'YUGAADI' - Beginning of grand New Year for Hindu's

Yugaadi (yuga+aadi = cycle+beginning) means beginning of another year for Hindus the world over. We all know, may be simplistically, what a year is - it is the time earth takes to go once around the Sun on a path that is almost circular.

This is celebrated as new year. There is the air of freshness in the nature as this is the spring season. In some parts of Bharat, the tender leaves of neem mixed with jaggery and offered to God as naivedya and then distributed as prasaada. The neem, extremely bitter in taste, and jaggery sweet and delicious, signify the two conflicting aspects of human life - joy and sorrow, success and failure, ecstasy and agony.

This tells us that we should remain calm and balanced during success and failure, joy and sorrow and take everything as the gift of God.