Condekedar alerted us to an interesting story in the Chicago Tribune, via our NewsTab. Eva Mehta, a 17-year old from Evanston, set a local record by fasting for over a month:
At times, the 17-year-old was so weak and nauseated that her parents had to use a wheelchair to bring her from their van to their Jain temple in Bartlett. When the hunger pangs hit hard, she would pinch her ears. But she kept up her fast, even when she went to bed hungry and dreamed of food.
“I would just say in my mind, ‘No, it’s not real. I just won’t eat it. I’m not going to eat this until I’m done fasting,’ ” she said.
That’s trippy– so she was fasting, even in her dreams. Homegirl is hard-core!
How did she do it?
“I always tried to keep my mind, just pray to my god every day,” Mehta said recently, appearing happy and relaxed. “I would pray, just help me get rid of this feeling. I always pinch my ear and pray whenever I’m hungry.”
I’m going to have to remember that ear-pinching thing, for later. In other news, I always thought there were more Jains in India. Well, I learned something new for today:
Her fast ended Sept. 3 after 34 days. By then the 5-foot-4 Evanston teen had lost 33 pounds, her weight dropping to 119.
Chicago-area Jains rejoiced at her feat. Members of the ancient Indian religion fast every year in honor of the festival of Paryushan Parva. They regard fasting as a spiritual discipline, a way to remove bad karma and bring blessings to a person strong enough to survive for days or weeks on nothing but water.
Dating to as early as the 7th Century B.C., Jainism teaches a path to enlightenment through a life founded on nonviolence to all creatures. Jains represent less than 1 percent of the Indian population.
Many faiths have ascetic traditions that embrace fasting, but few carry it to such lengths as the Jains. In some cases, Jains practice santhara, or fasting until death, in order to free the soul from its sins.
Fasts are often held during the festival of Paryushan Parva, which is celebrated by the two major sects of Jains: the Swetambaras and Digambaras, members of whom fasted through Sunday…When the fast ends, Jains ask for forgiveness for any violence or wrong they may have done in the past year.
Eva has been preparing herself for this feat, for years:
Mehta has been fasting for her faith from the time she was 13. She started with a three-day fast and increased the days of fasting each year, until this year when she insisted she would go a month.
When I was Eva’s age, I fought with my parents about fasting for seven weeks, for Lent. Jain, Christian, whatever…we all have desi parents in common. 😉
Her parents were of mixed minds. Her father, Subhash, had no doubt she could do it, but her mother, Smita, was hesitant.
“I worried about her health,” her mother said. “I finally said, ‘If you’re going to be sick, we don’t want [you to fast] anymore. Next day, you can use the food. Don’t do the fasting.’ Well, she was OK.”
This bit has riled some of the commenters under the news article, who think it is proof that Eva’s fasting was tantamount to neglect or abuse:
She skipped the first week of school at Evanston Township High School.
I know my parents wouldn’t have allowed me to miss any school or work. They’re just not that holy. 😉 Speaking of, here comes the brownest part of the story:
Although he is proud of his daughter, her dad said she will not attempt such a feat next year.
“One-day, two-day, three-day fast—that’s all,” he said. “I don’t want her to miss school.”
Some of our readers are still fasting, for Ramadan; they have two weeks to go. While Ramadan requires fasting during the day, eating is allowed at night. In contrast, Eva was only allowed water, but only before sundown.
Have you considered the possibility that she has an eating disorder?
in all due respect for fasting and 2-3 day fasts and ramadan.. that is fine…
but fasting for a month, and losing 33 lbs, not healthy for the body, and honestly very harmful…
my argument for all fasts, does god really care that you are hungry? honestly does hunger make you think of god more? i beg to differ and never understood it. period.
peace.
have you considered the possibility that you are a cynic. open your heart like a lotus and may knowledge grow into your hollow like a turgid courgette – thus spake le khoof.
on another note, the same community has been known to fast unto death as part of a practice known as santhara. It is not suicide, but a matter of realizing it is time to take leave. The first nations had a similar practice in which older people would wander off into the plains or the wild to avoid being a burden to the younger ones. On that reference, for the wild at heart you got to see this movie .
um… she was 152lbs at 5’4″!. those do not seem like healthy proportions – but i could be raungh.
I once went 6 days without kampachi and foi gras.
More about fasting in Jainism here. Not sure if it is healthy for the body but it sure is about control of mind over matter. Not easy to do!
Or to avoid being pushed off on ice floes. I assume that’s a consequence of Canada’s socialized medicine.
Hey, it’s not easy to scarf down 10 consecutive slices of chocolate mousse cake either, but I don’t see Sepia writing about me!!!
I also abstained from sex for 17 years.
I once went without taking a dump for a week. It was very hard.
9 · Ascetic Manju said
HMF still does. Beat that.
I dated this person for a year to get my green card. It was quite a penance.
you had no choice.
abstained from sex for 17 years
hard to believe that you did not palm the organ between 12 & 17.
14 · amaun said
if there’s no intercourse its not sex, right?
I’ve had abs strained from sex.
clearly the ascetic is saying he’s been married for the past seventeen years.
