Fasting and Festivals

The other day I had a conversation with my Hindi teacher about fasting, which I found quite fascinating. So here are some facts:

Not all fasting is giving up all food. It is often giving up essential foods, though, like rice and dal. There are also restrictions on other foods, like grains and salt. During times of fasting, it is most common to eat fruit or nuts.

Women often fast during this month (on Mondays) in order to show respect to Shiva. Some women think that this fasting will get them a good husband. (For more information, go back to my post about Guru Purnima). There are also times when only married women fast.

I am less sure on the times when men fast, if they do at all.

On a related note, we also discussed celebration of festivals, which was really interesting. If you have a family member who dies on the day of a festival, you stop celebrating that festival as a family until someone is born on the day of the festival. For example, Prastuti’s family stopped celebrating a festival through worship because someone died during it, and now they only practice the fasting portion, and would begin to celebrate through prayer if someone was born on that day.