Every mosque in America must have bought that green, striped carpet on wholesale. I imagine there’s a warehouse for masjid furniture, complete with the white, spinning fans and the wooden shelving units along the walls to be filled with shoes and Qurans. At noon during the Friday before Ramadan, the imam announced, via a vacillating sound system, the first iftar that Saturday. Sometimes he’d follow with an intense session of auction-style fundraising for Syria: Which brother will write a check for $100 today?

Back at school, we were excited as children for the italicized text in the calendar of our planners announcing the start of Ramadan or Eid. Even in areas saturated with Muslims, we celebrated those victories of the western world acknowledging a part of our lives. We led class discussions about Ramadan and became attuned to explaining the same questions over and over: It is the month in which the holy book was said to be revealed to the Prophet. Islam follows a lunar calendar, so Ramadan is 10 days earlier each year. We fast for 30 days from sunup to sundown. We pray five times a day plus the extra prayers at night during the month. We try to remember God. No, not even water.

I completed my first fast when I was 11. Growing up in an Indian family, each milestone, religious or otherwise, must be acknowledged with a grand party and lots and lots of food. My cousin Ayesha and I, only 10 days apart, rose for the first time at 4 a.m. Our grandmother fed us six Malaysian parathas which we tried to force upon the other. My uncle spooned globs of plain yogurt, and we gulped down liters of water. We commemorated our fast with a party in her basement where we dressed like mini-brides and recited verses from the Quran.

That first fast was the easiest. We were barely preteens and finally felt like adults, participating in one of the pillars of Islam. There’s a purity in being young and performing a rite of passage, I think, and the guidance of our elders quenched any thirst we might have had. We looked forward to the iftars, breaking of the fast, in the evenings.

In the style of the Prophet, Peace be Upon Him, we pass dates from Saudi Arabia. Everyone has a preference. I like mine soft and chewy, some like the hard, dry kind, and if you’re Ayesha, you prefer to slide yours under the table for someone else to eat. After a short prayer at the exact minute of the sundown according to the internet, everyone eats their date or takes a sip of water. My friends who had visited Saudi Arabia during Ramadan talked about how people gave away little baggies with a date and water for everyone in the city to open their fasts.

Studies have revealed that it’s best to eat foods that are low fat and avoid sugars while fasting, but I’ve never met a desi who didn’t load the table with fried fritters, rice, sugary fruits, rose milk, samosas, chick peas and proteins drowned in oil. We all wondered why we never lost weight during Ramadan.

Afterward is the evening prayer and then a series of prayers during a few hours of the night. The imam recites passages of the Quran with the intention of completing the entire Quran by the end of the month. He’s usually a man who had studied for a few years to memorize the Quran. If we’re fortunate, he has a beautiful voice and has mastered the melodic tone of recitation.

After the taraveeh, food comas usually took over, but there were those nights where all the boys would go to the gym to play late night basketball and the girls would stay home for rounds of games until the sunrise. In the last hour of darkness, Ayesha mixed pancake batters and our fathers microwaved rice, maybe immune to the impending heartburn. Though these pre-dawn parties were fun on the occasion, most meals before the fast are small for me, and my brother has to practically drag me out of bed. I finish my Activia and pass out.

During the 30 days, a rhythm develops, though we complain about how many commercials have food in it. Over the years fasting has become more difficult with the hot, long summer days and school, but I still look forward to the same parts of it. I think the experience of fasting is one that everyone who has been given abundance should do, and it merits its own thousand words or so. It’s a time where a billion people share in remembrance of God, creation and the community. I can’t capture the exact feelings of Ramadan as well as I’d like to, but I hope anyone reading this knows that it’s about more than being hungry. Ramadan Mubarak to all.