My First Time…Keeping A Fast Without Sehri

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Nargis: single, 20 something (a woman never reveals her age), and looking to have the best time around town. My best friend is Tina who I have been stuck with since our primary days – she might be featuring in a lot of my adventures, so might as well introduce her now (plus, I know she’s dying for a shoutout). My friends and family are constantly bugging me to share my ideas and opinions –  naturally who else will give such great advice? So I thought what better time to start giving back to my community than right now. Today I am going to tell you about my first time fasting without having any sehri!

You can trust me to never miss an opportunity to eat something delicious. Doesn’t matter where I am or who I’m with, if you present me with any kind of food, you can bet I’ll be trying some. Now, in Ramzan, I try to curb my enthusiasm for food; practicing self-control and healthy eating and all that. However, I love to really indulge when it comes to sehri. Haan theek hai, iftari light karti hoon, dinner bhi healthy karti hoon, lekin sehri mein I go all out. Pancakes, daal, keema, aloo parathas, cheese omelets…I could go on and on listing my favorite things to eat for sehri, but itna time kisi ke paas nahi hai. In fact, the one time I skipped sehri and kept a fast was quite an unforgettable experience for me…to say the least. 

When I was younger I thought I was invincible, and I was quite annoying about it. “Mujhe tou bhook lagti bhi nahi hai,” I would tell others who were fasting and were clearly irritable. Ajeeb sa flex tha, I know. Because I had convinced myself that I barely even felt any hunger or thirst during my roza, I slowly started to neglect eating properly at sehri so that I could get more sleep. Usually I would wake up an hour before Fajr and eat a proper meal and drink lots of water and juice waghera, but slowly I started adding more minutes to my sleep and deducting them from my sehri time. Eventually, I was waking up 20 minutes before Fajr and bilkul neend ki halat mein having a banana, a handful of nuts, some water, and falling back to sleep. 

As my sehris were becoming less filling, my rozas were getting harder. I would wake up feeling very parched and sometimes even a little bit nauseous. I would be anxiously waiting for iftari and would feel drained throughout the day. Despite noticing how my fasts had become significantly more difficult, I still did not make the connection that this was due to my improper eating habits at sehri. At one point sleep had become so precious to me (even more so than filling my belly), that I decided to not wake up for sehri. “Itna acha aur filling dinner tou kar liya tha,” I told myself to justify skipping sehri. 

I got my uninterrupted sleep, but then when I woke up, my mouth felt so dry. Right from the minute the day started, I knew it was going to be very long. I tried my best to convince myself that I was not feeling as thirsty as I actually was, but it was so difficult to ignore the feeling of intense dryness in my mouth. It was as if I had swallowed a handful of sand –  that’s how parched I felt. A few hours later came the hunger pangs. 

If there was anything worse than my hunger though, it was my mood. I was snapping at everyone, having a headache from my hunger, feeling very low on energy, and just in general, was very unpleasant to be around that whole day. I tried to make myself go back to sleep so that when I woke up it would be closer to iftari time, but no matter how much I tried, mein sou bhi nahi sak rahi thi because I was so hungry! It was such a challenging day for me, and when it finally came to an end and I sat at the table for iftari, I vowed to myself that I am never compromising a proper, filling sehri for extra sleep. Never ever. 

I learned the hard way that there’s a reason why eating sehri is recommended to us in our religion; it’s because our minds and our bodies need it. We need to eat well and drink plenty of water and we need to do so in a timely manner so that we are not stuffing our faces in a rush, or falling asleep right after eating (that can make you feel sick). Sehri needs its sweet time; it needs to be enjoyed, and it needs to be celebrated, because ultimately, it’s for our own benefit!