A leap significance

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Francis Gonsalves [1]

Today, the “leap day”, will come again only after four years. It is a special day and those born on February 29 are, in some way, special. Morarji Desai, the former Prime Minister of India, remained evergreen even in the dusk of his life with his tongue-in-cheek “I’m only 20 years old!” remark when he was, really, 80 years old.

February 29 is a bonus day in a leap year. Indeed, if we didn’t add a day, February 29, every four years, we’d lose almost six hours every year, and, after 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days. The leap day shows our tendency to be “calculative” in the best sense of the word.
We’ve always been time-conscious. Most of us try to use our time profitably and feel bad when we “waste time”. This is what the Greeks call chronos or “ordinary time”. However, most religions are more concerned with kairos or “special time” devoted to deities, rituals and festivals.
Leap days and years are invested with meaning: positive and negative. In Scotland, to be born on February 29 is considered unlucky; but Indian astrologers believe that those born under the sign of Pisces on February 29 are immensely talented and have personalities reflecting their special status.
In earliest times, when February 29 was “leapt over” and English law didn’t recognise it, there was a certain legal laxity in punishing criminals for crimes committed on that day. Moreover, things traditional were turned topsy-turvy. For instance, Irish tradition permitted women to propose marriage to men on the leap day in times when only men could choose their partners.
In Greece, getting married in the leap year is considered inauspicious. Such beliefs are common in India, too. Interestingly, my parents delighted in rubbishing superstitions. Although well-wishers begged them to let the leap year pass before marrying, my parents married in December, 1956, to prove that leap years are as auspicious as any other!
Leap days remind us that life has its ebbs and flows, its chronos and kairos. Hindu wisdom instructs us that Brahman is real, and our conceptions of time and space are but illusory, maya. For Christians, the leap day falls in the period of Lent that trumpets a timeless thought: “Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).
While time is a constraint that many of us face, there’s Something or Someone Timeless within us, which makes us view yesterday with gratitude, today with gladness, and tomorrow with longing.

Francis Gonsalves is the principal of the Vidyajyoti College of Theology, Delhi. He can be contacted at fragons@gmail.com