Hello! My name is Deshna Jain. I’m from India - a place of diverse language, food, culture, and religion.
I come from a religious Jain family, where I grew up with regular temple visits, yajnas (prayer sessions around a fire pit), and of course, my fair share of festivals with delicious food and flattering clothes. But my religion, Jainism, does not exist in isolation. I grew up watching my friends fast for Ramadan, some teachers come to school wearing Rudraaksh bracelets, the neighbours going to Haridwar every so often to worship the(?) river Ganga, and avoiding plans to hang out on Sunday afternoons to accommodate Church Service. I have grown up in a city full to the brim with people from different lifestyles, beliefs, and religious inclinations who laugh together, eat together, and live happily together.
But religion to me was not just about colour and celebration and harmony.
I was always a curious and banterous child. I learnt at a young age to question anything that didn't sit well with me. Of course, this trait was utilized mostly to question why perfectly good rice had to be spoiled with peas and carrots - but it was also to voice that bubble of discomfort in my chest when I went to the temple and I wasn't allowed to touch the statue of the God I was taught to revere. "You can't, because you're a girl", people would say, as if that was the unquestionable justification for all expectations and rules that I had to follow - inside and outside of the temple. My gender soon became a source of increasing conflict with my love for my God.
"You shouldn't be a part of the cleaning ritual of the Gods", " You shouldn't touch gurus, or visit them at night", "The first prayer should be offered by your younger brother, and then by age among the sisters", "Pray for you to have beauty, sanskaar, and be blessed by our Lord with a son". If I asked why I couldn't just pray for success and a charitable mind like my father did, my family would laugh at my childishness, ruffle my hair, and talk among themselves about how children dream of just anything. This conflict - slowly at first, and then increasingly rapidly - became a source of frustration, and a source of disappointment towards the God that I had hitherto loved.
If God loves me as much as everyone else, why doesn't God treat me equally? Why does God tell me I'm lesser than a brother would be? Why does God tell me to not love the same sex, to behave as if I'm nothing more than my gender, and to resign myself to a submissive character who is to only pick up after my father, my brother, and my would-be husband? Why does doing what I want go against God? The questions would pile up, higher and higher, with no one around to give me an answer for any of them. I pulled further and further away from the very idea of religion - it became a representation of restriction, of injustice, of regressive ideas, and of an environment where I would have to follow meaningless rituals and be penalised for questioning the Will of God.
I found myself avoiding family gatherings - which I associated with religious conversation and making excuses to not go to the temple. It seemed like a linear path that I was walking, steadily away from religion when I met a peculiar Guru, Maharaj Shrutsagar (literally, ocean of truth). Maharajji, as I would call him, frequented our house every few years to rest from his adventures around India, as is a custom among Jain Gurus. He would be accommodated in a room without any mattresses, he would not use an A/C in the hottest days of Delhi or a heater in the coldest. He would have one standing meal in a day using only his cupped hands as utensils. He would sit and sleep on a jute rug and carry with him a kettle of filtered water and a broom made of fallen peacock feathers to brush any surface he used in case he hurt a stray bug by sitting on it. These things too, are largely customary among Jain gurus.
What was not customary, however, was the things he would talk about. I was used to Gurus coming and talking about the weight of good karma, duties of a good wife, the roles sons and daughters play in society, and the absoluteness of the Will of our Gods. Maharajji came in talking about his childhood when he almost became a scientist (and how he still fancied the sciences) before finding meaning in religion. He discussed the importance of masks during Covid, asked me about my plans in life, and discussed DNA and RNA variations with my sister to pass time. When my grandfather asked him to convince me to drop the idea of higher education and get married instead, he shut my grandfather up, calling him a fool for inhibiting a bright young mind. I had never seen anyone talk to the patriarch of our family the way he did until then.
What fascinated me most about him was that in front of me was a man who is a deeply respected, learned priest - a Godman, so to say - who upheld his religious beliefs while also being in harmony with his values of parity, advancement, and fun every now and then too. Here was a man who did not let religion dictate his views, nor did he let society dictate what religion is to him. And I thought to myself, can't I do it too?
My religion preaches non-violence, it talks about charity, of giving back to society, and of the importance of wisdom and learning. There was much I could do with these values without being angry at God for all the misogynistic rules the society had me follow. This is when I questioned my own way of perceiving religion.
I was a bit too far removed from religion at that point to find the same love for God again that I once carried as a child, but I found the vexation I had come to harbour for the very concept of religion melting away. I began to understand how religion did not have to come in the way of personal values or interrupt growth and found myself to be at peace with the thought.
I am Deshna. My name means "the voice of God". I am a feminist, an ally, I have a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology and I'm living miles away from home to pursue a career of my dreams. I work at Swansea University with the Faith, Community and Equality team of CampusLife. I suppose, in a way, it all came together for me in the path I chose, which is why I thought to tell this story to you, dear readers.