New Year\\\'s calendar: A nice gift

Yet another Gregorian calendar-year is on its way out. Less than a month and half is left before the New Year's gift items, including glossy wall and desk calendars, diaries, etc. reach their clients.  The year 2014 is about to leave us, heralding the next year with its unforeseen prospects and uncertainties. We love to wish everyone a Happy New Year despite the fact that the modern times are fraught with hazardous portents.
Apart from the onset of hectic hours at various types of offices taking stock of the outgoing year's performance, the printing presses are also getting into their eagerly-awaited assignments. Big presses are passing busy times. They have already been flooded with orders for printing calendars, diaries, notebooks and greeting cards befitting the New Year's hopes and good wishes.
The production and printing process involves artists, photographers, models, studios, as well as scores of experts and crew. In the production process, advertisement firms get involved eventually.  A major role is played by the business entities that market these items as consumer products.
From the first or second week of December, many city corners find vendors selling these items to the enthusiastic people. In the final week of the month, these New Year's gifts reach the persons longing for them. Apart from those sent on personal level by individuals, a large chunk of the calendars, diaries and greeting cards is passed through the official channel. Within the first week of January, semi-government and autonomous offices, private commercial banks, insurance companies, firms and other entities nearly complete the job of distributing these gift items.
Sending calendars, diaries and similar items as gift has lately become an annual New Year's ritual in the country. The practice has been in vogue since the state-of-the-art printing technology entered the country. In the pre-Independence days, only a few officials at government offices used to be entitled to these gifts. In fact, the fever and frenzy over calendars had then yet to take root in the country. In those days, calendars were nothing more than traditional Ponjikas (almanac), tiny Bangla booklets mentioning dates, along with times of sunrise, sunset and the lunar cycle.   However, the lavishly printed Gregorian calendars, diaries, etc. assumed a socio-cultural significance in the West as far back as the fifties. The trend was not strange to even the large commercial cities in India.
In Bangladesh, it is only after the country's independence and the beginning of its journey as a sovereign nation that many newer cultural traits started taking hold. Exchange of New Year's gifts was one of them. People did not have to wait longer to see the calendars and diaries take a dominant status among those gift items. Our world of business and commerce soon realised the irresistible appeal of these items to their respective stakeholders. It does not, however, mean that attaining mere commercial interests prompts sending these special gift items to the persons of choice. The gifts at personal level aside, a lot of organisations, offices and associations greet people with these items just to wish one a hearty Happy New Year. They do not even wait for a reply. They feel good and fulfilled by sending people a neatly produced calendar or a sleek diary.
The case of certain political or association-based leaders might be different. Their good wishes for the New Year might also carry a latent wish for a little favour during elections.

shihabskr@ymail.com