Topic: “Fasting is Fun Because We Do It Together!” Religion, Class, and Couples in Urban India
Abstract:
This paper examines the relationship between religion and class among upwardly mobile Hindus in Pulan, an urban neighborhood of Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. In particular, it analyzes the decision of one young married couple – Heena and Kishore – to take up the newly popular ritual practices of the Solah Somwar vrat (sixteen Monday fast), a four-month ritual period dedicated to the Hindu deity Shiva. During Solah Somwar, participants adhere to strict rules for maintaining purity in the home and their body, and commit to performing weekly fasts and rituals at the temple. Yet, Solah Somwar are overwhelmingly women; only a few young couples participate together. In analyzing why Heena and Kishore chose to take up this new ritual, particularly Heena’s claim that participating in Solah Somwar is “fun” because she and Kishore observe it together, I show how relationships between husbands and wives are changing for upwardly mobile nuclear families. These kinds of shifts, I argue, not only reflect and produce new understandings of what it means to be middle class in contemporary urban India, but the very nature of modern Hinduism.
Biography:
Professor Ortegren joined the Religion Department in the fall of 2016 as an Assistant Professor of South Asian Religions after receiving her Ph.D. from the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University. Her current research focuses on the relationship between religious and class identities among upwardly mobile Hindu and Muslim women in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. Her research and teaching interests include women in religion, ethnographic and anthropological approaches to the study of religion, ritual and narrative practices, urbanization in South Asia, and the role of religion in emerging global middle class communities.