Gods, the Series: A crap recipe for french toast

Religion is an unavoidable part of everyday life in India. This article is a part of a light-hearted series on my encounters with India's many forms of worship. This time on Jainism.

My first and only encounter with the Jains in India was in Khajuraho. We had come here to see a very different type of worship - the ancient temples here are a famous tourist attraction celebrating life's many pleasures, namely sex, sex and sex.

Khajuraho is a very isolated place in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. Our journey was adventurous as usual and involved a train ride, a flat tyre and 100 kilometres of backtracking after the driver fell asleep and left our German friend Matthias to drive. Of course he had no idea where he was going so he just kept going straight until the driver woke up and proclaimed: "This not Khajuraho road."

Eventually, we made it to Khajuraho in one piece and accommodated ourselves in a very pleasant hotel recommended by the Lonely Planet. Authentic to its location, it featured a statue of a woman with big boobs in its courtyard. After dropping off our bags in the rooms, we met up in the hotel's lovely garden restaurant for breakfast. The menu was typical of any backpacker hotel in India - toast, porridge, parathas, juices, tea. I order French toast and look forward to filling my tummy.

What arrives is a rather disgusting piece of oily sweet bread. I ask the waiter how they make this "French toast". "Fry in sugar and milk, m'am." "There's no egg? How can you make French toast without egg?" "This is a Jain restaurant, m'am. No egg."

• So that would be lesson number one about the Jains: They don't eat eggs.

There's no meat either as the Jains are apparently strict vegetarians. There are around 4.2 million Jains around the world and most of them live in India. Just like Buddhists or Hindus, the Jains believe in reincarnation and their ultimate aim is to free their soul from the cycle of rebirth. They believe in non-violence and strive for the well-being of all living souls, including animals and plants. Unlike in other religions, all of these souls are considered to be of equal value. There are no Gods that could bring good fortune on people, so Jaininsm is a "help yourself" kind of religion. There are several Jain temples and holy sites in Madhya Pradesh, so that would explain the origin of my bad "French toast" in this part of India. A particularly nice Jain temple is meant to be in Ranakpur, in the Indian state of Rajasthan.

If you want to learn more about Jainism, click here: BBC Religion & Ethics - Jainism

And for those of you who are more interested in good French toast, here is how it's made: