Byline
Kaveri Nambiar
ElsewhereWrites the Indian calendar as it is kept far from India: festival dates that split along a meridian, sunrise rules at the wrong latitude, and the quiet work of holding a household's days in order abroad.
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Your festival, eight thousand kilometres later
One new moon, two evenings, two dates. Diwali 2027 falls on Friday in Delhi and Thursday in New Jersey, and neither sheet has made a mistake.
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The two-clock kitchen
Two clocks on a kitchen wall, one for Chicago and one for Chennai, ten and a half hours apart. The daily arithmetic of a household keeping two days at once.
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Night shift, day fast
A fast is named by whichever lunar day is running at sunrise. On a night shift you are often awake for that minute and asleep for the day it names.
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The app's city menu
One field, three menus down, decides which sunrise your almanac asks about. Here is what it changes, how it goes wrong, and the two-minute check.
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Ekadashi across the date line
One fast, two civil dates. Auckland keeps it on the Thursday, California on the Wednesday, and the two mornings that decide it are three hours apart.
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Sunrise at sixty degrees north
The fast begins at sunrise. In Trondheim in June that is 3.02 in the morning, and above the Arctic Circle there is no sunrise at all for 10 weeks.
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The temple committee's calendar
Two temples a mile apart keep one festival on two days. How a diaspora committee actually fixes a date, and why both answers hold.