Why has a week only seven days and not eight, nine or ten? Why are there only 12 months in the year — some of 31 days, some 30 and one 28 or 29 days? Why do days of the week have their names? Why are some considered auspicious by some communities: Tuesdays (mangal) by Hindus, Sundays (sabbath) of Christians, Fridays (jumma) by Muslims? And Saturdays (shani) regarded inauspicious?

When such questions start bugging me, I get restless. Till I find the answers, I have no peace of mind. I have found answers to some of them and am somewhat relaxed.

Seasons are ordnances of nature dictated by the way the earth revolves round the sun. so in the northern hemisphere we have four: spring, summer, autumn and winter (India has six because of the monsoons). Calendars are man-made. There are quite a few of them. The most widely-accepted one all over the world is the Christian calendar (or the Roman calendar from which it is derived): by which history is divided into two: BC or before the birth of Jesus Christ, and AD or after his demise. Older than the Christian is the vikrami calendar of Hindu origin accepted in India. Though later came hijri, dating from the flight of Prophet Mohammed from Mecca to Medina. Since it is lunar, Muslim festivals like the eids fall on different dates from year to year. The Sikhs evolved their own, known as the Nanak-shahi dating from the birth of Guru Nanak. But most Sikh festivals continue to be fixed by the vikrami calendar. The Christian or Roman is solar; the vikrami are a mixture of solar and the lunar; the hijri is entirely lunar. Whatever their differences, all of them divide the year into 12 months and the week into seven days.

Names of days of the week are pre-Christian and taken from Latin and based on astral phenomenon. Thus Sunday comes from sun day, Monday from moon day, Tuesday from Mars, Wednesday from Mercury, Thursday from Jupiter, Friday from Venus and Saturday from Saturn. Oddly enough, Hindi words for the same, derived from Sanskrit, are likewise based on the sun, moon and the planets, Why, I have no idea.

All about shibboleth

I wasn’t sure what ‘shibboleth’ meant, but was too lazy to consult a dictionary. It is rarely used these days, so it was not worth bothering about. It could be another word for a slogan, a motto, or even a monument. What did it matter! Then I stumbled across it in the Old Testament and discovered that it signified an accent by which one could tell where a person came from — for instance, those who pronounce leisure as ‘lasyyar’ or pleasure as ‘plasyyur’ have to be Punjabi; those who pronounce school as ‘iskool’ must be from Uttar Pradesh. One who makes the sibilant s into sh — sardarji into shordarji — has to be Bengali. During my college days, our favourite Tamilian accent joke used to be about a Madrasi clerk saying, “Madras governmenta very goodda, morning appointamenta, evening purmananta, Delhaee govermenta no goodda”. This sounds like an exaggeration, but I can vouch for the Udipi accent of my one-time senior colleague, Mohan Rao. For him M was always ‘yum’. One day he was ringing up M.M. Amir, member of parliament. After the call was over, he said to me, “That was Yum Yum Yameer, Yum Pee, on the line.”

The origin of the world shibboleth is ancient Hebrew. Two Jewish tribes were at war against each other. One triumphed, the other fled across the river, Jordan. When soldiers of the defeated army tried to sneak across the river on the pretence of being part of the victor’s tribe, they were put to a verbal test: “Say the word shibboleth (which stood for a ear of wheat).” The vanquished tribesmen were known not to be able to distinguish between S and Sh (as in ‘same’ as ‘shame’) and pronounced it as ‘sibboleth’. And were promptly beheaded — over 40,000 failed the test and lost their lives. Somewhat severe a price to pay for a slip of the tongue.

Like Bengalis, the Nepalese also have a problem with sibilant S and pronounce it as Sh. I recall once in Paris, we invited a Nepalese delegate to a Unesco conference for dinner. We thought it would be best to take him to nice restaurant serving gourmet food. When we got to the locality which had several good eateries, we found to our dismay that they were overcrowded and many people were eating out of doors, seated around tables laid on the pavement, with pedestrians walking by and traffic plying the road. After trying three or four restaurants our kind guest shouted: “Shingji, if we can’t shit inside, we can shit outside.”

Cursed winds

In July 1944 I was called to Rawalpindi for an interview for a temporary army commission. Having passed the outdoor tests, I appeared before a board of three British officers for a general knowledge test. World War II was raging, with the Japanese giving the allied powers a tough time. I had done my homework. The presiding officer asked me “Where is Okinawa?” I was prepared and rattled off: “It is an island 620 miles off the Japanese island, Kyushu. I also know a saying about the place: cursed be the winds of Okinawa. The winds raise skirts and at the same time dust in your eyes.” All the members of the board had a hearty laugh. I was promptly offered a commission.

(Contributed by Jai Dev Bajaj, Pathankot)