3 months of 2025 have gone yet, I’m celebrating a New Year.
We, in India have many New Years to celebrate. The Christian’s celebrate January 1st as New Year and the other Indians have different days to celebrate their own new year.
Today, as a Maharashtrian, I bring in the year by hoisting a Gudi.
The Gudi is a piece of cloth draped around a stick and decorated with neemleaves ( for good health) Mango leaves, a sheaf of rice, a garland of sweet candy and flowers.
It is mounted outside the entrance of the house to symbolise the unification of the Southern clans under the banner of King Shalivahan.
Several years ago, when I used to mount the Gudi in my verandah, the vessel on top fell off and down 23 floors! I was horrified because such a thing had never happened before. I felt it was a portent of something bad to come. And sure enough, it did. That was the year when the freakiest things happened, chief among them being the 9/11 attack in New York. It affected our family because my daughter couldn’t return home for her Winter Break, setting off a completely different path for our family.
Since then, I’ve kept the Gudi indoors.
But there are lots of other Indians celebrating the start of the new lunar calendar. Some celebrate it as Ugadi, some as Navreh some as Cheti Chand.
There are still some more new year celebrations in mid-April : Baisakhi and Bihu.
These are just some of the New Years celebrated in India. There are many more which means that all year round, there is some Indian who has a New Year’s Day!
Happy New Year.
Ciao,
Twenty- five Seven 
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