Celebrations of New Year

Being a multicultural diversified country, India celebrates occasion of New Year many a times in a year. So this day i.e. first day of Hindu calendar month Chaitra, which is falling on 21st March 2015 is one of them. This day is celebrated in most part of India in different ways with great fanfare and sumptuous feast,  and here are my best wishes:

Happy Vikram Samvat 2072
As this day marks the beginning of Hindu new year which is based on Luni-Solar calendar. Hindu calendars followed in North India – especially in Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkand, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Delhi and Chhattisgarh.

Chaitra Navratri or Vasanta Navratri or Rama Navratri
This day also marks the beginning of Chaitra Navratri which is nine days festival begins on first day of Hindu calendar month Chaitra. Rama Navami, the birthday of Lord Rama usually falls on the ninth day during Navratri festivity. Hence it is also known as Rama Navratri.

Happy Chet-i-Chand
Cheti Chand is a festival celebrated as New Year’s Day by Sindhi community of India and Pakistan to honour of the birth of Ishtadeva Uderolal, popularly known as Jhulelal, the patron saint of the Sindhis. This will fall on second day of Hindu calendar month Chaitra.

Gudhi Padvyachya Hardik Shubhechcha (Happy Gudi Padwa )
This is how Maharashtrian celebrates it. You can see many a Gudis sticking out of window or terrace or right side of main entrance in traditional Maharashtrian households. Bright green, saffron or yellow cloth adorned with brocade (zari) tied to the tip of a long bamboo over which gaathi (sugar crystals), Neem leaves, a twig of mango leaves and a garland of red flowers is tied. A silver or copper pot is placed in the inverted position over it.

Navve varsache shubhashay, Samsar padvyache shubhashay (Happy Samvatsar Padvo)
This is how Hindu Konkanis celebrate in western Indian coastal region like Goa, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala.

Ugadi Subhakankshalu (Happy Ugadi)
Andhra Pradesh and Telangana celebrates it with the name of Ugadi.

Yugadi Habbada Shubhashayagalu (Happy Yugadi)
Karnataka celebrates it with the name of Yugadi. The name is derived from the Sanskrit words yuga (age) and ādi (beginning): “the beginning of a new age”.

Nava baras ri badhaiyan (Happy Thapna)
Thapna is a New Year as per Rajasthani calendar (Marwari Miti). Starting with 1st day of Chaitra Shudh.

Sajibu nongma panba or Meetei Cheiraoba
It is the festival of the people who follows the sanamahism religion of the Indian state of Manipur. The day, begins with ritual offerings of fruits, vegetables, rice and other uncooked food items to the Meitei deity Lainingthou Sanamahi during the early morning of the festival.

Navreh
Navreh is the celebration of new year in Kashmir. The Kashmiri pandits, visit the sacred spring of Vichar Nag to take the holy dip on this auspicious day. They also make new a new almanac and a scroll called ‘Kreel pach’ on this day.

Navroz Mubarak
Navroz is the name of the Iranian New Year which is celebrated by Parsi community in India.

Nyepi and Ngembak Geni
Nyepi is a Balinese “Day of Silence” that is commemorated according to the Balinese calendar. It is a Hindu celebration mainly celebrated in Bali, Indonesia. The day following Nyepi i.e. Ngembak Geni is also celebrated as New Year’s Day. On this day, the youth of Bali practice the ceremony of Omed-omedan or ‘The Kissing Ritual’ to celebrate the new year.

Next set of Indian new year celebrations will mostly fall on 14th April 2015 i.e. first day of Hindu calendar month Vaishakh.

The Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi

I just completed reading this wonderful book.

The Immortals of  Meluha is a fiction by Amish Tripathi. This book is first of the Trilogy on Lord Shiva, a fierce warrior, a passionate lover, an accomplished dancer and a wise philosopher. This is an interesting adaptation of great Indian mythology from human perspective i.e. The simple man whose karma recast him as our Mahadev, the God of Gods.

Though it’s a fiction, you might believe in it, the way author explains the concept behind Somras, origin of ‘OM’, invention of ‘Trishul’, ‘Har Har Mahadev’ and so on. Also it will impart you some knowledge on Indus valley civilisation, Sapt Sindhu, Suryavanshis, Chandravanshis, ancient caste system and so on.

A web presence for this trilogy can be found here.

Check out a wonderful video teaser here:

It’s a believable realistic approach, An intelligent approach to serve mythology which is digestible. A wonderful read. And yeah I must say, Don’t read it for mythology, read it for entertainment and you will love mythology.

Now I am eagerly awaiting for second installment of this trilogy to meet Nagas and to learn their secrets 😉

Indian Rupee got a Symbol

Like any other global currencies our own Indian Rupee also got a symbolic identity now. Here is the symbol which will mark its move into currencies history:

This design is created by D Udaya Kumar who is a post graduate from IIT. He will get an award of Rs 2.5 lakh which was declared y the finance ministry for the finally selected design. This design was selected by a five-member jury set up to finalize the symbol.

The Indian rupee is now the fifth currency in the world to have a distinct identity and it will join the elite club of US dollar, British pound, European Euro and Japanese yen to have its own symbol.

If you notice the new symbol then it clearly represents the Roman letter “R” as well as Devanagti letter “र”. Also the upper two black lines including the middle white space gives the impression of tricolor of Indian flag.

Soon this symbol will be printed on Indian currency note and embossed on coins.

Now I am waiting to see this symbol to be incorporated in Unicode charcater list or some font creator expert can create it using font creation tool as soon as possible so I can use it easily with my laptop 🙂

Here is some trivia about Indian Rupee:
According to historians the first ‘rupee’ was issued by Emperor Sher Shah Suri in the 15th century. One rupee was equivalent to 40 copper paisas then. The rupee is believed to be derived from the Sanskrit word raupya, which means silver.

Updates (19Jul2010): I got the font file also to mention `. Check here for font file and detailed instruction to apply the same.

Determine Your Passion with FemmeHire

FemmeHire is for the women created by a women Karishma Daswani.

Its a Job site where a job provider can post their hiring requirements i.e. jobs/passions while a job seeker can browse through the available jobs and apply for it. The differentiator is that its only targeted for pretty women.

It can be followed on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

So ladies, go and satisfy your passion with FemmeHire.

Flipkart: The Book Store at Your Door

Flipkart is Bangalore based online retail book store where you can search books by title, author in an intuitive user interface and get it shipped to your home in a discounted price.

This is one of the biggest online bookshop in India for best prices and shopping for all kinds of rare books, discounted/cheap books, textbooks, novels and general interest books which provides free shipping on all books if total order amount is more than Rs. 100 otherwise Rs. 30 are charged as shipping charges.

Payment can be done using Debit Cards, Internet banking, Damand Draft or Cheque.

Online book store is quite competitive space with other players like Amazon, Pustak, IndiaPlaza, Landmark, FirstandSecond, Strands and InfiBeam are also in same band. But Flipkart is doing quite good here.

Go checkout some books and flip some pages at Flipkart.