Or, is it new year? How far are we right in calling it new year? Is it new year for Europe, all right, but should we call it new year at all? Don’t we have our own new year on January 14th? How can any people have two new years?
Those who raise such questions are there, no doubt, but they are very, very few in number – less than ten per cent of people. Well, we have been used to the European calendar for almost two centuries now that it is difficult for us to give up the practice.
The government follows the European calendar for all its purposes, and so do all public sector undertakings. All the private undertakings follow suit. Though the government has announced ‘sakha year’, it is seldom practised. Tamil Nadu has announced Tiruvalluvar Era and it is printed in the calendars and government invitations. Yet, it is the European months which are remembered by people.
Even in the nineteenth century, when people were following the Tamil year and the Tamil calendar, the European year and the date were inscribed side by side with it. We can see this in all the documents produced in the period. The name of the Tamil year, month and the date were followed by the European date in the abbreviated form.
Even that practice was given the go by in mid-twentieth century, when only the date as per the European calendar was written in communications, except on ceremonial occasions.
Britishers used to celebrate new year as a gala occasion, but it was not in any way akin to the free for all of the modern days. It was a ceremonial affair, with the victorian formality, though there was no dearth of fun and merriment. In Delhi and other provincial capitals, the white officials accompanied by their spouses gathered in banquet halls which adored all big cities. The elite among the natives, those who were all able to get themselves close to the British officials, were also invited to such parties. The natives, though proud of the privilege shown to them, could seldom feel at home on such occasions. They seemed to have felt rather uneasy and self-conscious and sat with a feeling of outsiders peeping into a third person’s private affair. They enjoyed the drinks served, though. Even drinking was a formal affair, as they started with a toast for the Empire followed by the Emperor, the Viceroy and so on. This was followed by dancing, in which the officials and their consorts participated, the Indians watching self-consciously.
But to those who had nothing to do with the officials, new year meant nothing, except, perhaps, the holiday. The Indian public never celebrated the new year until the third quarter of the twentieth century.
Of course, we cannot say that the new year meant nothing to us, since it was the European calendar which was followed everywhere. Calendars and diaries were printed only according to the European calendar. Of course our daily sheet calendars displayed the European month and date prominently, but it also shows the Tamil date and the Islamic date. It also displays information regarding the star of the day and the phase of the moon and information regarding various festivals. This tradition is being followed till date.
We have no idea how prevalent the habit of maintaining a diary was among our people prior to the British era, except that the Moghul rulers have kept meticulous records of what transpired on a day to day basis. But, following the Britishers, many of our own men of prominence have cultivated the habit of maintaining diaries, some of which have become useful chronicle in understanding the social milieu of the day.
But such people are very few. It is easy to start writing the diary but it is difficult to continue to habit, which I have discovered to my own chagrin. Try however hard I might, I could never proceed beyond February. I believe only people with certain bent of mind can keep diaries.
Then why is it that people hunt for diaries? Even before the new year, people start hunting for calendars and diaries. There are people who display all the calendars, one beside the other. And go to any house, you can find at least half a dozen unused diaries. Still, they will not stop collecting them. When anyone offers a diary to me, I refuse with all politeness saying that I do not want a diary to be wasted. If at all I get one, I use it as a scrapbook. I required one or two of them while I was working but after that I have no use for them.
Coming to the celebration of new year, I do not remember to have any celebration till the second half of the last century. Of course there was the holiday to celebrate, with movies being released. More than that, there was little to do on the day.
Greeting cards were unknown. The custom of sending Pongal greetings was started by the Dravidian movement and it caught on with people vying with each other in sending greetings on the occasion. It was only after that the custom of sending greetings caught on. Now printing greeting cards has become a lucrative industry.
Special pujas were performed in the temples of Chennai. Outside Chennai new year was not such an important affair. Slowly the habit has spread to the district centres too. According to our anthropomorphic tradition of worship, the deity in all temples retire somewhere between 9 and 10.30 PM and get ready for the dawn worship after about 5 AM, both the occasions ritualistically observed with special hymns. No one will open the temple in between. Now even this age old tradition is changed and special midnight worship is conducted on the new year’s day.
As per our tradition, the day starts at sunrise and we have nothing to do with midnight. But nowadays even God Almighty seems to have changed his routine and is keeping a midnight vigil on the new year’s day.
Side by side with it, midnight revelry too has been going on, with drinking and dancing and youngsters racing in their two wheelers, menacing everyone.
