In Search of Time

I was born on Diwali night. My brother on Shivaratri. This is how we knew birthdays. This is when we actually celebrated birthdays. This is the mother would make payasam, we would offer 'archana' at the temple. The other date - the Gregorian date was just another day for us. I remember asking this question to mother - why is that the date is constant, but this Nakshatram date keeps changing - and she did not have an explanation. My native place is Kerala - very close to the place where Adi Shankaracharya was born. In our native village - all the references were usually connected to the Malayalam calendar - the rains, the summer, the weather, the birthdays. Some more on this as it occurs to me, but the Indian calendar has been with us, like a quite flowing river. Its time we dipped into it, perhaps!

I was working on 108% Indian. A set of creativity cards based on Indian philosophies, quirks and culture. And as part of this process, I went about collecting and eliminating things that would form a part of the card set. One card in that is the Indian Luni-solar calendar. While I was aware of the Indian calendar, I did not know much about it. From then on, it has been a mix of serendipity and deliberate reading. And one thing led to another - I decided to take up the exploration further. Where it will end up, time will decide, as will timing, but this is a step to chronicle my small steps towards getting there.