Continuing the series on what faith means to students, Varun Anand, a 3rd year medical student from Hull studying at the University of Birmingham writes about his journey of Hindu spirituality.

Before I came to university I have to admit I was not very religious and did not know much about Hinduism, except that we have many religious scriptures and are not allowed to eat beef. Although we are a Hindu family, we only celebrate the major festivals like Diwali (festival of light) and Holi (festival of colours), of which I knew little about. I was more interested in the fun aspect like lighting fireworks and throwing coloured powder! However, this changed almost immediately when I joined the University of Birmingham.

At the societies fair in the first week of university, I got talking to a few committee members of the Hindu Society and then a week later I went to their first event; a ‘Meet and Greet’. It was nice to meet people of a similar background and make new friends and it was then that I became a member of the Hindu Society.

It was not until the society’s Diwali show, ‘Ujala’, that I was able to become more interested in my religion and culture. The true significance of why we celebrated it was explained with a play followed by an interactive talk. Afterwards I commended the members of the committee on such a brilliant event. They told me that I should apply to be on the sub-committee if I wanted to help out. At first I was unsure of the responsibility so early on in my university life. However, they persuaded me and by November I gained the position of PR on the society’s sub-committee.

I enjoyed being on the committee as I got to know the other members quite well and played a part in organising and promoting the Hindu Society’s annual ball, ‘Roshni’, which was a good experience. However, the highlight was when the sub-committee was left in charge to organise a Holi event. At times it was stressful but in the end it was rewarding because the event was a huge success.

In second year I got introduced to another society called Krishna Consciousness Society (KcSoc) where every Tuesday evening a group of about 20 students got together and had informal spiritual discussions. The discussions were mainly based on the Bhagavad Gita, which is an important Hindu scripture. I enjoyed KcSoc as I learnt a lot more about the basics of spirituality and aspects of Hinduism and since then have been reading related books whenever I have had time.

In my second year, the new Hindu Society committee introduced a weekly worship known as ‘aarti’. I vaguely knew the words of the prayer as I had sung it before at various festivals. What I liked about this was that I could come here once a week in this spiritual environment and forget about the hustle and bustle of university life. Sometimes there were also talks on an aspect of Hinduism or a yoga class which I really enjoyed as I invariably learnt something new.

Last year my interest in my faith and religion took up about 2 evenings a week and hence played quite a significant role in my student life. Of course the main reason why I participated was to practice Hinduism and to learn more about it, but the events were also very sociable and a nice catch-up with people I wouldn’t otherwise see in lectures.

Later on in the year I joined the committee of National Hindu Students Forum (NHSF). I felt it would be a new challenge so I applied and got a role on the PR team. I believe that my involvement with NHSF has meant that I now have more knowledge about the Hindu faith. So when I come home and we celebrate certain Hindu festivals, I am more aware of why we are doing what we are. I look forward to being part of NHSF this year and I hope to carry on going to the discussions at KcSoc as well as the weekly Hindu Society aarti. Over the past 2 years I have definitely gained a greater understanding about my religion and culture and I hope this continues throughout my student life and beyond.

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