My Unborn Ancestor!

My great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandfather was born on February 29, 1500. He would have been very lucky, if he was alive now. Not just because he would have become the eldest person in the world, but also because he would be the only one who has got no birthday. Funny, isn’t it? Now, at least a few of you may think that I am mad. I’m not. And what I speak can be the truth and the person whom I speak of can be your grandpa too.

On the 29^th of February in the year 1500, the whole world was following the Julian calendar. According to the Julian calendar, the day on which he was born was a valid date since it was a leap year. But according to the Gregorian calendar which came into existence in the late 16^th century regards the year 1500AD as a non-leap year. So, February 29 was an invalid date for that year according to the Gregorian calendar. My grandpa would have become so special for being a person who was not born theoretically. Unluckily, he is not alive now!

The Gregorian calendar, also known as the Western calendar, or Christian calendar, is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named, by a decree signed on 24 February 1582, a papal bull known by its opening words Inter gravissimas. The reformed calendar was adopted later that year by a handful of countries, with other countries adopting it over the following centuries. The motivation for the Gregorian reform was that the Julian calendar assumes that the time between vernal equinoxes is 365.25 days, when in fact it is presently almost exactly 11 minutes shorter. The error between these values accumulated at the rate of about three days every four centuries, resulting in the equinox occurring on March 11 (an accumulated error of about 10 days) and moving steadily earlier in the Julian calendar at the time of the Gregorian reform. Since the spring equinox was tied to the celebration of Easter, the Roman Catholic Church considered that this steady movement in the date of the equinox was undesirable.

“Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100; the centurial years that are exactly divisible by 400 are still leap years. For example, the year 1900 is not a leap year; the year 2000 is a leap.”

[Source: Wikipedia, The Online Encyclopedia]

 Let me come back to the topic, we were discussing. Since that grandpa of mine was not born, my ancestors after him were also not born. This indirectly implies that I was also not born. So, what you see shouldn’t be the real me and I would be some virtual creation that resembles human beings.

Funny, isn’t it? Well! I’m not anything virtual as I had just told. It’s like his birthday was shifted to a different day! My grandpa wouldn’t be able to celebrate his birthday on the real day as he was born. But the new calendar had conveniently set his birthday on March 10. How great it would have been, if I was able to say that I have a grandpa who had his birthday deleted from the calendar and that he has got a new day as his birthday.

Anyhow, for that lucky grandpa of mine who would be watching me typing this blog, sitting somewhere in the heights unreachable, I dedicate this blog to. And happy birthday in advance to him for his birthday this year!

And..
My dear grandpa,

            Sorry for being this late to post this about you. I had learned about your unfortunate fate just today. I had waited no moment to type and prepare this month’s blog post exclusively for you! So, please see that my university exam results will be really good this time when it comes by recommending God to make it fruitful. I will take this as a kind compliment to repay me for remembering you even after so many years after your death!

The festive season at hometown!

My hometown Ramapuram hosted a great festival at the Forane church today. The cyclone called as ‘Thaane’ had consumed many lives in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. It had also brought rainfall to the southern districts of Kerala. It had been raining till it was noon. But everything went calm by noon. I don’t know whether this is to be called as a miracle. It should be a miracle as many people say. While it was raining in the premises, the clouds drifted apart and the festive procession and the prayers went really fine.

Until a few years ago, this had been the festival for a huge lot of people. People had come from far and wide. Those who are related to this place and those who had once lived in this place had come for this festival. But when the people got accustomed to their busy job schedule, they had got no time to come for this great celebration. Anyhow, this year a giant mass was seen at the place.

I expected better management. The crowd went in two lines for the procession. But at times, it happened like the line broke off stuck in traffic and the people who went in the front continued with the procession without knowing that the people at their back were stuck in traffic.

There were fireworks at various places where it drew majestic designs up in the sky. The crowd contained not just the worshippers, but a huge lot of sellers who wanted to sell off their stuffs. The balloon sellers, the ice cream shops, the malabar sweet shops, the prayer book stalls and lot many shops filled up the church premises.

This festival is an occasion to meet the people far and wide together under the same roof. It’s a sort of family gathering rather than a spiritual festival. This is being conducted on the same date for years and so the regular flow of worshippers is not getting decreased. The working class, the rich masses, the middle class and the poor comes under the same roof during this fest. This is the celebration that people of the region can have at the end of the year to bid good bye to the current year and to welcome the new year with joy and prayer.

The church was constructed long ago and it had undergone many controversies during the construction of a third new church. Anyhow, people weren’t talking anything related to that during the time. The gossips, the chats, the telephone conversations and merry making went fine among the masses while the prayers and the rituals went smoother in the other side.

There were lots of fireworks and it was appreciable that the people had contributed too much to the smooth functioning of the festival. A huge amount of money should have been spent just upon the fireworks itself. The ordinary, the Chineese and the fireworks of various fashions drew designs and it had been great fun for the huge masses of people who assembled to enjoy it.

Since it’s on the way to Sabarimala, the roads were tarred in the recent and so it had helped the people to reach there with ease. The high school ground had a huge parking lot and so there was no difficulty for the people to park their vehicles. The town was shining in the sparkling glitter of the fireworks and the illuminations. This is something that one should never miss in life. I had seen people coming from far and wide taking too much of pain just to continue with their tradition of being at the forane church every year for this festival.

I extend my prayful greetings to all those who had come for the festival and to all those who had made promises to come.

And my hearty New Year greetings to you, my blog readers!

And thanks to all those who appreciate my efforts to scribble something on a notepad and then to type and upload it as a blog and upload it here!