A Reflection on the Indian New Year - Ugadi, Vaisakhi, Puthandu, Vishu

 

The many cultures that make up this country teach us many things, including how different communities understand and measure time. Amartya Sen, who has written extensively on India’s many calendars, reminds us that time itself is plural. This becomes especially clear every mid‑April, when Indian communities in Malaysia celebrate New Year, but not on the same day. Different communities follow different calendars, and therefore mark the New Year on different dates.

In 2026, Vaisakhi (Punjab) falls on 13 April, Puthandu (Tamil Nadu) on 14 April, and Vishu (Kerala) on 15 April. Each festival marks the Sun’s entry into Mesha (Aries), yet each community follows a distinct astronomical tradition. The reason for these differing dates is explained below.

Why Mid‑April Is New Year for Many Indian Communities

Time, when left unmeasured, overwhelms human life. Early civilisations learned that time would slip beyond human control unless it was organised into cyclical, predictable patterns, such as the rhythms of the seasons, the arrival of the rains, planting, harvesting, and rituals. Calendars emerged as humanity’s way of domesticating time, making the cosmos legible, and aligning society’s agricultural, religious, and cultural life.

Across the world, three major systems evolved:

• Solar calendars — based on the Earth’s revolution around the Sun.
• Lunar calendars — based on the Moon’s phases.
• Lunisolar calendars — combining lunar months with solar corrections.

In Malaysia, the mid‑April Indian New Years such as Vaisakhi, Puthandu and Vishu, are solar. They mark the Sun’s entry into Mesha (Aries), which traditionally signals the agricultural and ritual new year.

Why the Dates Differ

All these New Year festivals—Vaisakhi, Puthandu, Vishu—are based on the same idea: the Sun entering Mesha (Aries) in mid‑April. However, the Sun's transition into Aries (Mesha Rashi) occurs at a precise mathematical moment. If this happens midday, after sunset, or at a certain time of night, different regional traditions may choose to celebrate the festival either on the current day or the following day. Because of these small differences, the New Year can fall one or two days apart. That is why in 2026. Vaisakhi is on 13 April, Puthandu on 14 April and Vishu on 15 April. Ugadi, which is the Telugu New Year, follows a luni-solar calendar. This is why it falls on a different date each year—typically in March or early April—based on the first new moon after the spring equinox.

In short, everyone is celebrating the same cosmic event, but each community measures it in its own traditional way.

A Reflection on Time and Human Community

These different dates reflect different approaches to time. Yet the passage of time itself is singular. The calendars may differ, but the human experience of hope, renewal, and beginning again is shared. As we observe these staggered New Years in Malaysia, we are reminded that we are diverse in our traditions, but united in our humanity—just as time is plural in its expression, yet singular in its flow. 

Each of us within a community or as individuals may be different, but our hopes, desires and expectations are the same.

Withdrawal as Resistance – A Recluse from News

 

Picture – Kings College, London

The world is bearing down on me. I can no longer endure the endless stream of news about wars and destruction, genocides and the killing of children—matters over which I have no control and can do nothing to stop. My health is being eroded; despair breeds depression.

What makes it worse is the way the media delivers these horrors. Headlines are crafted not to inform but to provoke. Death and destruction are narrated as sport with the same kind of commentary.

I refuse to be consumed by this. I have found a way of staying out of the world while still participating in its affairs. I shall not turn on the news from any source—radio, television, or the internet.

Or the continuous stream of forwarded messages.

I shall be a recluse. And I will not lose much, because what passes for “news” today is less about informing than about sensationalising.

Even when you ought to be alerted to something that truly matters—say, a meteor tearing down space onto your roof—the urgency gets buried beneath the carnival of exaggeration.

The alternative media, in particular, make a feast of every fragment: attractive, but empty of substance. Headlines are bait, analysis is shallow, and outrage is manufactured to keep us scrolling. The noise drowns out the signal.

So how shall I be involved with the world?

Fortunately, I have a daughter and young friends. I shall contract with them to inform me of any meteors, two-headed men, or other matters that demand attention.

They will advise me when I should sign a petition, add my name in protest, or lend my voice in agreement. In that way, I shall remain a recluse, but with trusted editors to filter the world and alert me only when conscience calls.

Iran War - The Burden of Knowing

 

The ravages of the illegal war against Iran are a heavy burden to live with while knowing our own species is capable of such profound barbarism. When we see the news of schoolgirls being murdered in their school, we aren't just worried about the price of oil or interruptions to international travel; we are questioning the very nature of who we are as a species and what kind of world we are leaving for our children.

We must also face the hard truth that we are not "outside" of this madness just because we are 6,000 miles away. Even within our own peaceful communities, there are those who believe that hate and violence against others are valid ways to build the society they envision. This toxicity knows no borders, for rather than find means to allow temples to be where they are, we choose to demolish them

Our duty as part of the human family is to prove that violence is not our only legacy. We change the species by refusing to become numb and by standing firm against the rhetoric of hate at home and abroad. We do it by teaching our children the tools of peace, demanding diplomacy over destruction, and practising radical empathy, dealing with our neighbours. Distance doesn't absolve us of responsibility; it gives us the stable ground to stand on and reach out. Every act of compassion is a vote for a different kind of humanity.

A thought for us all to consider:

In a world where conflicts can escalate so rapidly, how do we balance the pursuit of national security with the moral obligation to protect innocent lives across the globe? If the cycle of retaliation is left unchecked, what does that teach the next generation about the value of diplomacy and the possibility of lasting peace?