Suman K Sharma
The song and dance about the New Year Eve is now over. Since the 1st of January, 2024, we find ourselves gearing up for yet another round of happenings and happenstances. What has changed? The earth looks the same, the sky looks the same and so do we. But the similitude is an illusion. Good or bad, the year 2023 is now history. We are not what we have been and will be. The Romans, with their penchant for symbolism, named the first month of their calendar after Janus. This god has his one face looking backwards and the other forwards. The past and the future lie subsumed in the timeless present. On the wheel of Time, we are but ephemeral riders.
Going by that, every day, in fact, every moment, could be considered the starting point of a new trajectory of our destiny. Every passing day may then be called ‘new’ because it does not recur throughout the year. That is how it is. The Babylonians began their year after the spring equinox that occurs in mid-March. The Assyrians celebrated the arrival of a new year in mid-September, as did the Egyptians, the Phoenicians and the Persians. The Greeks heralded a new year on the 21st of December, signifying the beginning of the winter solstice. Our Chinese neighbours will be welcoming the New Year 2024-2023 on the 10th of February. As for the 1st of January being considered universally as the start of a year, there lies a bit of history. The Romans began their year on the 1st of March, till an uprising in the Hispanic provinces of Rome in 153 BCE forced the Consuls (the highest elected public officials of the Republican Rome) to take office from the 1st of January. Thence the day was designated as the beginning of a year. The world continues to follow the dictate down the millennia.
Gone are the colonists, but not their hold on us.
Even so, in our land of varied cultures and religions, the New Year Day is traditionally celebrated under different names on different dates. In J&K and other states in North India, it is called ‘Baisakhi’. The festival will be celebrated on the 13th or 14th of April. Hindus and Sikhs in Assam, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab, Odisha, Tripura and West Bengal as well as Puducheri and Tamil Nadu will also be celebrating the New Year Day on the 14th April, though the people in the two last named states call the festival by the name of ‘Puthandu’. Indian Muslims, as well as their brethren all over the world, observe the New Year Day on the 1st of Muharram, that falls in the month of July. The date keeps changing because the year according to the Islamic calendar falls short by 10-11 days of the Gregorian calendar. The Government of India follows the Vikrami Samvat that begins on the 1st of April and ends on the 31st of March.
Disparate peoples, different dates they celebrate their New Year Day on. We are not here to expound the reasons – cosmic or earthly – why a certain culture observes the onset of a new year on a particular date. Astronomers, astrologers and the pundits of arcane knowledge would do that much better. It is plain, however, to observe that a common thread runs through all such celebrations: the spark of hope – and a resolve – that the ensuing year will find each of us a person who is a worthier member of our community than he or she has been in the past. The rituals of cleaning of the immediate surroundings, the scrupulous cleansing of the body, the worship of deities, the light of lamps or lanterns (as the Chinese do), the consumption of special dishes prepared for the sacred occasion and the all-round purposefulness go on to create a suitable ambience to further that hope and resolve.
New Year Days are, after all, annual reminders to us that we are social beings. At the individual level, the day I was born is my very own New Year Day. It connects me with the close circle of my family and friends. At the provincial level, the Baisakhi connects me with the rest of people of Jammu taking dips in the nearby rivers in the morning and enjoying the piping-hot-crunchy-dripping jalebis in the evening. At the national level, the 1st of April connects me with my fellow Indians, reminding me that I have to file my ITR in time. And yes, at the global level, the 1st of January tells me that I have to be a worthy member of the ‘vasudhaiva kutumbkam.’
Follow our WhatsApp channel
