As if, it is not already hard enough, to explain to my non Indian colleagues, who innocently ask,
"So when is your Indian New Year?"
For which I need to give a concise, no more than a minute answer, which would start "Indian New Year?? You must be joking.. See in India......" and go on and on covering everything from the multiple languages, cultures, traditions and their interplay, and their evolution of Indianism from BC to now what I See, have in their kindest spirits, now bestowed upon us the many many New Years...
All this only to get a response, which borders on, "Oh my God, why did I ever ask this question"
So now, every 5 years I have to also explain, why Tamil New Year, keeps changing, between January and April..
And as history has shown, with our highly competitive Indian political parties, always trying to beat the other..
What else could happen...
How about banning Diwali in TN, because there is a folklore in the North, that Diwali is celebrated for Rama's victory in Lanka?
Or may be we can call a truce and Thai New Year will be celebrated in the villages, and Chittirai New Year in the rest of TN?
Imagine the plight of calendar making community,on an election year??? May be they will print two sets of calendars..
The amount of time and money that would be wasted every change in CM, all just to redo the calendars.
How about an Board exam question, "Write about tamil culture?" So students writing about
Thai Tamil New Year, will be marked wrong if there is a change in power inbetween the gap of writing the exams and the corrections??
For what it worth, I definitely vote for Chittirai Tamil New Year, for the single reason that,
we already have holidays on Thai Thingal &enough delicacies to be dished out on account of Pongal......
The chittirai Tamil New Year is like the much needed summer showers, a festive way for kids to start the summer holidays, after a long hard school year
Whatever, life will go on, even if it is amidst all this chaos!!!
