Err... This year, are you giving any calendar?

Yes, its that time of the year when all of us Tamizhs go from shops to financial institutions, at the pretext of making any absurd enquiry ranging from the working hours of the shop to the impact on the Fixed Deposit interest rates due to the Finance Minister levying a VAT for walking on the road.

It is all a pretext, because we visit these shops only to collect their calendars. And in fact, we associate the Business' goodwill and success purely based on the type of calendars (and the number) issued to customers. In fact with the increasing consumer awareness, I have a feeling that at some point, one of us might actually sue an organisation for not providing the calendar.

And we folks aren't contended with getting just one or two calendars. Our need for them far exceeds the number of places where we can hang them. We don't get deterred by the lack of nails on the walls. We buy quick fix wall hooks from the shops only to hang calendars. We tie strings to the calendars and hang them from windows, lights and any other such object that is likely to support it.

And more than the sheer number, what matters to us is also the type of calendar, because each one serves a different purpose. We seek the daily sheet calendar which traditionally must have the picture of a deity. The most common one is the smiling baby image of Lord Muruga. The next one in line would be of Lakshmi Devi. The purpose of these calendars is to act as a ready reckoner for the superstitious folks of the house. It provides them with key data like Rahu Kaalam, Yama Kandam, Nakshathram, Thidhi, equivalent month and date per Hindu calculations, etc. etc. Like I said, the people in the house would anyway get to the regular almanac or panjaangam for very critical updates, but would make do with this daily calendar for relatively mundane checks.

Then comes the scenery calendar. This is expected to be a big sized calendar. And we are okay if one scenery is repeated for 2 months. Standard sceneries are the ones with mountains and flowers. Variants typically include beaches and in a few rare cases one with snow. We hang such calendars in our living rooms with the hope that it adds a bit of charm to that room! And a very important requisite for this calendar is that it be of really good quality paper - thicker is better. Another variant in this category of calendars is one where the scenery is replaced with a deity.

Then there is also the vanilla calendar. This usually contains the dates and days for the current month spread over most of the sheet, with the bottom portion usually reserved for providing a preview/summary of the next/previous month respectively. Typically, we expect such calendars to be useful in identifying important dates in a year - or to put it bluntly, which are the declared holidays we need to factor into our schedule. We are pretty adamant about such calendars sparing one full sheet per month. Some suppliers, try to act smart and publish the calendars with months printed back-to=back. We address such folks with compliments like "kanja paya" or "dharidhram pudichavan" etc.; all words effectively indicating a total abuse of the supplier's moral values.

The variant in this type of calendar, is when some suppliers include some of the components of the daily calendar, but carefully tuck away all those type of inputs into some vacant real estate on the sheet.

We folks get so pre-occupied with the desire to own calendars that our happiness reaches a crescendo when a courier guy shows up at our doorstep with a calendar. I also know of certain financial institutions that rent out space in a wedding hall only to distribute calendars to its customers. This is so well organised that the customers are first sent mailers where some coupon or token is provided to them. They are then directed to any of the venues where the distribution takes place and there they can pick up a calendar by surrendering this token.

Finally, we have the desktop calendars. This is typically a calendar expected to have sceneries only and should be one month per scenery. We also expect the paper to be of a glossy type.

The major variant of late, especially for the desktop calendars, is when we go to the photo studio and get them to make one for us, using photos of our family. Especially true in the case of people who have become parents recently or have kids who are at a photogenic age.

Whatever be the origin of this whole calendar culture, I think this is a unique feature in this part of the world. Many of us have feelings at a very similar level for diaries too.

Its not that I am far removed from the desire to own a calendar. But I would like to have ones like Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit edition, or its Indian equivalent from King Fisher or anything on those lines...... ;)