A Tale of a Tampon

Good God there is a shortage of tampons in Delhi. Not exactly the best thing to blog about but I am so furious. I am furious at the lack of supply, I am furious at this very idiotic monopoly that Johnson and Johnson has in India, I am furious at the chemist who suggested I buy pads instead “ek hee toh baat hai madam” – little will he know how similar they are when I stuff one up his nose! Why won’t more brands retail them? And how are all the women managing without it? In a fit of total panic I called multiple stores around my house, around my area, even in Khan market which caters to all the expats of the world who are tampon-only users, I texted a friend, I even called my mother to check the availability in my hometown and courier it to me. Meanwhile I am trying to figure out who is travelling abroad in the next month so I can ask them to pick it up at a duty free store. This is ridiculous. How can something so essential go missing from the market? Another woman in the same predicament as me gave me the most sympathetic look and a nod of mutual grief in the pharmacy store. “I’ve been trying to get them for a month” she said with such sadness in her voice. My panic only aggravated, my despair deepened, my pharmacy store-hopping got faster.

This happened in the evening.

Cut to night time 10 PM.

A call from a random unknown number. It’s a chemist. Apparently the idiots at Just Dial have been circulating my number as “Tampons waali”. A chemist from North Delhi. North delhi? Really? I am desperate enough to go there. He says he doesn’t have it now but he knows I am looking so he will try and arrange. He assumes, in a smug voice, that since I am looking for it so badly, I would obviously be willing to buy more than just a few boxes. “Ten”, I say in a state of total last minute anxiety. Tiny pause. My heart is beating. Tiny pause continues. “Fifteen?”, I say encouragingly. He promises to try and arrange and asks me to calls back tomorrow. But North Delhi. Really? It’s SO far, I think in my head, willing to take on the task at hand, take metro, run and go, etc etc.

But I have exams in 5 days and I haven’t prepared shit. I am neck, head, all of me down into a bit fat puddle of obscure crap. Taking this course lightly isn’t treating me very well. The books suddenly seem really big. The reference readings are piling on and now a mountain of A4 sheets sit ominously in the corner of my study room. Basically, I am struggling to read up and how.

Back to the topic at hand. So yes, it is far. At least an hour and a half by metro, if I am lucky. So I gather the courage to ask him if he will home deliver. Tiny pause repeats. I offer to pay for transport. I offer to buy 20 boxes if he manages to scrape them from the corners of the earth. He agrees. I thank him profusely, send a little prayer to the female gods above and see a glimmer of hope at the end of the dark dark empty shelves.

And now I wait, I put 2 reminders on my phone to call him tomorrow, lest some other tampon deprived girl bribes him with a larger order. I wait for an unknown man sitting in Soni Chemists in some obscure corner of north Delhi to save my soul.