When D Kumaresh is not dealing with levying and collecting customs, duties and service tax or preventing smuggling, he juggles with words and numbers. A hobby this superintendent at Central Excise and Customs has been nurturing for the last 22 years. The result is a mind-teaser of a new year greeting card that he circulates among friends and family. “I started the concept of number and word greeting in 1993, and since then I have been innovating every year. The curiosity of my friends and relatives drives my passion to come out with unique greetings,” he says.
FOR SACHIN
So far, he has created 22 calendars with concepts that included the television show Kaun Banega Crorepati and even the Metro rail inauguration. “I choose contemporary topics every year. This year, I have chosen Sachin Tendulkar and created a greeting card that uses a simple formula to find the day of any date from 1973, the year when the maestro was born, till 2014,” he says. A fan of cricket and of the legend, he now plans to send the greeting to Sachin. “I have drafted a letter and will be sending it to him soon. After all, this year’s card is dedicated to Sachin. I got the idea on November 24 and it took 30 minutes to come up with the formula. I finished the concept in a week but the designing took a little while. The whole greeting revolves around Sachin and the number 14,” he says.
STITCHING VARIETY
Kumaresh ensures that there are three aspects to his creation - a page is dedicated to a calendar, another to greetings, and another for related information. “Since 2008, I have been printing four pages with information as well as the number game. If I purchase a greeting from the market, it might cost about `30, but when I make these cards, it costs me just `10, since I print about 1,000 of them,” he says. His creation of a greeting with a calendar from the year 2000 to 2100 and a ‘match fixing’ greeting along with the KBC greeting was much appreciated by his friends and relatives. “I try to take suggestions from my wife, my 10-year-old son, relatives, friends and colleagues. They have always encouraged me in my number and word pursuits,” he says.
vyas sivanand @newindianexpress.com