In a way, I have only flowers on my mind today, despite the depressing distractions that are always there around us, amidst us. Flowers and calendars and flowers on calendars. It is a beautiful way to talk of time. Of the seasons and accompanying moods they bring, and the aesthetics that they represent. "Flowers are happy things" said P.G. Wodehouse and it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said that the "earth laughs in flowers".
Which reminds one of the oft-used expression of "saying it with flowers". And that is what the Japanese seem to be doing. Saying it all with flowers? They have chosen the inspiring beauty of flowers to spread their message of peace, and to dream of a better world. In spite of the miseries and misfortunes and hunger, poverty, privation and disease aggravated by an inequality that is global and growing.
One medium they have chosen is that of the conventional wall calendars. The Japanese Foreign Ministry has, for at least the last three decades, been publishing for its world-wide audiences reasonable size wall calendars which have Japanese flower arrangements on each of the 12 sheets. It is an extraordinary concept, employing the symbol of flowers and their exquisite arrangements. What is more the calendars have been unchanged in their size, concept, vision.
It is the exciting steadfastness of over thirty years that lends to this wall calendar, an enduring personality as well as a poetic image. So much has changed in Japan, in these three decades, and so much has the world changed. Even the concept of calendars has changed with all the technology that has entered our lives.
But the Japanese abiding commitment to aesthetics, to flowers and to calendars has sustained. To opt for flowers and to continue with it as a theme reflects much of the inner vision and psyche of the modern, post 2nd world war Japanese mind. In Karachi, it is only the Japanese Consulate General, which organises at its cultural centre an annual exhibition of Japanese calendars.
Once again an exhibition is on, and it continues until 30th January (Friday) Once again, flowers and Nature are its strongest recurring themes. And not the industrialised might of the country. The exhibition has seventy wall calendars and a handful of imaginative table calendars on view too having come from various Japanese companies and organisations.
The principal themes they have are the seasons of Japan, its culture, their gardens, Ikebana, traditional clothes like the kimono, trains, world heritage, children of the world, concepts like motion, and calmness, and Japanese art. And what has embellished the exhibited calendars is the quality of the paper, and the printing, which of course mirrored the technological superiority of that country.
The exhibition was inaugurated by the Sindh Information Minister Shazia Marri, who spoke highly of the Japanese calendars she saw keenly. The Japanese consul general Akinori Wada, in his welcome speech underlined that the calendars reflected the many shades of life in his country, which was a land of "many contrasts".
He added: "some depict the urban, fast paced lifestyle of the Japanese with photographs of skyscrapers, speeding bullet trains, and an array of high- tech electronic items...others portray the age old Japanese floral art of Ikebana or the elaborate, leisurely paced tea ceremony... and the scenic splendors of the four distinct seasons that the country has". Indeed the abiding dimension of the spirit of Japanese society is woven into calendars - some of which are no less than collector's items for the discerning.
Among the many people who came to the opening of the eight-day exhibition was Urdu-speaking S A Ataka and his wife Asifa. He was until a few years ago, cultural affairs advisor to the Japanese Consulate general, Karachi and had begun the practice of holding these annual exhibition of Japanese calendars. And Asifa Ataka - whose long-standing contribution as an Ikebana professor (Ikenobo school) is well known, was also there.
She wore a conspicuous black shalwar kameez contrasting with some of the colourful calendars. The new director of the Japan cultural Centre, Ryo Ishikawa, who took charge of his office about eight weeks ago was also there, playing a modest host. He too speaks Urdu, as does his predecessor Isomura who has become the Deputy Japanese Consul General, Karachi, now.
TALKING OF CALENDARS AND TIME I am reminded here of a friend of mine who has been a collector of calendars that he has liked over the last four decades. He believes they enable a person to understand the changing sensibilities of any given society, and the preferences of the corporate sector.
Some of the calendars in his collection of Pakistani calendars mirror the journey that the Pakistani calendars have undertaken. He insisted recently that we look at some of the calendars that he kept for a lifetime, almost. As we went through a few of the wall and table calendars from his large collection, we conversed about the decline in the trend of using calendars to keep track of days, and time. Like there is an increasing use of cell phones, and desk tops and lap tops to keep track of time when compared to wrist watches, or alarm clocks or wall clocks.
What also surfaced was the splendid variety of themes that Pakistani calendars have employed over the years - especially Islamic calligraphy and the inspiration that it brings. It also reflected the mundane manner in which some corporate calendars have projected themselves, and the recent preference to highlight corporate social responsibility (CSR) which is currently so fashionable.
On a somewhat lighter and nostalgic note one is reminded of the sixties and some of the exceptionally popular Pakistani calendars were those which had film stars like Sabiha, Shamim Ara, Neelo and Babra Sharif publicising Lux toilet soap. Those calendars were in demand and I can't recall how one ever got hold of those. Of course to talk of calendars is certainly to talk of Time, in a wider sense. But let me end with what Sophocles said: "In season, all is good".
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