The New Year begins giving us the opportunity to restart, reboot and refresh. Resolutions (some challenging, others promising) are set and the vow to visit the gym and eat healthy is yet again added to the ambitious list.
Growing up, the most exciting part about a new year would be a new diary I would be gifted by my mother, and the calendars, from corporate gifting hamper probably, that would be meticulously hand delivered. A new diary metaphorically meant starting afresh while the wall hanging and desk calendars would engage me with their profound quotes and thought-provoking art works, allowing me to scribble my thoughts and reminders in the little daily boxes.
It was much later that I began to appreciate the diaries and calendars which are now rare finds. While managing an exhibition on our national treasure Raja Ravi Varma back in 2016 at the Piramal Museum of Art, I was once again introduced to the vibrant calendars of the pre-smartphone era. I began looking at calendars and diaries from a new angle. As historic archives and as treasured works of art. Humanising Indian Gods and Goddesses, Ravi Varma reached the masses of India when he established his printing press. His art work would be printed on calendars, democratising the work and educating the layperson on mythological sagas. Similarly, the descriptive diary of his brother, C. Raja Raja Verma, which has recently been republished, sheds light on the life of Raja Varma. Personal anecdotes, artistic influences, rare encounters that are integral in understanding the artists’ viewpoint firsthand.
Similarly, a majority of Sikh homes would have a calendar of the Sikh gurus painted by the revered artist Sir Sobha Singh. It was through this calendar that the artist managed to reach most Punjabi homes. His perception of the first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak Dev, is perhaps what he is most popular for and the image that comes to mind when one speaks of the Sikh gurus.
Calendars and journals had an interesting way to not only celebrate and popularise an artist but to also attach social, cultural, religious and political messages. Historically, manuscripts and scrolls would be elaborately hand painted with the local calendar, narrating tales and folklore. Lithography and printing commercialised this process and soon after the advancement of technology made it even more sophisticated.
A few years ago while working on the Bhanu Athaiya archives with Prinseps Research, I stumbled upon the Air India calendar. During her six-decade-long career, Athaiya wore many hats. The only female artist to be part of the Progressive Artists’s Group (PAG), the first Indian to win an Academy Award and the pioneer to shift the focus from the tailor (local darzi) to the costume designer in Indian cinema. Her meticulous costume sketches, journaling and research is perhaps the only way one is able to access the mind of a multifaceted woman, well ahead of her time.
In 1980, Athaiya was commissioned by the glamorous and sophisticated Air India, the national carrier, to create a calendar. For this job, she recreated Indian miniature paintings which are housed in the National Museum, New Delhi. The visuals, photographed by Wilas Bhende, juxtapose an image of the original art work with the recreation by Athaiya. As she brought life to each painting through her costume and art design, she also ushered in a new way of celebrating art in calendars. Not by simply printing paintings by an artist but by adding a whole new layer to the creative process.
While Advent calendars have found a way to reinvent themselves through beauty, skincare and confectionery, the annual calendar and the yearly printed journal are on the brink of becoming collectors items, part of annual art auctions.