Take away techaway, a fast road to peace?

Fasting — be it the age-old vrat, roza, lenten and sabbath, or the new-age intermittent type of eatopausing — is often seen as a way of bringing oneself a step closer to god in its many manifestations, including the avatar of a great set of abs. While the higher entities we appease and end goals may differ in every case, what remains the same is the basic tenet of renouncement of food — and the ensuing crankiness. As if that weren’t enough, a Jain foundation recently took abstention and masochism up by a notch by organising a 50-day ‘digital fasting’ challenge. Aimed at its youngest members, the contest required one to spend 12 hours a day away from phones, laptops and tablets, in the hope it would help ‘strengthen ties within families’ and ‘improve concentration’. In exchange, one could also win a free trip to Shri Sammed Shikharji, a pilgrimage getaway in Jharkhand.

Apart from the fact that one had to log in to register for the competition, a technological vrat does pose many other challenges. Like, how does one distract oneself from scrolling without binge-watching, or vice versa? And can one really pull off such a feat without Googling the effects of tech withdrawal, or humblebragging about it on social media with a meditative selfie and the hashtags #digitaldetox and #unplugged within the first 10 minutes? Munch on this.