Of dates and calendars

To check on a day/date or anything, these days I go to my mobile and scroll 'Calendar'. It helps me save birthdays, create alarms for so and so time and days, and the like. It is always convenient to have a calendar around.

Calendar hunting is my dad’s favourite January pastime. Every family store, from clothes to stationary to accessories-all, that we visited in the past one year…we make another visit for a calendar this time. I get frustrated, do we need to this Dad? Why? See, we will buy books and maybe get a complimentary calendar or better still, let’s wait till Feb-March when the Tourism deptt. releases calendars. We will buy one. NO, he roars. What’s the fun in buying? Might as well go to Archies or St. Paul’s.

One place they give calendars without fail is your local wine store. Sad, we don’t drink and therefore, Dad says it’s a lil’ too much to ask from them. Why? Why? So, tea companies, tailoring shops, grocery stores, textile shops, chemists, booksellers and the blah- all kinds and all shapes. Our cable network provides a table calendar to all its subscribers. Our LIC and SBI friends- calendars and diaries. By month end, we have about 20-30 calendars. Our house is not so large and spacious to accommodate all. Then the other problem is Mom wants to retain all the god and goddess calendars with the auspicious thing about them. I am almost ready to run away from the house then. No,let’s keep Lord Ganesha. No,no Lakshmi. Arey, the kids are still students, Goddess Saraswati. Hey, what about Lord Shiva and his consort, Parvati? The glossy paint and paper quality of the calendars, well. Let’s give this to our milkman, he will be very happy. This one to our chapraasi. And, you might want to give this to your college peon. Thanks.

My only concern is the house should not look like a men’s saloon lined with bhagwan ka pictures or babies (a favourite with most calendar printers). They beat Anne Geddes’ baby pictures,seriously!

Jan-end, one slim calendar from my college where I teach is in the living room. The LIC table calendar is in a corner, pretty and informative. The fridge in the dining room has the SBI table calendar and my mom wants a bhagwan ka calendar in the kitchen, ok, there you go. The bedrooms, one big wall calendar each which, mind you, has all the Hindu calendar dates and notations of when the ekadashis, the poornimas and the amavasyas are. Diligently, one clips the college holiday list for my reference. By evening, that sheet is sized to half thanks to my dad’s visual aesthetics sense. Thankfully, none in the loo or in the bathroom.

I prefer looking up the one in my personal diary. I have my notes and ramblings on them. Last year, I got one with a small fitted mirror, quite some vanity! Oh, how I loved to peep and stare at it at work! You needed to put it at the right place to get the desired effect.

Our office calendar is something different, though it is still called a calendar. The normal chants in the morning are "I didn't check my calendar", " Block my calendar", " Can you calendar?", " Look at my calendar, no time!". Well, it's a high-school routine like thing, almost like a planner which is very dynamic and user friendly.

This year, a beautiful one of Rajasthani miniature paintings of Radha and Krishna. I didn’t want to put it up, the pictures look so fragile and rich at the same time. I want to frame them, will frame them anyway. It’s a sign again...