10 · Sage khoofia said
i actually tried that as a squat-toilet phobic 6 yr old visiting india. last 2 days. told my uncle to drive home b/c I had to take a dump and he said to go on the street. i said no way. he said than “then you’re not a real indian.” in retrospect, it was the first confrontation with the politics of authenticity.
17 · bess said
What time’s dinner tonight, honey?
clearly the mahatma path is way better than the ascetic path; being continually tempted is like foreplay and we know that all the pleasure is in the foreplay
unless you are a guy!
20 · amaun said
y’know bill didn’t actually climax during his first few encounters with monica. in a way, he outdid the mahatma.
At the usual hour, Dyspeptic Manju.
16 · Vikram said
well then stop curling up in a ball. it won’t reach your mouth anyway.
now, look what you’ve all done to anna’s lovely religious post. sure, you’ll blame me. but i can’t do it alone.
Moderation in everything…
M. Nam
Ah … the ascetic life has been lonely and frustrating for you hasn’t it…
in hinduism many people fast once a week but often that involves being able to have one meal during the day or some fruit and yogurt. it’s similar to a detox. did she actually have no food at all? that’s very unhealthy. btw, i’ve been to evanston. it’s a gorgeous area near the lake.
She went 34 days without food and everyone is proud of her like she won a chess tournament. The spiritual aspect is mentioned generically: “They regard fasting as a spiritual discipline, a way to remove bad karma and bring blessings to a person strong enough to survive for days or weeks on nothing but water.” But what has Eva Mehta attained spiritually? Wish someone had asked her.
Ahhh, if we don’t make fun of our own customs…who will…
29 · bess said
Body image?
Thank you, Rick (with the silent “P”)wink, wink. The weight loss/ body image bit was an achievement not an attainment spiritually speaking.
8 · Rick Mercer said
Try sending that to your local newspaper first 😉
At least she had some body fat to spare. If she was regular weight, this would have been a really dangerous stunt. Still I do not find this stunt something to rejoice about. It is plain ignorance and blind faith.
I wonder if some of her female white classmates who are prone to anorexia figured that it is better to convert to Jainism so they can fast for a ridiculous amount of time without guilt. The bulimics won’t buy it though as they need to eat.
Of course, we are all very very proud of our Eva. Her feat has brought great joy and inspiration to our local Jain community. We are all hoping another one of our youths will fast even longer next year. The spiritualism she has gained for herself and our community should be an inspiration for all lower religions.
lower religions? huh. And I fail to see any spiritualistic gains achieved out of this.(unless this is veiled anorexia)
34 · Pravin said
What a wonderfully educated and erudite statement. Did we just finish our first week of PSYC 101 or did that statment not even involve such basic cognitions and knowledge?
Pravin, let’s talk only of shoes and ships and sealing-wax of cabbages and kings and music festivals, okay? Please,no more big statements that disparage the ladies.
How spiritual could it be if you go around bragging about it?
I guess the next time a person ask’s for money to feed a starving African I can just tell them that “Their stomachs might be empty, but their souls are full with spirtuality.”
kate moss is god
I once had my chest and shoulders threaded and rubbed down with alcohol. my soul was aflame with a deep spiritual light.
i drove a truck one summer and didn’t eat or sleep for like 48hrs +. but the thing that made it really spirtiual was the broken radio.
what better way to go than to die like a wolf. we should all be so lucky. -twirls mootch-
35 · Ashwin Jain said
ashwin, as a jain from the same area as eva (and, it seems, yourself), i am offended by your statement. we should not be putting down others to have strong spirituality and faith in jainism. too many of us forget the jain doctrine of anekantvad (no one point of view is absolute truth.) this attitude does nothing to promote a jain lifestyle, and has no place in our community. it also does not help in educating and exposing others to our religion. perhaps you need to remember the story of the blind men and the elephant.
on a side note, it’s nice to see more indian families in evanston. when i was growing up, many indians avoided it because of its high population of african-americans, despite it having a school system on par with others in the area.
RahulD:
Don’t be rude. Newsweek just ran a story of how anorexics do view fasting as something to believe in.
This whole story is disturbing. As a former Jain who became an atheist partly because my parents allowed my sister to fast for 8 days, this girl is not someone we should respect or look up to. She did a dangerous thing in the name of faith and her parents are foolish for allowing her to go through with it. I wonder what you all would be saying if she had suffered long-term medical problems as a result of this.
As I say in my own post on the topic:
Her mother said she would have stopped her daughter from fasting if Eva got sick.
Apparently nausea, hunger pangs, rapid weight loss, gastric acid buildup, and needing a wheelchair are perfectly healthy…
And I don’t know if Ashwin is serious or not, but his comment should frighten people:
Huh? Not missing school?
That’s the dad’s only reason for not encouraging this?
32 · bess said
Weight loss, I can agree is an achievement. But her own body image, well, in my book, that’s exactly as real or fake as her perception that fasting brought her close to Mahaveer.
logic is good. makes you run as much as the joos you got. faith is funny. it makes you run after the joos has run out – thus spake khoof, as he tightens the knots on his cilice.