The lone calendar on the wall fluttered with the fan’s breeze with February (page) flying and March (page) peeping from beneath. I looked at the calendar, almost willing it to stop that rhythmic, irritating flutter. The search for a clip to hold the pages together seemed too much task, and to let the mind fly away without any clipping, an all time favorite indulgence! I kept staring at the fluttering pages of the calendar and could see the months flying by year after year, till on every 31st December a new calendar replaced the old. Wall Calendars are no more a common feature to see. Perhaps it will only be a matter of time for this time keeper of days and dates to vanish completely from our walls.The walls crumble around me taking with its crumbling plaster pages from our lives never to be returned again. From marking days on the cave walls to hand held phones managing our dates, time and lives, we have indeed come a long long way. The next-generation don’t much care for the calendar on the wall or the table. But some of us have memories and stories attached to wall calendars, and time will not fade them completely.

What does a calendar say about us ? A lot indeed, for it hangs on our walls for three hundred and sixty five days. It has seen us talk, sleep, wake, laugh, quarrel, cry. It has seen us in our most intimate moments, it has been the testimony of our days and weeks, and at times lived on beyond the year end . Calendars with photos of holiday destinations, of religious symbols, of glamour girls, of film stars, postal services, have all been part of our walls once upon a time.

The lone calendar on my wall ( behind the bedroom door) of 2017 has this beautiful picture of Lord Ganesha. Does this speak about my love and devotion to Ganpati Bappa ? Both yes and no, it could as well be a picture of Jesus or Buddha. The calendar came to my house not for it’s religious significance . This calendar, on further observation can divulge many other personal facts about me. Number one being my desperate need to have a one page calendar at home. I am that ancient person who still believe in marking dates on the calendar, making plans seeing those dates, and referring to a calendar for many small and big events. The second thing this calendar reveals is that it is from a medical store in Kolkata. Therefore I must have bought medicines from there at some point to have been gifted a calendar. The second calendar in picture shows a helicopter. It is an absolute favorite of mine. To me it represents my husband’s profession and the pride I take for his military services. This calendar is to be earned, not bought, adding a timeless value to it. And yes, this calendar reminds me of many memories of life in the army. The military core, the banks, post offices, railways, airlines,some education institutions, still come out with yearly calendars for their employees. All the calendars have not yet gone missing with digitization.

I have this vivid memory of my grand parents bedroom wall where hanged an one page wall calendar with the photo of Ramkrishna Paramhansa. It stayed there for years, it was never removed for any new calendar ever. The half shut eyes of Ramkrishna with a gentle smile on his lips (was the smile only in my imagination, I forget), was the first sight to greet us on entering their room. I think this calendar had moved on from being a calendar to an image of the God man my grandparents worshiped. It spoke about their faith, their need to look at this image every day of their lives. I have seen similar Ramkrishna photo calendars in many Bengali homes later on in life and came to realize that it is a quintessentially Bengali thing to have at home. A few volumes of Tagore’s work, a Ramkrishna calendar, Horlicks bottle, Jabakusum hair oil all mingled together to create an identity of a Bengali home. I am sure a Tirupati photo, a Christ photo, a photo of the Haji Ali darga , all have been the face of calendars at some point or the other, giving an individualistic identity to every home where they marked time.

In those days new calendars were a big thing to look forward to every new year. There was a thing called the ‘ prestige calendar ‘. The obvious translation of the word ‘prestige’ made the possession of such calendars a matter of pride amongst house holds. Such calendars would have glossy papers with beautiful photos of sceneries, children, men and women, flowers, homes. My father was a medical practitioner and we would get many such calendars as gifts, from various pharmaceutical companies. These calendars were always displayed on the sitting room wall, serving the purpose of wall decor, conversation starter and sometimes date keeper. Then came the one page utility calendars, meant for the living area or bedroom walls strictly. The one page calendars had all the holidays, religious festivals, exam dates, days of the moon cycle ,all very clearly marked. On this calendar we used to mark our holiday plans, exam dates, payment dates, and every other date worth remembering.

Calendars may or may not linger on our walls for very long, but it surely will in the memories of my generation. And if tomorrow someone by chance misses a calendar then probably one can blame the Kingfisher for having flown away with the calendar and those drop dead gorgeous calendar girls and locales. Lastly,what does the calendar say after all ? That nothing lasts forever, so let’s keep turning the pages and move on.