Kalnirnay in Media

2 Crore Subscribers Notwithstanding, Legendary Almanac Kalnirnay Is Shedding Its Button-Down Image To Cast The Net Wider

This year, for the first time in 44 years, the almanac that Indian mothers swear by, Kalnirnay, introduced non-vegetarian recipes. Ever since, feedback has been pouring in on their Facebook page and Twitter handle. Not all of it is flattering. “How could you do this? We hang the calendar near our temple,” read one comment.

Together with going ‘carnivorous’, the team made one more change. They did away with the section that carried the outstation train schedule. “We pride ourselves in being relevant. Everyone now books railway tickets online. And who doesn’t want to try a new recipe in their kitchen?” says Shakti Salgaokar-Yezdani, 32, executive director with the firm.

Forget Nostradamus. When it comes to prophesying, they say, few hold a candle to Old Moore’s Almanac. The ‘they’ being the Irish. Old Moore’sloyalists swear the 251-year-old astrological handbook got it right on everything from 9/11 to the 2014 Irish heatwave. One of its forecasts for 2015? That the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie marriage is on shaky ground.

India’s Kalnirnay is no crystal ball gazer. But this calendar-almanac, founded in 1973 by Jayantrao Salgaokar, is so pivotal in Indian households that many line up to buy the following year’s edition in early December itself. Well, it used to be that way. My grandmother fretted at the thought of kirana stores or newspaper vendors running out of the calendar just before New Year. “There’s always a rush for it,” she’d say, thrusting Rs10 in my hand so I could get her the prized possession.

Even as Jayraj Salgaokar dips home-made biscuits into tea he wistfully recalls the previous day when he delivered a lecture to post graduate economic students at the University of Mumbai. He was invited by the faculty of his old alma mater to discuss key trends for private enterprise. He is thrilled. And why not?

Today, he is publisher and managing director of Sumangal Press which is a Rs 55-crore company. It prints seven languages of Kalnirnay in various formats and sizes. In 2010, the company sold almost one crore 25 lakh copies of Kalnirnay. This makes it the world’s largest selling almanac.

The Indian print industry has always lacked charismatic figures who are public icons. Kalnirnay is a rare exception. Every year, billboards, bus panels and strategically placed advertisements herald the arrival of Kalnirnay. Households in Maharashtra are incomplete without a Kalnirnay.

For four decades, traditionalists in Maharashtra on the cusp of buying a new home, switching jobs or scheduling surgeries have looked to one authority to establish the most auspicious moment at which to make these crucial decisions: Kalnirnay calendar-almanacs that list religious festivals, the phases of the moon, the timing of the sunrise and all the other information anyone seeking to divine the intentions of the cosmos could ever need.

Since they made their appearance in 1973, Kalnirnay “calmanacs” have become a fixture in homes in Maharashtra and are popular in several other states, too. Sumangal Press, the firm that publishes the calendar, claims a circulation of more than 18 million.

But now, as the firm looks at the charts to determine its own destiny, it seems that the future is increasingly digital.

The revenues from the firm’s information technology products – such as horoscopes delivered to cell phones, its iPad app and a Website that generates cyber-predictions about such matters as “family welfare,” “buying gold” and “personality/anger management” – are set to grow at 300 percent this year. They constitute approximately 5 percent of the firm’s $4.5 million in total revenues, but Jayraj Salgaokar, the firm’s publisher and managing director, expects that figure to grow much quicker during the next decade. “I’m driven by technology,” he declared.

Mumbai: Big Bazaar and its affiliate retail formats may have made Rs150 crore in additional sales on Akshaya Tritiya, considered an auspicious day for purchases, particularly gold. It was celebrated this year on Sunday.