Thirteen-year-old Bijal hasn't left her bed for the last eight days. She hasn't touched any food, and has been surviving on just boiled water.
This is a religious fast for Bijal, the youngest in her Jain family. This is the first time that Bijal is participating in the ritual. Called Paryushan, it's observed at the end of the Shravan month.
How Bijal's body copes is being studied in Ahmedabad by scientists who work for the Defence Ministry. Around 66 Jain volunteers have offered to conduct their fast here. The idea to is to figure out if jawans' bodies can be trained in similar fashion.
"In a war situation, they may not be able to get any supplies. So we need to find out how they could survive with whatever they have," explains the scientist in-charge of the project, Dr G Ilavazhagan.
So, the experiment provides a happy and unusual intersection of religion and science.
