Material city Mumbai steps onto the fasting lane

In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert undertakes a spiritual journey in the wake of a bitter divorce. Most of us, although touched by the book’s earnestness, soon forgot about it. But for 28-year-old Riddhima Bhatt, the book opened up a new chapter in her life.
“I had a miscarriage in the sixth month of my pregnancy when my umbilical cord got entangled around the baby’s neck leading to the obvious,” says Bhatt, who immediately slipped into a depressive state, questioning not only the tragic accident but also her ‘very state of being’.

Disconnected from the outside world, she began to read books on spirituality, including Gilbert’s semi-autobiographical work. This was a year ago. “Ever since then, I’ve practised partial fasting where I only drink fresh fruit juices and eat boiled vegetables five days a week,” says Bhatt, a Cuffe Parade resident who has been married for 10 years. But for this homemaker, her ritual fasting has nothing to do with religious beliefs. Instead, it was purely “a way to regain, and more importantly, retain emotional balance.”

Bhatt is among the few city dwellers who see fasting and abstinence as something far removed from religion. For these spiritual seekers, the idea of depriving the body of pleasures of the flesh connects them to a higher plane.

Motivational speaker Priya Kumar, who has lived with the shamans of the Netherlands and the tribes of Belgium, encountered yogis in the Himalayas and has met many medicine men on the way, says she has often resorted to fasting in her spiritual quest.

Among her many spiritually demanding experiences, the 37-year-old recollects a particularly difficult spiritual task where she had to abstain from food intake for a day and subsist on only salt water. “It was a soul and system cleansing ritual,” explains Kumar. Giving her take on the subject, she adds, “The purpose of fasting is to cleanse or strengthen the body, and not for the purpose of starving or disguised weight loss.”

But is this sense of spiritual well-being imagined? Not at all, say experts. “There are vital established areas in the brain’s autonomic system that control and give rise to certain emotions as a result of specific chemical releases in the body,” explains Dr Vinod Rambal, neurosurgeon, Dr LH Hiranandani Hospital, adding, “Spiritual fasting is simply the ability to control one’s mind by getting to know one’s body better.”

Clearly, as long as it is a question of controlled fasting, there’s no denying its benefits. Abstinence, on the other hand, is a completely different issue, especially when the act of self-denial translates to denying something to others.

Says Kumar, “Abstinence from sex frees one’s attention from physical pleasure, and can be directed towards purposeful creation.” Sexologist Rajan Bhonsle would beg to differ. “On a spiritual path, you tend to walk alone. But when you are in a relationship, you have to take your partner’s consent to practise abstinence. And only if it sounds rational to both you, can you go ahead,” he says, adding that that he gets many people in their mid-30s who suddenly wish to “go spiritual.”

Marketing consultant Divya Varghese, 38, had a hard time supporting her husband’s decision to restrict sexual intercourse to just three times a week so that he could spend long hours in the night meditating without any kind of ‘distraction’. Varghese adds, “This went for a month, and then he came around on his own.”
In some instances, abstinence might also point to a desire to avoid real issues. Citing a case study, Bhonsale describes how a man who suffered from erectile dysfunction suddenly decided to become a brahmachari, much to his wife’s dismay. But after few rounds of counselling and medication, the man returned to a healthy sexual life. “He had all but forgotten about
being a brahmachari by then,” grins Bhonsle.

According to Bhonsle, one needs to be really strong to practise abstinence, since “going against nature” can cause unnecessary stress to the body. Similarly, fasting, though regarded as good detox, comes with its own lows.

Nutritionist Rich Anand explains, “It may not affect the body immediately. But regular fasting may lead to serious implications in the long run.”

Dr Rambal adds that the consequences can be more severe for vegetarians. “Regular fasting, coupled with low protein intake and the inadequate presence of vitamin B12 in the body may affect the brain or the spinal cord,” he warns.

However, for hardcore spiritual seekers like Kumar, the whole essence of fasting and abstinence is looking inwards, an action lost on many of us today. “Whether clearing the inbox, forwarding messages, switching channels, surfing the Internet or returning phone calls, we are always looking outwards,” she says, adding, “We have isolated ourselves from introspection.”