In this episode, we talk about celebrating Indic birthdays so that children feel the joy and excitement of personalised connection with Hindu history and culture. We converse with the founder of Janmatithi.com (also indicbirthday.com) to explore the differences between the Gregorian calendar and the Indic calendar. We also touch on the ways in which celebrating birthdays according to the Indic calendar will help us connect to Hindu dharma. Show Notes 0:06 Why celebrate Indic birthdays 2:00: Vasco da Gama and the Indic calendar 5:00: The European calendar vs. the Indian calendar 11:30: How to use the website and find your Janmatithi 19:00: What is a tithi? 23:11: The Indic lunisolar calendar, the male and female energies of Shiva and Shakti, eco-feminism as a movement. 29:00: Indic calendar celebrations - the benefits and joy 32:00: Midnight celebration - how did it start? GMT vs the ancient Ujjain Meridian 34:24: What can a parent do everyday to enhance connection with the Indic calendar? 39:50: Listener question General Information Subscribers are requested to look for The Hindu Parenting notification emails for new podcasts/posts in their email promotions/spam tab and personally move these into the main inbox. Thereafter all posts will be delivered to their main inbox. Thank you! For questions that you’d like us to address, please use the form below: Hindu Parenting Questions For comments and suggestions, please use the comments tab or write to us at [email protected] Please note that questions will not be answered on email. Do subscribe to our substack and follow us on our social media handles Twitter: hinduparenting Instagram: hinduparenting Telegram: t.me/hinduparenting Facebook: facebook.com/groups/hinduparenting Transcript [0:06] Rekha: Namaste. Welcome to the Hindu Parenting Podcast. Today's topic is of particular interest to young parents and children. We are going to be talking of birthdays. Today we celebrate birthdays that sound like 21st December, or 3rd March. But as followers of Sanatana Dharma, we celebrate our gods and festivals on days that sound like Krishnaashtami, Ramanavami, Buddha Poornima, or Mahaveer Jayanti. So how do we reconcile these ways of arriving at birthdays and festivals? Was there a time when we used to calculate and refer to our birthdays differently? The question for us - do we know our Indic birthdays? Can we find our child's Janmatithi? To help us understand the difference and tell us some interesting anecdotes along the way, Shalini and I will be talking to Suraj-ji, founder of Janmatithi.in or Indicbirthday.in. Namaste and welcome, Suraj-ji. [1:11] Suraj: Namaste Rekha-ji. Namaste Shalini-ji, thank you for having me here. And thanks for hosting such a wonderful platform, especially for parents who are looking for a cultural connect for their kids. Rekha: It's a pleasure to have you. Let's start with - why should we bother knowing our Indic birthdays? What is in it for us and our children? [1:29] Suraj: Indeed. So, today if you go and ask any kid when is the birthday of Jesus Christ, he knows it immediately. He'll say it is December 25 from the top of his head, but ask the same kid, what is the birthday of Shri Rama or Shri Krishna? Do you know when they were born? They would not be sure about it, they will start scratching the head and wondering... they would not have an answer like...Sri Rama was born on Chaitra Navami and Krishna was born on Shravana Ashtami. These things are really a question mark for us. Why do kids not know this? One of the reasons is because we have lost our connect with the Indic calendar and the Indic calendar connects us with our culture. If we look back, even the ancient Indians, they excelled in astronomy, they devised astronomical calendar which is based on science and has undergone minimal change since millennia. If you look at the English calendar though, it is rather arbitrary, you know, it was not even standardized till 17th century. O