Muthu's father got home a diary that evening – a black tough looking rexine covered one. Muthu looked at it longingly and felt it was made to last through not just the twelve months of the New Year, but for twelve years!
What really caught Muthu's fancy was the colour-a-month feature with a photograph and write-up on a vehicle on the first page of the start of every month. Not any ordinary vehicle but cars from James Bond movies over the years.
So he made his move: "Appa, you know, my teacher says it improves our language to write a daily journal. Radha Miss said that keeping a journal/ diary can transform into an archive* of the year's thoughts which may become a good personal reference for yourself or make you world-famous even!" Muthu's father smiled widely and asked, "World-famous?"
Muthu went on to share what his teacher had recommended as good reading - The Diary of Anne Frank- the diary of a Jewish holocaust victim in her early teens.
Muthu's dad teasingly asked him, "So now you are reading girls' diaries? Is it not an invasion of privacy? Hmmm… my boy is growing up!!" and he let out a hearty laugh.
Muthu's father ruffled his hair and with twinkling eyes remarked, "I have got the diary for you, my son. I know you will like the contents irrespective of whether you are diligent about the daily entries bit!"
Muthu blushed and thanked his father. He wished that he could lay hands on a couple more diaries for his friends. He began wondering what would happen to all those old calendars/diaries that do not get distributed.
Old calendars made good covers for notebooks and as lining for cupboards. A collage of pictures from calendars would make interesting wall décor and in his home, a plywood laundry box received a new look – makeover- as it was called on television- every time a good picture came up in the calendar and the month passed by. His cartoonist sister had framed some of the calendar pictures and Muthu was fond of the one with a few horses sketched in black and white, though most of the others were of fat European women, which his sister called 'classic'.
