MAHASU DAY & SARKARI DAAL

Today is Saturday and there cannot be a better time to reminisce about the gone by days when this day of the week was also known as MAHASU Day. 
Until 1September, 1972, Mahasu was a full fledged district of Himachal Pradesh, which  till 1960 also comprised the present day Kinnaur district .Solan & Arki tehsil of present day Solan district  also part of the Mahasu District.
Upper & Lower Mahasu were the marked areas with separate linguistic and cultural identities.
A very large number of government employees at Shimla belonged to adjoining areas of rural Shimla, and Arki tehsil and lived alone, their families left behind in the village. On Saturday, most of them would leave the office early to catch buses to their native places and would make sure to be present on duty on  Monday in the morning.Resultantly , the strength of the employees in any office during Saturday evening was thinner. This is the reason behind the coinage Mahasu Day.
At Shimla, School vacation was in Winter for the entire months of January and February and  employees would leave their families at village to pass the winter. For two months they would stay alone at Shimla to attend  office. The winter days being shorter, cooking meals and attending office would be cumbersome, so the Malka ki Daal would come to the rescue, as being easy to cook and taking comparatively less time than other food items.
So the term Sarkari Dal was coined to mean Malka ki Daal.
Those were the days !!