Happy new years

On 13 April, the holy northern Indian town of Haridwar saw a Puma Maha Kumbh, a gigantic religious mela of a crore devotees crowding to take a dip in the Ganga where it emerges into the plains. Now, this event is defined by the lunar calendar, and the gathering of the religious did not really care that it was in fact 13 April. However, the national Anglophile press of India insisted on calling it "the century´s last Maha Kumbh".

This mixing of calendric apples and oranges is symptomatic of the English-speaking upper class schizophrenia when it comes to identity and interests. And it pushes us once again in these columns to insist that the distinction between the local calendars of the Subcontinent and those of the Gregorian era be maintained. While we have no wish to question the unassailable position the latter calendar has secured in our lives, we only wish to alert the English-speakers amongst us not to assume that the billion-plus South Asians are going into any swoon over the upcoming transition from 1999 to 2000. This is someone else´s millennium, by and large, and let us not get carried away by the hype that will doubtless get more intolerable as the months roll on.