Calendar with a difference

Vimukthi Rangika

The Leela Panchanga Chitra Dinadarshanaya (Pictorial Calendar) founded by the legendary Sinnadurai family, the proprietors of Leela Printing Press (Pvt) Ltd. has been published for the 61st time for the year 2011. It is the first Sinhala calendar and the only educational pictorial calendar to be published in Sri Lanka.

This establishment founded on January, 1950 is presently located at No. 400 K Cyril C Perera Mawatha, Colombo 13.

The Leela Panchanga Chitra Dinadarshanaya is the first and only educational calendar in the world and also brings good luck to the home.

It is useful to the adults and is a helping hand to the children in their educational activities.

The pages of the calendar open with an ode to Goddess Saraswathie, the Goddess of Learning. Next is a quotation from the Buddha Dhamma. It also gives a list of holidays for the year 2011. It carries the auspicious times for every day of the year and in addition gives the auspicious times for the Sinhala New Year in detail.

The calendar contains very useful, both current and historical, information about important events, places, inventions and famous personalities etc. of the entire world in general and of Sri Lanka in particular.

However owing to human frailty some mistakes have crept in, in that for the picture of Black American rights activist Rev Dr Martin Luther King that of Martin Luther, the European religious reformer has been displayed and the picture of Jawaharlal Nehru has been displayed for that of Motilal Nehru.

Among the very important persons of Sri Lanka about whom information is given are well-known Muslim educationists Dr T B Jayah, Sri Lankan Tamil former Minister of Foreign Affairs Lakshman Kadirgamar and President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Foreign personalities, too numerous to mention, include former Chinese Premier Chou En Lai, Karl Marx and Jawharlal Nehru.