am stunned by their queries. One girl asked me 'Didi just like I am not allowed inside the temple when I am menstruating, what do the Goddess Lakshmi and Saraswati do when they get their periods?'" she says about the question that stunned her.
Her Ph.D focusses on how cultural practices are affecting adolescent girls from different backgrounds — both rural and tribal.
While Gundi didn't win the competition, she did make it to the final round. "The videos were judged on artistic merit, scientific facts and accurate depiction," Gundi explains.
The video has her friend Nupur Joshi who is playing the adolescent care free girl plagued by confusion when she starts menstruating. She herself is a part of the video playing the woman who explains to the young girl the rules society expects her to stick to — like not enter the temple among others.
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 "Dance Your PhD 2016")
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