Dear Friends,
As per the Hindu lunisolar calendar, I turn forty one with the “Aadi Krithigai” star falling today1. As a student of food systems and the civilizations that birthed them, It’s fascinating to observe how calendars shape our view of time, agriculture and civilization.
The Gregorian calendar tracks the Earth's journey around the Sun. The Hindu calendar2 tracks the Earth’s journey around the Sun3 and the Moon4, making it both an almanac for agronomy planning and monsoon prediction5 simultaneously.
The month Aadi (ஆடி) has deep agrarian significance as it marks thanksgiving for irrigation at the nick of time when cultivation season begins.
Traditional taboos in the month of Aadi - inauspicious for weddings and new ventures-acquire a new meaning when you consider its agrarian significance. With cultivation beginning at this period, it is labor-intensive season. Households are absorbed in fieldwork and the season is uncertain. Why take risks with celebrations and expenditure until the crop is sown and the horizon is set?
Fundamentally, Indic civilization is deeply agrarian.
Even the gods celebrated during this month -Mariamman and the village goddesses- are essentially about propitiating the mother goddess for good rain, a fertile field and a healthy household during the sowing season.
I’ve never deeply considered the significance of my birthday coinciding with the sowing season. Is there a meaning?
I don’t know about you.
For me, birthdays are quiet signposts to celebrate with near and dear ones and ponder: What on earth are you here for?
When you have enough grey hair in your head, you realize that it doesn't matter whether you believe
a) Universe has meaning in the curvature that makes space bend
OR
b) Universe is expanding meaningless space in which the Earth spins like a mad spinning top.
Meaning is imbued by the self, and you can cook up any cockamamie story you want to. Every time I wake up and hit the mat for my Yoga practice, I breathe and discover that meaning is a question of choice.
What am I here on Earth for? The other day a friend, in a moment of true candour, characterized me with a label that was particularly interesting: Millennial Slogger.
I come from a civilisation where work is considered as one of the paths to existential liberation/freedom/enlightenment. And I feel blessed to discover work that feels as salivating as the bumble bee drinking its own honey.
Sree Narayana Guru describes the culmination of Yoga thus:
"When mind, the bumble bee, sips the honey-like sweetness of one's own bliss, fluttering ceases and it is drawn into union."
Work becomes a slog only when there is no honey to taste. Work becomes bliss when it is yoked inside. Of this I am convinced: Any sufficiently advanced systems change is indistinguishable from Yoga.
As long as I practice Yoga, I will share the honey I discover in these spaces to the readers of Krishi.System. It has been a ritual in these spaces to offer a special gift to readers of Krishi.System on my birthday.
This year is no different. You get forty one percent discount, if you take up the Annual subscription of Krishi.System.
If you don’t want to suffer through the notorious Stripe’s indifference to Indian credit cards, you are most welcome to sign up through Nas.io or or paypal or UPI (venkat.raman.kr@icici) and pay the annual subscription (8500 INR/95 USD) after taking into account 41% discount (please do your math) with your email in the comments.
I will enable access immediately across Nas.io (where Community engagements will kickoff) and you will get complimentary access to paid Substack content and Nas.io Community in one single membership.
P.S. Supporting this work doesn’t have to come out of your pocket. If you read this as part of your professional development, you can use this email template to request reimbursement for your subscription.
You also get forty one percent discount in all the products I sell in my gumroad account (Type this discount code: G1GQYHX at the check out)
Yoga of LinkedIn (incase you are curious about how I play with Social Media through the principles of Yoga)
I turn 41 today. One short of discovering the answer to the ultimate question of life, universe and everything. This year should be fun:)
Love,
Venky
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As per the Gregorian calendar, I turn forty one on Monday.
In contrast to the Hindu calendar which tracks Sun and Moon simultaneously, Islamic calendar tracks the Earth’s journey around the Moon fully.
The solar reckoning tells the farmer which season has turned. The solar nakshatra period tells him/her which thirteen-day window he/she is in and what rain to expect.
According to Vrikshayurveda and traditional agricultural sukti texts, seed collection, seed treatment, planting, grafting, and transplanting each have their favored lunar phases. Waxing-moon operations were held to favour vigorous vegetative growth, waning-moon ones to favour root and storage. This was later rediscovered as biodynamic agriculture.
Varahamihira's Brihat Samhita has whole chapters on garbhalakshana, the "conception" of clouds, observed during particular nakshatras in the pre-monsoon months. Clouds that form under the right nakshatra are said to "deliver" their rain a fixed count of days later, around the corresponding nakshatra in the monsoon season. Krishi-Parashara does something parallel. It assigns each year a ruling planet and predicts the season's rainfall quantity from that lord, measuring the expected rain in adakas.
Happy Birthday, Venky! More power to you.
happy happy birthday mama 💕💕