Vajpayee: New honour

New Delhi, Dec. 15: When his party honours Atal Bihari Vajpayee on January 14 next year, it will be astronomy rather than astrology dictating the choice of date.

On that day, the BJP figures, its leader will have “seen” the 1,000th full moon of his life, earning the right to be called “Sahasra Chandra Darshan (beholder of a thousand moons)”.

This is how Pramod Mahajan explains it: Vajpayee, who turns 81 on December 25, will have completed 972 months and thus witnessed 972 full moons (sometimes February, with usually just 28 days, misses out but that means January or March have an extra full moon ? the “blue moon”).

But a lunar cycle (about 29.5 days) being shorter than the average length of a month (about 30.5 days), once in three years there’s an extra full moon. This means an extra 27 during Vajpayee’s 81 years of life.

That makes it 972 plus 27 or 999. So, the first full moon after December 25, which falls on January 14, will be the thousandth.

Mahajan will host a musical concert-cum-dinner at his residence for Vajpayee, with the guest list including President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, vice-president B.S. Shekhawat and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

He also plans to invite leaders of all major parties, including Sonia Gandhi, industrialists and journalists.