A NewAge Calendar
“Thirty days of September, April, June and November, February has twenty-eight and all the rest have thirty-one.”
Most of the kindergarten (nursery) students have studied the above poem by heart to remember the days in each month and recited it several times. Do we have to teach the nursery students of the new generation the above poem? We don’t have to teach if we have the same number of days in each month. Yes! It is possible.
In ancient times, the so called English calendar (Gregorian calendar) had only 10 months. You may know that September is the 7th month, October 8th month, November 9th month and December 10th month. I have an opinion that there may be an Indian touch in the last 4 months. The Romans added July and August to the Gregorian calendar.
LET US MAKE A NEWAGE CALENDAR.
In ancient times, many countries had their own calendars. Different calendars included Byzantine, Jewish, Roman (later Gregorian), Babylonian, Japanese, Chinese, Greek, Indian and Islamic calendars. Even now certain countries have their own calendars. In India, there are local calendars for different regions, namely Saka calendar for the North, Tamil calendar for Tamil Nadu, Malayalam calendar for Kerala etc. Most of these calendars are based on moon cycle. One month is approximately equal to a moon cycle around the earth, ie 29 days. American astronauts who reached moon, told us moon consists of just some rock and sand. The moon does not have any scientific influenc on earth or on the people except that moon gives some moonlight at night. So, there is no need to attach the number of days of a month to a moon cycle.
We will device a calendar which has 28 days in each month. For the additional days in a year, we will add an extra month. So, the thirteen months, each with 28 days will have a total of 364 days in a year. There will be an extra day (29) in December. In a leap year, there will be an additional day (30) in December. In ancient times, some calendars had an intercalary (extra) month. The extra month can be named after a very important person (VIP), for eg. Washington in USA, Gandhi in India etc. The extra month may be added between August and September.
This Newage calendar with 13 months can be started in any year, for eg. Year 2022. The year 2022 starts with January 1st as a Saturday. So, every month, 1st day will be a Saturday. Each month will have only 28 days except December which will have 29 days. So, in the next year, 2023, January 1st will be a Sunday and December 29th will also be a Sunday. So, in the next year, 2024, January 1st will be a Monday. We have developed 2024 calender. In the next year, 2025, January 1st will be a Wednesday because the year 2024 is a leap year.
Advantages of this calendar
The nursery students do not have to memorize the above poem by heart any more since each month has only 28 days except December with one more day. So, it will be easy to remember.
Most of our national holidays are before 28th and so they are not affected. The Hindu festival holidays depend on Saka or local calendars, the Christian festivals except Christmas depend on the Jewish calendar and the Muslim festivals depend on Islamic (Hijra) calendar. So, the Newage calendar will not change the dates of the festivals. For workers, they won’t loose any of their holidays which can be adjusted easily. The school months can also be easily adjusted.
There won’t be any changes in astrology in different regions since they depend on the local calendars. The beginnings of winter, spring, summer and autum (fall) can be easily calculated.
Disadvantages
The Europeans and the English people may not like this calendar with 13 months. If the January 1st is a Sunday in a year, eg. 2023 or 2034, there will be Friday 13th every month. We may be able to tolerate that. Now, we have at least one Friday 13th in every year. But, some people consider 13 as their lucky number.
Some people may loose their birth anniversaries. (The leap year guys celebrate their birthdays only once in a leap year). However with the help of government departments, we could change the birthdays to the next available days. For eg. A birthday of April 30th can be changed to May 2nd, May 31st to Jun 3rd etc. There may have some difficulty in the beginning, but as time passes, people can adjust to the Newage calendar.
Go for the new calendar
This Newage calendar will be a great help for the new generations. Let us try to implement this calendar in the near future. Let the scientific community and the astronomers (not astrologers) discuss this new calendar. This Newage calendar can be implemented in any year in the future.