JOIN USAs the month of December draws to a close, the ebbing of dengue coincides with the onset of a new epidemic. A victim of this disease shows typical symptoms : silly grin on the face, dripping drool at the mouth and the song, “Dama dam mast calendar (sic)” on his lips.
He waylays the bankers, company executives and employees of top trading houses demanding of the target just one thing: the wall calendar. And the psychiatrists term this malady as Calendar Cathexis. The annual outbreak of the Calendar cathexis runs a preset course. By Christmas the blight spreads across the country being more pronounced in the cities. Around this time, the ‘targets’ make themselves scarce by going on leave or moving around wearing disguises.
The lucky ones amongst the ‘patients’ who could lay their hands on the calendars get cured while the rest float around like loose cannons. Finally, by mid January, with everyone’s demand met or physically exhausted, the epidemic wanes and the peace prevails.
But what happens during the postepidemic period is even more baffling. I had a taste of this phenomenon when, on a mid January morning, I met a distant uncle of mine during my morning walk. Without a word, he thrust a bundle into my hands and left. Upon scrutiny I found that it contained five wall calendars.
When I say calendar, I just mean that, period! They carried no exotic sceneries or winking girls. And it didn’t occur to me at the time that my uncle was passing on a millstone that someone else had hung around his neck. I accepted my uncles gift even though, at home, I had enough calendars to sink a battleship.
Then I moved on to my daily dose of laughter club meeting hoping to dump at least part of my uncle’s handouts. But, to my utter dismay, the members’ response to my ‘largesse’ ranged from pained looks to outright refusals. It was no different at home. The apartment’s watchman to whom I presented a calendar, suddenly remembered some fictitious work and slipped away. Much worse happened when I offered one to the housemaid. She went off in a huff not to return for a week.
Finally, I ditched the whole package at the perimeter of a slum presuming that someone would pick it up. A week later I saw it still lying untouched. Apparently, even the scrap collectors had turned their nose up at the ‘bounty’. Thankful that no one had alerted the ‘calendar disposal squad’, I picked up the roll and dumped it into the nearby garbage pile.
Be that as it may, I won’t be surprised to see, five years hence, newspaper reports that would read: December 28, 2018 : “House burgled. Burglar leaves nothing behind except a bundle of new wall calendars.” And then, January 26, 2019: Woman files for divorce under cruelty grounds. Husband gifted her a month old 2019 calendar.”