Monday fasting

Monday fasting is a recurring observance practiced by Aparna Mahadevan. Its importance lies less in formal explanation than in repetition: she follows it during an ordinary workday, maintains it while suffering enough weakness to need assistance, and refuses food even when Shivam Goyal urges her to reconsider. The practice gives a private religious discipline a continuing presence across professional pressure, artistic devotion, romantic conflict, and family life.

Definition and First Workplace Appearance

On a Monday at work, Aparna Mahadevan declines to join Shija Meity and Pranav Sharma for a meal because she fasts on Mondays. She smiles while explaining the rule and chooses to remain in the conference room, where she intends to assemble data for the project before Fatima Khan assigns cubicle seats. Shija Meity urges her at least to take a fruit bowl, warning that the workplace is not college and that fasting may leave her exhausted, but Aparna Mahadevan dismisses the concern with a smile and continues working.

This scene establishes the observance as voluntary and settled rather than performative. Aparna Mahadevan does not abandon her work or demand that her colleagues accommodate her; she simply adjusts her day around the fast. The contrast between her friends’ immediate concern for food and her concentration on reports and Instagram makes Monday fasting part of her self-management, linking bodily restraint with the disciplined, work-focused identity she brings into her new professional environment.

Religious and Cultural Context

The observance belongs to the same cultural world that surrounds Aparna Mahadevan’s Bharatanatyam training and performance. When Rati Goyal watches her perform a Shiva-centered piece, Rati Goyal praises her for depicting the glory of Lord Shiva and calls her Shanti Rao’s finest student. Rati Goyal then reminds her not to forget what she has learned and expresses confidence that Aparna Mahadevan will make everyone proud in her Arangetram performance. Although the passage does not explicitly state that the Monday fast is undertaken for a particular deity or vow, the recurring practice sits within a narrative shaped by devotional art, ritual respect, and embodied discipline.

The book repeatedly places spiritual or customary practices beside ordinary obligations. Aparna Mahadevan’s fasting occurs in a conference room amid reports and seating arrangements, while her Bharatanatyam performance transforms disciplined bodily movement into public religious art. In both settings, commitment is expressed through the body: she controls hunger in private and trains movement for an audience. Monday fasting therefore functions as a quiet counterpart to the more visible ritual form of her Arangetram.

Persistence During Illness

The rule becomes most consequential when Aparna Mahadevan is physically unwell. Shivam Goyal lifts her and carries her carefully to bed after her legs can no longer support her weight. He announces that he will get breakfast and intends to give her a painkiller, wanting to relieve the pain although he has no clear way to remove it. Aparna Mahadevan nevertheless tells him that it is Monday and that she is fasting.

Shivam Goyal reacts with disbelief because of her condition, asking how she can want to fast in such a state. Aparna Mahadevan answers with a defiant nod despite her pain. His initial frustration does not become an argument; he moderates his tone and offers chai instead. She agrees, asking him to prepare it on the induction heater because her mother, Uma Mahadevan, has instructed her not to light the gas for three days after Nitya Mahadevan gave birth to a baby girl the previous day. Shivam Goyal makes the tea and returns with two mugs.

This episode shows that Monday fasting is not merely an office habit that disappears under pressure. Aparna Mahadevan preserves it even when illness makes eating, medication, and rest immediate practical concerns. At the same time, the scene does not present the observance as isolating her from care: Shivam Goyal cannot persuade her to eat, but he finds a form of support compatible with her boundary. The fast thus creates a small negotiation between devotion, bodily vulnerability, and intimate care.

Contrast with Family Customs and Relationships

The novel distinguishes Aparna Mahadevan’s Monday fasting from the Goyal family’s mourning-year custom. Shivam Goyal remembers that when he turned fourteen, his grandfather died, and Menka Goyal explained that the family could not hold a party that year. The household did not celebrate for a year after a death in the family. Shivam Goyal understood the custom, yet still felt the loss of the one day when his father might have made time for him and the entire family might have been together; even cake represented that anticipated joy.

The comparison reveals two different forms of restraint. The Goyal family’s abstention from celebration is collective, imposed by mourning, and tied to family continuity after death. Aparna Mahadevan’s Monday fasting is personal, repeated weekly, and actively chosen. Both customs organize emotion through ritual limits, but one marks bereavement while the other sustains an individual practice across changing circumstances.

The observance also remains present against the background of the relationship between Aparna Mahadevan and Shivam Goyal. Shivam Goyal’s anger over the workshop’s replacement speaker gives way to an apology when he acknowledges that Aparna Mahadevan acted quickly and successfully under pressure. Later, however, their communication breaks down, and Shivam Goyal tells her to have a good life and never call or text him again. When he eventually returns to her Arangetram, he recognizes the invitation and realizes how foolishly he has behaved. His backstage appeal asks to restore the relationship, and the emotional reversal occurs in the same broader narrative that later places him beside her while she maintains the Monday fast. The observance consequently outlasts quarrels, professional conflicts, and temporary separation without being reduced to a symbol of any one relationship.

Narrative Significance

Monday fasting gives Aparna Mahadevan a stable internal rhythm within a plot marked by abrupt changes: new work, workshop crises, artistic public recognition, romantic rupture, reconciliation, illness, and family news. Its recurrence makes identity visible through action rather than explanation. She does not need to announce a transformation each time; the repeated Monday decision demonstrates continuity.

The rule also complicates the language of care. Friends worry that fasting will exhaust her, and Shivam Goyal objects when illness makes the practice appear physically dangerous, yet Aparna Mahadevan’s refusal is not treated as surrender to another person’s authority. Her choice remains intelligible as an expression of agency, even when others respond with concern. The narrative places her observance beside the rigor of Bharatanatyam, the reverence shown to teachers and elders, and the family customs surrounding mourning and childbirth, making Monday fasting one strand in the larger pattern through which private conviction becomes part of social and emotional life.