The month of January marks the beginning of English New Year which is accepted and followed majorly across the world. English calendar was something which was been followed by us since the time of British rule India. The impact of this calendar has been such that even today after 64 years of independence we are away from our original culture and majority of us are not even aware of the Indian Calendar which is considered be much more scientific than the English calendar.
The Indian youth today is drifting apart from the culture and is getting attracted towards the fascinating western culture. It is sad that our generation do not even know counting in our mother tongue Hindi forget that they will ever know about the name of the months according to the Hindu calendar. It has been truly quoted by ‘Maithilisharan guptji’ that one who is not proud of his language and culture is no less than an animal and has no right to be called as a human being. After all what is the difference between an animal and a human?? The Indian Mythology states that Hunger, Sleep and Fear are three essentials of an animal as well as a human being. But the only factor which makes a human different is his religion.
It is been noticed that in the name of religion people often create disturbances in the society. It should be clear that every religion preaches that human being should spread love, live in harmony and share happiness. Religion makes a human being cultured and teaches him to follow his own tradition. It is saddening that Indian youth reluctantly follows their own culture and know little about the same. Our tradition encourages our religion and our religion encourages our tradition. For instance in western culture new year is being celebrated by partying out and consuming alcohol which unfortunately Indian youth has also adopted. The beauty of our tradition is that we welcome New Year by fasting and praying to god for the well being of our families, neighbourhood and society. Western culture believes in merely enjoying life but our culture teaches us to walk with our tradition and follow our religion. It encourages us to enjoy life but also to complete our ‘Karma’.
We celebrate New Year according to the English Calendar as it is tough for us to shed it off immediately as it is being followed since decades now. But, we all should at least be aware about our own tradition which besides mythological also has scientific reasons to celebrate every festival. New Year is being celebrated in winters according to western culture which is considered to be a lethargic and lazy season in our culture. Thus, in our culture we celebrate New Year during the spring season(April) which is said to be a time of rebirth, renewal and re growth. Welcoming the New Year in this season marks the beginning of new life with freshness and positivity. Interestingly, our academic sessions and financial year is also from April till March according to the Indian Calendar.
Talking about Calendar I would not forget to mention that the Gregorian Calendar (Western Calendar) which supposedly we all follow initially had just 10 months namely September the 7th month, October the eighth, November the ninth and December the tenth month. As this was not scientifically correct the July and August months were added up later on. The emperors and the rulers insisted in putting 31 days in both these months because of which the month of February was cut short to 28 days which also had 31 days earlier.
The beauty of Indian (Hindu) Calendar is that it moves according to the movement of the sun as well as the moon. According to the lunar calendar the months are divided into two parts i.e the ‘Krishna Paksh’ and ‘Shukl Paksh’. All our festivals are thus celebrated in either part of a particular month. The best thing about following this calendar is that even a person who stays in an isolated area and has no connection with any form of media can get to know about the festivals by just looking at the position and size of the moon. Our calendar is therefore considered to be scientifically stronger than the Gregorian calendar. Unfortunately, our generation has minimal knowledge about all this.
Keeping another viewpoint, the Roman numbers which lost its significance after the introduction of ‘0’ by Aryabhatta are still being taught in our schools but sadly the children are given least knowledge about the significance of the culture we follow the scientific and mythological reasons behind celebrating the festivals in India and so on.
I strongly feel that we are over-seeing the beauty of our culture and getting trapped in the western culture. We should understand that the environment, the society and the people of every country are different from each other and so is the culture. Our country has a culture which we should adopt proudly so that the coming generations are set free from the trap of the westernization which we were once upon a time forced to follow.
