Mobile phones notwithstanding, calendars are still popular for they allow us to check an entire month, complete with holidays and festivals, at a glance.
Nothing, however, compares to the 1950s up to the 1980s, when collecting calendars was a big craze, particularly the 12-page ones with beautiful images that big corporate houses used to sponsor. These were not for sale and were distributed among valued clients as a public relations exercise.
The Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC) has been bringing out for sale smartly designed calendars for the past couple of years as tributes to various artists like Gopal Ghose and Sudhir Khastgir, digitised versions of whose works are in the visual archives of Jadunath Bhavan Museum and Resource Centre (JBMRC), a unit of CSSSC.
The 2020-2021 calendar was a tribute to R.P. Gupta, collector of rare books, prints, artwork, and raconteur, on his birth centenary. The following year, the calendar featured the enamel signboards in the collection of well-known collector Parimal Ray.
An episode from Ramayana for Shalimar coconut oil
This year, the choice was the distinctive artwork of Ranen Ayan Dutt (1927-2024), which featured in innumerable calendars as part of the memorial calendar series, said Tapati Guha-Thakurta, professor emeritus in history, CSSSC. “The focus is on storytelling, be it historical figures or Kathasarit Sagar,” she said.
It was designed by Rosinka Chaudhuri, director, CSSSC; Kamalika Mukherjee, special assistant, Archives; and Guha-Thakurta.
On the cover of the calendar is the original drawing and layout for one of Dutt’s most iconic advertisements for Jabakusum hair oil, signed Ranen, 1957. It shows a young woman with luxuriant tresses daydreaming as she lolls on her bed.
The biographical sketch of Dutt, who was a distinguished student at the Government School of Art, Calcutta, in the calendar goes thus: “Ranen Ayan Dutt exemplified the close melding of ‘fine’ and ‘commercial’ art, moving between his primary love of drawing and painting and his extraordinary flair for design. He left his strongest mark as a designer of advertisements, corporate calendars, book illustrations and covers, film sets and posters, murals and trade fair pavilions, and, in his later years, of museum displays.”
Shibnath Sen, who recently retired as senior creative director, Thomson, recallsthe lightning speed withwhich Dutt made drawings without any double strokes. His lines were like “galloping steeds”.
Once, inkwells of India was the theme of a Shaw Wallace calendar. Ivory and dokra inkwells were chosen from the collection of Subho Tagore. In the artwork, Dutt created the narrative of a woman writing a love letter.
Inkwells of India for a Shaw Wallace calendar
The JBMRC-CSSSC calendar featured Dutt’s artwork for a 1961 Philips calendar on “Boats and Ships”; anotheron a calendar series on “Warriors of India”, 1990s; storytelling advertisements for Jamshedpur Tata Steel City, mid-1970s; illustrated episodes from Ramayana for Shalimar coconut oil; calendar coveron ‘Indian Sports and Pastimes’ for Guest Keen Williams, 1964; and a calendar on Panchatantra for Ganges Printing Company of 1968. This calendar reflects the thriving industrial and commercial scenario of West Bengal in that period that is only a memory now.
