Fools' Day

April 1, 2010
Norman


To my SRMV College Friends,


Hi,
I am missing the get together. You guys enjoy well and send me the photos. I try to call you on your get together day. 

A small question. 

1) April 1 is celebrated as Fools' day. 2) Banks and financial ministries wind their account in the last week of March. There is an indirect connection between these two, whats that?

You guys try to find out that. Dudes who already know the answer may wait for others responses

(Next email)

Guys, 

Hope you had good week. I give answer to my previous question.

1. Fools' Day : There are many reasons for why April 1 is celebrated as fools' day, but the most accepted one is in earlier days Julian Calendar was in practice. In which the new year started on March 25, and the one week new year holiday ended on March 31. Later in ca.1582 A.D. France and other countries converted to Gergorian Calendar (what we practice now), in which the new year starts on January 1. At the time of conversion, people used to comment on few who still celebrated March 25 to March 31, Julian new year holiday. People called them "Fools" who returned to job on April 1 after holiday. 

2. Financial Year : UK, Canada, India, Japan etc, have official Financial year starts on April 1 and ends in March 31. Which reflects United Kingdom and it's colonies were practicing Julian Calander in Middle ages before they converted to Gergorain Calander in ca.1752 A.D. So now the banks and other financial ministries close their accounts in the last week of March. Open new account in April 1.

This is the indirect connection between two events. 

Note: 

1. History is alway a mystery. So lots of controversial are there about the origin of above two events. I write what I know.

2. I used an abbreviation "ca." before the years, which stands for the Latin word "Circa" means "approximately". This is often used in historical writings. Nowadays it is used in Science also. When we write research papers we mention, "we got the yield of ca. 38% in experiment A and ca. 54% in experiment B"

(Next email)

Just after I finished writing above answers a spark came to my mind.

Recently our Tamil Nadu government announced தை 1 (January 14) as Tamil New year. Before it was சித்திரை 1 (April 14). It does resemble the conversion of Julian calendar to Gergorain calendar, doesn't it? The months are same. Is this just a coincidence or is some historical background there? I don't know. 

When I read other states' new years, they also start more or less at same time. But this has a background, the சித்திரை, வைகாசி, ஆணி,..to...பங்குனி  are not actually Tamil months. They are from north, common to many states, may be with slightly different names and days.

Hindus' new years:

Kashmir start their new year - Navreh - in mid March. At the same time (March), the southern Indian states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh begin their new year - Ugadi. The Maharashtra people celebrate their new year Gudi Padwa, and the Sindhis observe Cheti Chand, the coming of new year, during the same time. Usually, the Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Kashmiri and Sindhi New Year falls on the same day - the first day of the month of Chaitra. 

Saravanan Ramasamy