Call it a day: Who added these celebrations to the calendar?
World Biryani Day, National Handloom Day, International Lefthanders Day. Our calendar is stuffed. Who’ll give us a day off from this mess?
If you ever feel like your schedule is out of control, take comfort: The calendar is having a meltdown too. At some point in the last decade, humanity collectively decided that every one of our 365 days must stand for Something Important. There’s Valentine’s Day, of course (February 14), and Earth Day (April 22). But there’s also Siblings Day (April 10), Cat Day (February 22), or the concerning celebrations heaped on July 31: Intern Day, Avocado Day, World Orgasm Day. HR departments are simply not equipped to handle this.
The more you look, the weirder it gets. November 6 is Marooned Without a Compass Day (to help you reflect on your purpose). But it also happens to be World Let’s Stop Shouting Day and National Nachos Day (neither of which help when you’re marooned). On September 4, prepare for Eat an Extra Dessert Day. It’s also International Taekwondo Day. November 19, incidentally, is both Men’s Day and Toilet Day. You win some, you lose some, sometimes on the same calendar square.
There is no central global authority approving these observances. So, no one stopped the folks at the rice brand Daawat from marking the first Sunday of July as World Biryani Day in 2022. There’s no International Laundry Commission declaring June 6-13 International Clothesline Week. Gary Drisdelle made it up in 2013 to promote air-drying clothes for sustainability. And there is definitely no UN office that approved June 24 as Cat World Domination Day. Janiss Garza simply claimed it in 2012 to celebrate her cat Sparkle’s birthday. Most of these events are either brands with agendas, communities with hobbies, or one extremely determined person with a Canva subscription.
When a day is described as National, it’s almost always the US. Most faux-holidays originate in the West, which explains their delightful absurdity. May 2 is National No Pants Day and, in unrelated news, International Harry Potter Day. October 9 is National Pro-Life Cupcake Day (how else to amplify the denial of a woman’s right over her own body than with overdecorated dessert?).
At least World Biryani Day helps position the preparation as a national treasure. The rice brand teams up with Insta-famous chefs and puts new spins on the well-loved dish. And August 13, which started as Lefthanders Day in the US, is now an international observance for lefties to highlight how tough it is to button shirts, use scissors and write in spiral notebooks. It’s helped product designers create everyday items with them in mind.
Only superfans celebrate Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you, get it?) and Mean Girls Day (honouring the minor moment when Aaron Samuels asks Cady Heron what day it is, and she replies, “It’s October 3rd”). For India, celebrations need more heft. International Yoga Day (June 21), National Handloom Day (August 7) and Engineer’s Day (September 15) all have government-backed promotional events. That’s why Indians don’t get a Thankful For My Dog Day (November 23), or National Wash Your Nose Day (March 11. But don’t wait for an annual cleaning).
India does have one wonderful backstory that is worth celebrating. In Chennai, 55-year-old auto driver-turned-entrepreneur M Eniyavan is so obsessed with idlis, that he’s set records for the food. He’s cooked the most varieties (2,000, using corn, tender coconut, even chocolate), steamed the largest one (124.8-kg), made idli exhibits too. He runs Mallipoo Idli in the city. So great is his devotion to the food that the Tamil Nadu Culinary Workers Association has declared his birthday, 30 March, as World Idli Day. “I never expected my birthday to become a world day,” he says. “But it showed people that even with a simple idli, history can be made.”
