Romeayana

Ides comes from the Latin idus meaning “to divide”. In the Roman calendar, ides marked the middle of the month. In the longer months it would be on the 15th day, and in the shorter ones on the 13th. The Ides of March, however, assumed notoriety for its association with the assassination of Roman politician Julius Caesar. 

Footnote: Before it came to be linked with gruesome endings, the date was about beginnings — the festival of Anna Perenna, the goddess of the year. 

Caesar Bhaiya

It was 44 BC. A year ago, Caesar had won the civil war against Pompey. He was by then a very powerful man, but also very superstitious. In All Things Julius Caesar, Michael Lovano mentions how “no organ of the Roman state relied more on the power of sacrifices than the military”. It was a gesture to please the gods and as com-manding officer, Caesar bucked the trend. Roman sources claim a soothsayer warned Caesar on the Ides of February. Shakespeare immortalised this in Julius Caesar: “Beware the Ides of March.” 

Footnote: On March 15, Caesar summoned the senate at the Curia or senate house next to the Theatre of Pompey.

Pehle Aap 

And that is how Caesar came to be stabbed by his senators before his rival’s statue. Not once or twice, but 23 times. His killing plunged the Roman world into a new round of civil wars.

Footnote: American actor John Wilkes Booth acted in a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in New York in 1864. A year later, on April 14, Booth shot Abraham Lincoln. The US President died on the Ides of April.  

Bura Na Mano 

Long years ago in Gujarat, Gandhiji’s Dandi March was launched around this time. Much later in 2002, when the saffron wave was just a drop, the VHP threatened to hold a bhoomi puja on the government-acquired land in Ayodhya on this date. It is BSP founder Kanshi Ram’s birthday, and the day Akhilesh assumed power in 2012.

Footnote: But the 2017 March ides (and nearabouts) has outwritten all that. Poll results have added to the Captain’s birthday cheer, and done the opposite for Irom. The PM, who clinched a very bhagwa Holi for the BJP in UP, steered clear of all chest-thumping. Instead, he took to Twitter to pay tribute to CRPF jawans killed in Sukma in Chhattisgarh. Indeed, the PM is an honourable man.

Upala Sen