Jan 2, 2020An Interview with Ajaita Shah, a Young Jain Professional, Social Entrepreneur & Social ActivistModerated by Priyanka Shah, Editor-in-Chief, YJPerspectives Ajaita Shah is the founder and CEO of Frontier Markets. Founded in 2011, Frontier Markets is a rural marketing, sales, and service distribution company focused on providing access to affordable and quality consumer durables to low-income households in emerging markets. In line with its…Social Entrepreneurship8 min read
Jan 2, 2020Everyday WellnessBy: Varuska Patni As I got older, my concept of wellness and how I incorporate it into my lifestyle has evolved over the years. Simply put, I view wellness as the opportunity to remain healthy in various avenues of life (i.e. physical, emotional, spiritual, environmental, etc.). Since wellness encompasses so…Wellness3 min read
Jan 2, 2020Finding Good in an Interconnected SocietyBy: Monika Kothari Warning: This article contains major spoilers for The Good Place, the television series starring Kristen Bell and Ted Danson as denizens of a utopian afterlife. (But to be clear, if you haven’t been watching the show, at this point you have no one to blame but yourself.)…Interconnectedness5 min read
Jan 2, 2020The Best of Both WorldsBy: Vatsal Gandhi I spent the first 17 years of my life in South Mumbai, within a tightly knit, mostly Gujarati-Jain community. Although there are a lot of Jains spread out across the city and its suburbs, the Jain community in South Mumbai is a small group, well-to-do and fairly…India Usa5 min read
Jan 2, 2020Bi-Cultural CrisisBy: Aparna Sagaram As children of immigrants, many of us struggle to fully assimilate with both Indian culture and American cultures. This is called the bi-cultural identity crisis, and the effects this has on mental health can be very damaging. Many children of immigrants grow up afraid to embrace and…Biculturalism2 min read
Jan 2, 2020Self-Discovery in the Throes of Mental IllnessBy: Anvita Jain Imagine being fresh out of college, about to start the job of your dreams and move to a new city. In July 2016, I moved to Dallas to start my first job as a Business Analyst at Capital One. To say I was excited about this new…Mental Health4 min read
Jan 2, 2020Space in the CityBy: Preeti Shah The astronauts have landed in Times Square. The milky way is freckled on the steel grey face of skyscrapers. A whole gaping city, its mouth full of space. Asteroids stream of jaywalkers, with their daily shuffle, jaded saturation of rhythm. Obsidian can be found sparkling in the grit and caulking of all the homeless corners. We see each other, our anti-gravity, our eye contact fluxing. Our kind words suck into the worm hole of subway tunnels. We see each other, and sometimes nothing; just the darkness of space.Poetry1 min read
Dec 6, 2019My Culinary Journey: Spreading a Healthy &Compassionate LifestyleBy: Priyanka Shah One of my earliest memories of food was watching the compassion my mom put into its preparation. I remember her carefully separating cilantro leaves before chopping to check for any creatures who may have made the micro-forest of a bunch their home. She would pack a Jain…Compassion7 min read
Sep 24, 2019Jainism & PoliticsBy: Naman Shah If your experience is similar to mine, we’ve met Jains at all ends of the political spectrum — from far left, to far right, to plain apathy. Religion and politics are two domains where our values, and sometimes our emotions, can be expressed both collectively and through…Jainism5 min read
Sep 24, 2019Standing Up or Lying Down: A Shravak’s ChoiceBy: Saurin Shah I always viewed Jain laity as a lifelong dilemma: even though shravaks and shravikas are afforded concessions, anyone who attempts to follow Jain teachings will eventually have to confront the decision to persist in or desist from the karmic cycle. Anyone who remains in their worldly life…Spirituality4 min read