The year was fixed to the harvest so that the revenue could be collected after it and not before — a practical arrangement that turned into a festival.
So the day belongs to the shop as much as the house. The old khata is closed, the new one is marked with a swastika and the name of Ganesh ji and Lakshmi Maa, and it is taken to the temple before the first entry is written in it.
Then the customers are called in — not to pay, but to be given sweets, because a year that starts with a bill is not much of a year.
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