a week. It was very hard.

I don’t know whether you are joking or not, but I did that once as a kid. This was way back in India, my school had arranged a boy scout camp. The first time I went into the bathroom, lizards flew over me and jumped on the ground. They tried to jump back to where they were. It was horrifying. So, I was scared to go to the bathroom. Other boys would take a dump in the woods; something which I could never do. I would pee in the woods, but I couldn’t dump. So, all week, I was walking around trying to control my bowels. I wouldn;t eat much either because the camp food sucked

A large section of my social circle is Jain. Funny how ALL the people I know who’ve undertaken the fast are female. Funny how the ones who fasted until death (becoming “Saints”) were all Widows.

As a Jain male I have fasted numerous times, never more than a day. It is a humbling, educational and philosophically awakening experience. You feel a lot more generous towards poor people once you go through it. While there is no documented coorelation, Jains are very generous with donations in India. Santhara is a highly misunderstood practice, don’t repeat it without researching.

Sorry Anna, I just got seriously wound up by the adoring tone of your article.

Not at all…no need to apologize! I’m glad you commented, because I am surprised my tone was adoring– that’s not what I wanted to convey. Constructive feedback is always really helpful, so thank you. I was striving for something neutral, because I know people who take fasting really seriously…just like I know people who think indulging in it is sheer idiocy which no God would truly appreciate.

Every year, before lent, I get a lecture from my Mom about how we’re already vegetarian and my going vegan for my fast is a terrible idea, since I’m addicted to milk and it’s how I get almost all my protein. So I could relate to the child-parent dynamic, but I am also a bit concerned about how weak they allowed her to become…I never needed a wheelchair, and the one time I grew even slightly “feeble”, my priest intervened and told me to cut that shit out. “God doesn’t want you to get sick. He wants you to grow. This is a time for reflection, not self-abuse” etc.

I don’t adore Eva– but I can appreciate another person of faith, practicing hers.

And surely there are better ways of controlling your senses than doing dangerous things like that. At least, with sports, where athletes do push themselves beyond endurance, they still make sure that they get plenty of fuel and that everything is in working order. Religion shouldn’t be about trying to indulge in as self-destructive behavior as possible, and setting yourself up for vitamin deficiencies, muscle wasting, and other long-term problems. Sure, it’s about improving your life, but not at the cost of making your body break down.

In view of Dr. A’s em-PHA-sis on scientific rigor, and side-stepping the interpretative findings of a mainstream media source that requires its articles to be dumbed down for a wider audience…I would like to point out that a lot of Psychological Disorders are over-diagnosed; Eating Disorders, ADHD, Bi-Polar, Depression…a lot of these are overdiagnosed. The criteria (DSM) cannot always be translated across cultures. Now since a lot of this over-diagnosis is by Doctors, even their “opinions” on her disorder are incomplete and probably misdiagnoses, without taking into account the relevant socio-cultural factors. Just coz a bunch of Indians (whom we cannot relate to for whatever reason) do it, does not make it a disorder…

I agree with you that American psychiatric describing and prescribing is often full o’ it, especially when the market gets involved. But at the same time I can recognize that South Asian American culture(s) frequently have an aversion to dealing with mental health issues, sexual abuse, lgbt issues, patriarchy, overfocus on status, and a lot of other things. There are ways of not being a race traitor without ignoring what seem to be obvious problems from other ways of looking at the world (like believing that people should not fast to the point of having to be carried from a vehicle to a building at the age of 17, all else equal ). in fact, one might argue that not doing so would be pretty Orientalist.