The Fasting Diaries: Day 1

Dear Diary,

Today was my first day of abstaining from eating and drinking for as long as the sun was out. My journey began keeping four things in mind: spiritual reflection, self-improvement, and heightened devotion and worship.

To begin with, I spent the first day really understanding man's relationship with food. I knew I could not eat or drink anything from 4:00am to 7:00pm. So, I ate till exactly 3:59am. In fact, I think my last gulp went down around 4:00am. This meant I had to drink some water at around 4:01am. Bad start, but you have to start somewhere.

Immediately after that, I went to sleep, waking up with a rumbling stomach at around 4:00pm. And it was so hot. I felt an immediate pang of thirst upon waking up. But this could not be acted upon. I needed to practice restraint.

Millions, or maybe billions, of people around the world starve every day. Till today, I never knew what that felt like. I spent a good 30 seconds thinking about the less fortunate, while at the same time my senses were regaled by fragrances of whatever was cooking in the kitchen.

At 6:01pm, I asked my mother what I would eat to break my fast. She gave me a very bad answer, something along the lines of traditional Bangali food. This really infuriated me. I had spent the entire day not eating or drinking to learn what abstinence and sacrifice was all about. I had empathised with the plight of the less hard workers. After all this, how could I eat traditional food? Instead, I decided to splurge. Two iftar platters to really make sense of the poverty striking this world.

Or was this about poverty? What about self-reflection? I opted for a quick meditation from 6:20pm to 6:26pm. Those six minutes were hard and my blank mind was constantly interrupted by images of the delicious food I was about to eat. I then stopped and browsed the internet, looking for what to wear after this month of understanding came to close.

In between, I thought about my relationship with the higher power a few times and wondered again if there was a good/bad point system. At that time, I realised we did not have dates in the house. I wonder if that meant I would miss out on a few good deed points.

I then went out and handed out change to people who looked like they needed it. I tried to talk to them, but could not because they probably had Covid and I refused to get vaccinated earlier because of all the conspiracies.   Then the clock struck 7:00pm. I had seven slices of pizza, a litre of cola, lots of saffron-infused jalebis. I munched away thinking of my great success today and decided it sucks that some people have to go hungry every day. It also sucked that I couldn't do anything about it, but that's a story for another day.