A new year has started.

ಯುಗಾದಿಯ ಶುಭಾಶಯಗಳು

It signifies the first day after the new moon in the month of Chaitra.

Our calendars don't just go by days, they go by tithis: the position of the moon in the waning and waxing fortnights. The moon actually entered prathama/padya yesterday morning and will enter dwitiya/bidige by 10:17am today.

But we celebrate it today because of sunrise!

A tithi is a measure of time to achieve a 12 degrees separation between the sun and the moon. Because of varying speeds of the earth and the moon around their orbits, a tithi can be anywhere between ~20 to 26 hours.

So a tithi does not coincide with a 24 hour day in any nice way. Its duration is not abstract: it is concrete, and depends on the physical world and empirical observation.

In a sense, this is how science started; in understanding periodicity around us, in our daily lives.

Of course, if our lunar days are not fixed duration time, our lunar months are neither. But the guarantee is repeatability: we know where the sun and the moon are with respect to each other.

The primary use of a calendar is the harvest. That we nailed. Unlike the western calendar with fixed 24 hour days (well, we can't be too critical as we all use this system now).

Our new year reminds us of our calendars (plural), and the wisdom of the ancients.

Getting a calendar right is a civilisational accomplishment. That we have not one but multiple calendars shows how diversity is built into this civilisation.

We will differ. It does not mean you are wrong, but that we are both right. This is the essence of the India.

Let me stop here and wish you a Happy Yugadi.

I will be back tomorrow to wish you again, for another Indian calendar :)