Fool's Paradise - Why April Fool's Day

Come April 1st, every year, we celebrate what’s known as April Fool’s Day. And while I was busy reading through a serious technology blog today, a post that appears to be a prank on the audience, few would like to delve into the truth around why this day is marked so, on the calendar. We all simply just laugh it off.

I would like to retrace the origins of the modern calendar. That was commissioned by Pope Gregory in 1582. Little known to most, the calendar was designed around whimsical fancies, that a year must have precisely ten months, because the decimal system is easy to follow, and because the unscientific couldn’t follow how many days a month must have, each month was designed to have just 28 days. Which to them, seemed scientific, because while women in western society were subjugated to being the machines that produced children, the 28 day cycle which was also in sync with the phases of the moon was a good indicator for when a man must return home from the hunt, in order to have opportunity to father more young.

Life in the roman west was primarily barbaric. What we read today, as history about “The Stone Age” and the caveman, was just about how “man in the west” led his life. Feeding off the carcass of dead animals, often not knowing how to cook, and the woman was none other than the home-bearer who was the “pride” of the hunter, thus, often fought for, while she was relegated to a life without strength. Thus, referred to as “the weaker sex”. And this was also true, because much of life was spent in expecting and fostering the young, and expanding families, that the man became a natural protector of the household.

Meanwhile, in the east, the Mughals had begun their journey of taking over the Indian sub-continent, which had largely been a peaceful and spiritual state, known all over the world for its development, growth and progress. The land known as “Aryavratta”, or the land of light, was home to saints and seers, of people who would follow religion, spirituality and implement Vedic sciences in education, medicine, communication, travel, transport, agriculture and every other aspect of what can be called “civilised living”. Women have been regarded with the highest status. And the 16th Century mystic and Saint, Guru Nanak is remembered to have quoted, “From Her, Kings are born.”

It was this time around when the west, that had set it’s eyes upon invading India, and conquering the land and its value systems for personal vested interests, that they attacked every valuable science that the continent had to offer and replaced it with their own. And the calendar was a first among the attacks.

The Indians celebrated New Years according to Chaitra Shukla Pratipada – marked as the Day of Creation, of when the Universe came into existence. Although the years of the newly commissioned Gregorian calendar were not very different from Vikram Samvat basis, but it grew quickly apart because of the difference in the length of the months.

This is just the beginning... Read the full post on my blog at this link with the title "Fool's Paradise".