Happy New Year, dear readers. Since we follow the Gregorian calendar in everyday life, I thought it might be nice to retell an Indian calendar story to start the year with. An extra month comes by in the Indian lunar calendar every 32 months. To be precise, it comes around every 32 months, 16 days and eight ghadis, a ghadi being a unit of 24 minutes. The extra month was created to synchronise the lunar calendar, which has 354 days, with the solar calendar, which has 365 days.
Back then, everybody knew that the talas or musical rhythms, also born of time, had names and personalities. Just as the regular months of the lunar calendar had names and personalities. They were in this order, Chaitra, Vaisakh, Jyestha, Asadh, Shravan, Bhadra, Ashvin, Kartik, Agrahayana, Paus, Magh and Phalgun. Each month had 30 or 31 days and the calendar usually began with Chaitra on March 22 in regular years and on March 21 in leap years.
With so much to remember already, nobody had time to bother with the extra month. They called it Adhik Maas, the additional month, and that took care of that. But the spirit of Adhik Maas minded very much. ‘I don’t have a proper name,” it mourned, “although I am the quickstep trod between the stately measures danced by the sun and the moon. But do I belong to anybody? No, I don’t. Where are my feasts and festivals? Nor do I belong to the gods. Do they even know I exist? It’s disheartening being the thirteenth month and showing up at different times of the year, every 32 months, 16 days and eight ghadis. I confuse and irritate people and they say things like, “Oh no, it’s the additional month again. Fasts, charities and austerities, can’t do this, can’t do that. Adhik Maas is a bother and a bore.” I’m not unfair, I quite see their point of view and I don’t exactly blame them. But I can’t help feeling very low.’
One year, Adhik Maas fell between June 17 and July 16. It should have been a happy time that year at least for that’s when the rains came and the country waited eagerly for the monsoon to blow away the dust of summer and wash everything as good as new. But the rains failed that year. The burning sun of summer seemed to reach its zenith far too soon and to stay there for an unreasonable number of hours before it reluctantly came down. The people had a terrible time, for hope deferred made the heart sick. It also made stomachs sick, with food that spoilt within minutes despite being kept in cool places, and it gave them all the most blinding heat headaches. Oh, how the people suffered that never-ending Indian summer. “They’re suffering doubly because of me,” thought Adhik Maas wretchedly. “The fasts and hold-backs prescribed for my time with them are hard enough in any season. But in this terrible heat—oh, I can’t bear their suffering! I’m sorry, dear people, I’m so sorry,” wept Adhik Maas. But of course, nobody could know that and poor Adhik Maas had to hear double the number of curses.
One evening, when the whole afternoon had gone by hearing the most dreadful things about itself in angry voices of every age, Adhik Maas crept miserably to the local Vishnu or Hari temple. A crowd had gathered, washed and combed, wearing flowers and fresh clothes the way one must ideally show up in a God’s house, with the right attitude of thanksgiving. Besides dropping by to greet the Gods, the crowd intended to stay and hear the old Pauranikar or story-teller, a famous man in the region, expound the Hari Katha that evening at their temple. Listening to the stories of Hari always put everyone in a good frame of mind and the sweet smells, the gaiety and beauty of the Vaishnava temple, and its excellent prasad, would all be made even more pleasurable by listening to a really good story after devotions were done.
That evening, somebody in the audience, a bright girl in a red skirt with two long, glossy black plaits hanging down her back, had a question for the Pauranikar. “Every month in our calendar is dedicated to a deity, grandfather,” she said respectfully. “Which deity does Adhik Maas belong to, please?”
“Nobody,” said the Pauranikar. Talk about being publicly shamed. Adhik Maas wished passionately that it had a mortal body just so that it could dash its head on a granite pillar. Adhik Maas lingered forlornly at the temple after everybody had gone home. It saluted Vishnu in his shrine and told him sadly, “I belong to nobody and that makes me an orphan.”
Hari understood how it felt. He said lovingly, “No, you belong to me. And I shall say so to the priests at Ujjain in their dreams. They are the ones who measure time and make the calendar.” That’s how Adhik Maas came to be also called Purushottam Maas or God’s Month and felt at peace with eternity.By and by, the people gave Adhik Maas a lovely festival, too. The Radha-Vallabhi sampradaya, a sect centred in Vrindavan, began to celebrate Vishnu’s eighth avatar, Krishna, on the last day of Adhik Maas with Vyahula’ the splendid allegory of Radha and Krishna’s mystic marriage.
The Vyahula rejoiced in a happy atmosphere with sangeet seva or an offering of music through songs, sung to the beat of a dholak drum and chimta, iron tongs to mark the beat. Women got up and danced in joyful nritya seva or offerings of dance before the beautifully dressed, flower-wreathed images of Radha and Krishna. Rich and poor sat and sang cheerfully together and shared prasad afterwards.The spirit of Adhik Maas was thus completely satisfied and so were the people, who really did not care for a month without a pleasant festival or two in it.
(shebaba09@gmail.com)
Renuka Narayanan