By Mahesh Verma
Arrivederci, Adios, Au Revoir, Adieu, auf Wiedersehen, Alvida, Maa’salama July…as the birthday month of Julius Caesar cries out ‘Et tu Augustus’, we heave a sigh of relief and hope that the ‘Samoon’ or ‘Shamal’ also dies down with it, and we get some reprieve from this torrid heat. We are now ready to welcome the new month, the one named after Caesar’s adopted son and heir Augustus.
The Romans gave this month its name in 8 BC, after Augustus who ruled from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD. Before then, the month had been known as Sextilis, as it was the sixth of ten months in the Roman calendar.
However, one wonders why Shakespeare never wrote a play on Augustus, who was considered to be the first emperor of Rome, taking power after the struggles that followed the deaths of Julius Caesar and the Roman Republic. And though he founded history’s greatest empire, the English-speaking world knows him best from a passing mention of him as Octavius in the play Julius Caesar – the Octavius who calls Marcus Lepidus “a tried and valiant soldier,” only to be rebuked by Mark Antony:
“So is my horse, Octavius.”
Speaking of horses, I am willing to bet ‘Exacta’ that though most of you may have heard that the month of August is all about Gaius Octavius Thurinus (who later in 27 BC was given the title of Augustus), very few of you would know that tomorrow, August 1 is Girlfriend’s Day. No seriously, it is!
And if you didn’t know about it, then not only do you lose the wager, but shame on you…actually, shame, shame, puppy shame! One of the most important days in the calendar – probably only a close second to February 14, is August 1 and it is still unclear whether the unknown creators of this Girlfriend’s Day wanted it to be a day for people to honour their female friends or for them to celebrate their female romantic partners? The term first came into use in 1863, allegedly as a way to describe a woman’s female friend in youth.
However, there exists some ambiguity between the terms ‘girl friend’ and ‘girlfriend’ – one is supposedly a friend who is a girl and the other is a girl who is more than a friend! Obviously what matters is the gap between the two words – that is the significant aspect of adolescent development!
And from 1863 to 2018, the metamorphosis gradually happened: ‘girl friend’ with a space in between metamorphosed to ‘girlfriend’ with no space and subsequently ‘girlfriend sans girl’ emerges from the chrysalis of self-conscious adolescence into ‘friends with benefits’.
While the semantics are being debated, let me be upfront and let you all know that I plan spending the day locked up in my room, with a copy of Wodehouse trying to decipher what he meant by writing,
“The postulate or common understanding involved in speech is certainly co-extensive, in the obligation it carries, with the social organism of which language is the instrument, and the ends of which it is an effort to subserve.”
And knowing that tomorrow is the day for all the pretty maidens out there, it does make sense for some of us denser ones to accept that “at the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.”
And before I sign off, a few random thoughts:
Did you know that as The Duchess of Cambridge has now had the third baby, there is no fear of the receding heir line despite the Duke’s receding hair line?
Did you know that last month, during our visit to London, someone from Stratford–upon-Avon offered us a slightly chewed up pencil, which was allegedly once used by Shakespeare? We refused to buy it, as one didn’t know if it was 2B or not 2B!
Did you know that Time wounds all heels, but then heals all wounds?
Adieu July and a very happy August to all. Here’s wishing the gorgeous gaggle of giggling girls, including my ‘significant other with benefits’, a wonderful Baltic holiday. Don’t do anything which a 40+ shouldn’t do!
Till next fortnight… .
