How I Met My

heartwarming stories from the YJA network

long-distance best friend: diksha kurwa

Esha Singhai

At my first YJA Convention in 2018, I found an amazing group of friends who I was able to have fun with throughout the entire all-nighter. We played games and talked for hours, but around 6 am I had to come back to my room and pack up my suitcase. And after being up for almost 24 hours, I decided that I would take a nap before leaving. Half-awake and extremely exhausted, I started to open the covers when I saw a random girl already sleeping in my bed. I didn’t know who she was or how she got in, but I vaguely remember meeting her for a split second during the all-nighter. Weirded out, I left my hotel room, still extremely tired and without a place to sleep. About two years passed and I kept seeing this girl, Diksha Kurwa, on my Instagram because I had somehow followed her during the Convention. Every time I saw a picture of her I thought “Oh hey, that’s the weird girl that broke into my room and slept in my bed!” and moved on, never really making an effort to talk to her. When the pandemic hit, I started to join YJA’s game nights with my friends and got really involved in all of the events. During these events, we went into breakout rooms pretty often so I met a lot of cool people, including Diksha, the same girl that had slept in my bed two years ago. We had mutual friends and somehow started creating our own game nights once YJA had ended theirs. I started hopping on these weekly game nights throughout the summer and started to get really close with everyone on there. Diksha and I started talking almost every day and bonded over the fact that neither of us knew how she broke into my room. We soon became long distance best friends and have been through a lot together throughout the past year. From shipping holiday gifts to each other to Facetiming for hours on end, I’m extremely happy that YJA brought us together! :)

friend who became family: pavan zaveri

Chintan Shah

As a recent high school graduate at 17 years old in 2000, I traveled from Milwaukee, WI (where I was born and raised) on my first solo flight to LaGuardia airport in Queens, NY. There, I would get my first experience with the YJA Board to which I had recently been elected. I landed in NY and didn’t know a single soul. The only directions I had were to find the other Midwestern board member, a Jain girl from Chicago, at the terminal so that we could be picked up together for our first YJA Board Meeting. By the way, no one had working cell phones at the time. Fast forward to our arrival at the Board Meeting, at the home of one of the outgoing Co-Chairs. As I met my fellow Board Members, one person stood out, and not just because he literally (and in many ways figuratively as well) towered over everyone else in stature: Pavan Zaveri. Pavan had been a Board Member 10 years earlier, he was a current medical student, and he was the example of a knowledgeable, walk-thetalk Jain. He knew the history of YJA, he understood the challenges of the organization, and most importantly, he genuinely wanted to make a contribution to our community. I took notice and listened. I watched how he conducted himself, how he interacted with everyone and tried to learn as much as I could in the four short days we had together. I realized there was much to learn. He led many of the discussions but notably, he was asked to lead the Navkar Mantra each morning before we began our day. Over the following six months before our next Board Meeting, I spoke to Pavan often. I led the Midwest Region (while he led the South Region) and picked his brain about hosting regional events, programs that could engage young Jains, teaching Dharma and balancing social activities, among a host of other topics. YJA celebrated the 2700th anniversary of Mahavir Bhagwan’s birth that year with a “Play-in-a-box” that was performed at over 20 Sanghs around the country. Most people don’t know that the play was Pavan’s brainchild. As a Midwest Regional Representative, I was proud to help five Jain centers in the Midwest Region organize and perform that play. Fast forward once again, this time 21 years later. In the one year that Pavan and I served together on the YJA Board, we became close friends. Since then I’ve had the fortune of being a part of Pavan’s life as he got engaged, married, had two wonderful kids, became a JAINA Board Member, President of the Washington Jain Sangh and countless other milestones. And he in turn has been a part of many of those same milestones in my life. So much so, that as fate would have it, my own wife is related to Pavan’s. So as it turns out, while we started out as friends, we’ve now become family. While our friendship began with him serving as a role model, it has evolved into that of true friendship, with religious, family, and community bonds tying us closely together.