Sunday, June 21, 2009

the longest day: solstice

jun 21st, 2009

the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, as the sun hits the tropic of cancer. this is the obverse of the makara sankranti, which i suppose means the karkitaka (cancer) sankranti will be pretty soon.

the end of uttarayanam, the beginning of dakshinayanam, the southward movement of the sun.

there was a brilliant film in malayalam, 'uttarayanam', by aravind, which is on my list of all-time greatest films: one about a young man who evolves into either a monk or a terrorist, the ending is ambiguous when he walks off after metaphorically burning the mask he has been wearing. the ills of indian society have turned this one-time idealist into a misanthrope.

of course, this is the rationale the chatterati give for the rise of the terrorist communists as in naxalites, maoists etc. i think there is a simpler explanation -- chinese and white christist money meant for dismembering india. a lot of naive young men fall for their siren songs, and then they start killing people and end up getting shot, while those who have been chivvying them on get magsaysay awards and lots of money.

nice job for the magsaysay guys. like that doctor fellow whom everybody was falling over themselves for. do see the pioneer columns by swapan dasgupta and chandan mitra today. good stuff.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/184299/Back-to-the-past-in-West-Bengal.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/184134/Fight-Mao-with-Mao.html




3 comments:

Raja said...

I think it should be "Karkataka" shankranti!

nizhal yoddha said...

perhaps. it's written 'karkitaka' in malayalam, but i guess i have seen the word 'kataka' used too, so you may well be right.

nizhal yoddha said...

incidentally, the months in the malayalam calendar are the astrological months:

chingam/simha/leo
kanni/kanya/virgo
tulam/libra
vr(u)schikam/scorpio
dhanu/sagittarius
makaram/capricorn
kumbham/aquarius
meenam/aries
edavam/vrishabham/taurus
mithunam/gemini
karkitakam/cancer

whence the malayalam year begins with chingam/leo: so our new year is in august (and it is not onam, either!) the calendar dates back to the founding of the town of kollam or quilon about 1400 years ago. this may well be the longevity of malayalam, too. it separated from tamil only a millennium ago. in fact, the malayalam script was invented as 'vattezhuthu' lipi or something along those lines so that devanagari could be expressed correctly for tamil speakers.