Are you inviting someone for a casual get together or a lunch or a dinner without referring Panchang (Panchangam / Indian Almanac) then think twice before arranging one at your home.

Recently (last week, by the way this is 2015 AD) we invited some people (10-15) for a lunch and a get together. It was just a get together and not a religious ritual or function like satya narayan / pooja / hom havan etc. etc. It was not a dinner but lunch so obviously it was day time. Since it was not a religious kind of function we just picked suitable Sunday for everybody's convenience. 

But one day before the agreed date we started getting calls from those invitees turning down our invitation. One of them told us that due to health problem they will not be able to make it, which was not a genuine reason. Then another person, to whom I have great respect, told us the fact or real reason of boycotting us or our get together. This person himself was ready to come but due to some other reason he also decided not to come. 

To my surprise, the reason was, it was a amavasya  (a new Moon day).  This reason really shocked me, may be because I am not a 'typical' god fearing or hardcore religious person. I don't want to fight with anybody those who are of opinion that we were wrong and they were right.  I was shocked for two reasons. One, some of these guests were highly educated and all of them were from urban area with fairly modern life style. Secondly, why these people did not tell us the reason frankly on our face. I know that on normal Marathi  calendar so called important events like Amavsya and Pornima are highlighted but it got overlooked by us as we were not arranging any kind of religious function.    

This subject is very big and must be inconclusive even for religious scholars as well. My little brain may not handle these high end rituals, I think reason of restricting activities on  amavasya  (new Moon) must be related with darkness that occurs during the night on this day. It must the important reason to avoid human movement, prone to accidents in the night due to lack of moon light. This must a reason to observe Amavasya in the past when electricity was not invented.  There may be other reasons like high tide / low tide etc but I don't think it was fair reason to cancel a get together because this day was happened to be a amavasya. It may be my ignorance or lack of knowledge if there are other reasons to cancel a simple casual get together because it was a New Moon Day.