It is the Kumartuli of calendars. An alley that deals in the business of dates. On the last afternoon before the Bengali New Year, Syed Sally Lane near Mechhuabazar still has customers hurrying in.

A huddle has formed in front of a row of pavement shops putting finishing touches to the calendars. ?I got some last-minute orders,? explains Nirmalendu Nath of Sonarpur, watching date sheets being pasted on the pictures of his clients? choice. The pin-up machine falls with practised regularity on the pasted sheets. Md Rustam hardly has time to look up while slamming home its lever. ?There would be little work from tomorrow,? he mutters.

The scene is quieter in the office of R.K. Binani, proprietor of Print and Block Concern, Calcutta, one of the oldest calendar-makers in the city. ?We sell calendars containing just the pictures to the middlemen. They then take care of tin-coating, printing of the client?s name and pasting of date-sheets.?

The calendar business, feels Binani, is lucky to get two seasons in Bengal. ?Nowhere in India do people bring out calendars except on January 1.? The city also is old-fashioned. ?Nowhere else would you see these multiple-page pull-off date sheets.?

But trends are changing. Religious themes are giving way to aesthetic ones. Also, demand from urban areas is on the decline. ?With the business passing down generations, the cosmopolitan areas are shifting to the English New Year,? Binani admits.

The Bengali season is ?down?, agrees Asim Chakraborty, after 12 years in the business. ?With rise in costs, clients are shifting to other gift items like bags.? City people do not want to adorn every wall with calendars like villagers do, he adds.

Lalu Ganguly, from Hooghly, has no time for trends. ?I have to be home with these 600 copies. We will work all night on the printing.? After all, 1412 was just a few hours away.