Shravan Mahino Fast Complete!

Once again late on the blogs - sorry guys!

Shravan mahino (Gujarati calendar month) ended last week. For those of you who don't remember, in this month, people in India fast, eating one time a day. I decided to keep the fast less for religious reasons, and more to see what it is like to never really be full, like many people experience in India, and all over the world.

In the beginning it was tough to remember that I couldn't eat, and it seemed like the one month that people would make last minute plans to go out to eat somewhere nice (of course after I had eaten my one time). In the beginning I also craved snacks all the time - ice cream, popcorn, anything, when I usually never did. But that only made my resolve stronger to keep up with what I was doing - that it was good for me to want to eat these things when I could not - just like the kids who eye the pani puri stand or candy shop but know that they very well don't have the money to buy what they desire. Every time I wanted something I could not have I thought of all those people.

The month came and went and I survived. I often felt nauseated or that my stomach was upset. Towards the end I started eating one meal every other day and not eating the day in between just to let my stomach settle, though I think my body was not happy with the weather rather than me being hungry.

I can't describe in words after one month sitting quietly in a corner and gauging what had happened over the fast. I survived, and didn't feel like I was starving. Yet there was this emptiness - this part in my stomach that was saying I'm hungry, but no matter how much I ate the one meal I ate a day, that emptiness was never filled. Fasting ended almost a week ago, and I still do not even think about eating or food until 4 or 5 o'clock, my usual one time mealtime. Yet I know I should eat, which is why I am trying to be better about it...but knowing that people spend years of their lives with this part of them that is never satiated really saddens me.

I am grateful that I got an opportunity to come as close as I probably ever will to living a few weeks in the lives of the poor and needy...I can't say I know what they go through, but I would like to think that I can understand them a little bit better.