A Hungry Heart

As I became an adult, I still treasured the memories of Karwa Chauth. But I began to feel conflicted, too. I was in college -- emboldened to reassess old beliefs and assumptions -- when I first questioned the servility implied by this holiday. Indian women have a reputation for submission to their husbands as it is, and this tradition demands that women go so far as to sacrifice their physical nourishment. I was caught between my commitment to women's equality and my girlhood fantasy. In one vision, I was among those women shattering stereotypes and demanding their rightful place in the world. In another, I was a happily married princess dressed in silk and jewels for the love of her husband.

The girlhood fantasy won out: I keep the fast and celebrate the rituals of Karwa Chauth. But so did feminism: When I wed, I chose a marriage of equals.

I met my future husband, an ethnic Indian, in high school in 1990. I may have mentioned to him my childhood infatuation with Karwa Chauth, but he is from the West Indies and had never heard of the festival. When we married, we had already spent years pursuing ambitious careers and a more modern way of life. At home, he is an amateur chef and calls the kitchen his domain; I'm the resident handywoman. My husband was baffled, then, when I told him before our first anniversary that I wanted to keep the fast. First, there was denial: You couldn't possibly go that long without eating. Next came irritation: Why are you doing this? You don't have to follow this custom. I don't think you should follow it! Then, finally, acceptance: Hmm, this could be cleansing for our digestive systems, said the amateur chef. Can I join in?

And so, as I sit here on a US Airways flight to Charlotte, I find myself reflecting on my reasons for fasting. Why didn't I line up at the airport breakfast bar and order an Egg McMuffin like everyone else, so I could be free to fret only about my PowerPoint presentation, this infernal turbulence and the suffocating perfume of the passenger next to me? No one is forcing me to carry out this ritual. I don't belong to a clique of Indian women who would chide me for not following it. Still, here I am listening to my noisy stomach when I am so far from India. Yet, I realize, that's just it: I am so far from India. And no memory of India burns more brightly for me than Karwa Chauth.

THE YEAR WE MARRIED, MY HUSBAND AND I MOVED TO WASHINGTON FROM NEW YORK. It was an unfamiliar city, but one that also celebrated a bounty of ethnic cultures. I missed my own. Back in New York, I had my family to help me feel connected to my heritage, but here I knew no one. So I decided to seek out friends of Indian background and to try to persuade the married women to dress in their saris and wait for the moon. Some rejected it as an antiquated, sexist tradition. But that first year, I found five women, each either Indian or married to an Indian, willing to fast. In the seven years since, our observance has grown to include eight or nine couples.

It hasn't been easy. The willpower required to hold out for 24 hours has surprised me. To help me forget my hunger, I usually dive into a marathon of meetings. I don't discuss my fasting much at work because I don't want sympathy. One year, when a senior executive suddenly asked me to lunch on the holiday, I agonized before saying no. I kicked myself all day. I had been eager for face time with him so I could share some of my ideas. I haven't had a chance to lunch with him since.

But the pull of the festival is too strong for me to stop. Each Karwa Chauth, my friends and I rush from work to my home, to conjure some holiday charm. The women put on their wedding saris and decorate the prayer area (the fireplace hearth is our shrine) with incense, candles, posters and statues of goddesses. We improvise: The karwa is a copper pot instead of a clay one. We don't have leaves from the pipal tree. And we omit some of the ingredients on our plates and in the pot. But my aunts aren't around to tsk, and no one is the wiser.

My husband has fasted from the start, and other husbands have eventually followed -- perhaps feeling social pressure in an ironic reversal of roles. But the men keep their distance, and the shrine remains the women's domain. In the candlelight, our dresses rustling, we chant in Hindi, carry our personal plates to the hearth and pray. Afterward, the couples chat and distract one another as we await the moon, which usually appears about 8 or 9 p.m. One year, a cloudy night had us in panic. We waited until 10 before I called some East Coast rela-tives to ask if they could see the moon. No, the clouds were everywhere. Starving and grumpy, I was frantic at the thought of eating too early and sabotaging my husband's health -- a concern I would normally find absurd. We finally thought to consult the moon calendar; it showed that the orb, by then more precious to us than diamonds, had been out for an hour.

In our back yard, the moon ritual is performed as it was so long ago: the plates, the rice, the sieve (in our case, a metal colander), the touching of the feet and the offering of the first bite -- the sweetest bite one can imagine. Then we break our fast with a simple buffet cooked by the husbands. There is no alcohol, but the party is joyful. Eating after 24 hours of fasting can make you deliriously happy.

As for my once-bewildered husband, he's now an eager participant. He finds it romantic that I dress up just for him. He also dresses up, wearing his Indian kurta and jeans (he has his limits) on that evening just for me. I'm charmed that he also fasts. He says that if there is any truth to this sacrifice, it would be nice if we were both alive together.

This coming Karwa Chauth, October 29, I will be the new mother of a baby daughter. She has been born in America, a generation removed from her mother's India. As she grows, I'll teach her our beliefs and traditions, but there will be at least one difference: On the most magical night of the year, my little girl won't be peeking around corners, hoping that somehow she will also receive the goddesses' blessings. Instead, she'll be standing with me, allowed to sing and pray and be dazzled by the moon. Still, I wonder: Can this night ever cast quite the thrill for her that it did for me -- when I would spy on that forbidden scene? The shiver of excitement of those long-ago days, I know now, is likely gone forever.

Anu Kumar, a vice president of marketing with Bank of America, lives in Bethesda. She can be reached at anu.kumar@excite.com.