Whether one accepts it or not, one has to take it as a reality. New year has come to stay with us, along with rituals designed for the occasion. Happy new year to everyone, let this year bring the much needed harmony into our families and the society at large. r
Those who raise such questions are there, no doubt, but they are very, very few in number – less than ten per cent of people. Well, we have been used to the European calendar for almost two centuries now that it is difficult for us to give up the practice.
The government follows the European calendar for all its purposes, and so do all public sector undertakings. All the private undertakings follow suit. Though the government has announced ‘sakha year’, it is seldom practised. Tamil Nadu has announced Tiruvalluvar Era and it is printed in the calendars and government invitations. Yet, it is the European months which are remembered by people.
Even in the nineteenth century, when people were following the Tamil year and the Tamil calendar, the European year and the date were inscribed side by side with it. We can see this in all the documents produced in the period. The name of the Tamil year, month and the date were followed by the European date in the abbreviated form.
Even that practice was given the go by in mid-twentieth century, when only the date as per the European calendar was written in communications, except on ceremonial occasions.
Britishers used to celebrate new year as a gala occasion, but it was not in any way akin to the free for all of the modern days. It was a ceremonial affair, with the victorian formality, though there was no dearth of fun and merriment. In Delhi and other provincial capitals, the white officials accompanied by their spouses gathered in banquet halls which adored all big cities. The elite among the natives, those who were all able to get themselves close to the British officials, were also invited to such parties. The natives, though proud of the privilege shown to them, could seldom feel at home on such occasions. They seemed to have felt rather uneasy and self-conscious and sat with a feeling of outsiders peeping into a third person’s private affair. They enjoyed the drinks served, though. Even drinking was a formal affair, as they started with a toast for the Empire followed by the Emperor, the Viceroy and so on. This was followed by dancing, in which the officials and their consorts participated, the Indians watching self-consciously.
But to those who had nothing to do with the officials, new year meant nothing, except, perhaps, the holiday. The Indian public never celebrated the new year until the third quarter of the twentieth century.
Of course, we cannot say that the new year meant nothing to us, since it was the European calendar which was followed everywhere. Calendars and diaries were printed only according to the European calendar. Of course our daily sheet calendars displayed the European month and date prominently, but it also shows the Tamil date and the Islamic date. It also displays information regarding the star of the day and the phase of the moon and information regarding various festivals. This tradition is being followed till date.
We have no idea how prevalent the habit of maintaining a diary was among our people prior to the British era, except that the Moghul rulers have kept meticulous records of what transpired on a day to day basis. But, following the Britishers, many of our own men of prominence have cultivated the habit of maintaining diaries, some of which have become useful chronicle in understanding the social milieu of the day.
But such people are very few. It is easy to start writing the diary but it is difficult to continue to habit, which I have discovered to my own chagrin. Try however hard I might, I could never proceed beyond February. I believe only people with certain bent of mind can keep diaries.
Then why is it that people hunt for diaries? Even before the new year, people start hunting for calendars and diaries. There are people who display all the calendars, one beside the other. And go to any house, you can find at least half a dozen unused diaries. Still, they will not stop collecting them. When anyone offers a diary to me, I refuse with all politeness saying that I do not want a diary to be wasted. If at all I get one, I use it as a scrapbook. I required one or two of them while I was working but after that I have no use for them.
Coming to the celebration of new year, I do not remember to have any celebration till the second half of the last century. Of course there was the holiday to celebrate, with movies being released. More than that, there was little to do on the day.
Greeting cards were unknown. The custom of sending Pongal greetings was started by the Dravidian movement and it caught on with people vying with each other in sending greetings on the occasion. It was only after that the custom of sending greetings caught on. Now printing greeting cards has become a lucrative industry.
Special pujas were performed in the temples of Chennai. Outside Chennai new year was not such an important affair. Slowly the habit has spread to the district centres too. According to our anthropomorphic tradition of worship, the deity in all temples retire somewhere between 9 and 10.30 PM and get ready for the dawn worship after about 5 AM, both the occasions ritualistically observed with special hymns. No one will open the temple in between. Now even this age old tradition is changed and special midnight worship is conducted on the new year’s day.
As per our tradition, the day starts at sunrise and we have nothing to do with midnight. But nowadays even God Almighty seems to have changed his routine and is keeping a midnight vigil on the new year’s day.
Side by side with it, midnight revelry too has been going on, with drinking and dancing and youngsters racing in their two wheelers, menacing everyone.
Whether one accepts it or not, one has to take it as a reality. New year has come to stay with us, along with rituals designed for the occasion. Happy new year to everyone, let this year bring the much needed harmony into our families and the society at large. r
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