The festive season brings with it the jubilance and enthusiasm of shopping, meeting, gifting and celebrating. Meeting friends and relatives and exchanging gifts are a significant part of our culture.
Gifts are generally purchased to fit the budget rather than to justify their use. To replace the old-fashioned gift ideas, markets are flooded with innovative gift items to splurge on, which even suit the pocket. Candidly speaking, many of these unique gift items seldom fit into our utility protocols. The gifts are even gingerly kept in a safe place to pass it on as gifts to others, with the tags of the sender not removed to avoid the mistake of gifting it to the same person.
Storage of gifts takes up a substantial amount of space but they definitely ease the onerous task of exploring the market to choose gifts for others and act as easy gifts for any occasion. It is always a feeling of triumph when any piece of the thronging collection is successfully given away.
Most of such gifts keep travelling, maybe for years before finally being used till the cover packaging gets torn and ripped suggesting it to be unsuitable and inapt to be gifted. Keeping the packaging of the gift intact is an important part so as to make it look fresh to gift anew.
One humorous incident happened to me recently. One of my neighbours once gifted us a wooden tray which looked more like a showpiece. Finding it not of much use but not worth wasting also, I decided to gift it further to someone else. Soon, I succeeded in doing so, feeling content that I used it tactfully and prudently.
After a couple of years on Deepavali, when we were at our friend’s place, a bell rang and there entered a few relatives of my friend. We shared warm greetings ebulliently, chatted and had discussion on several topics. My friend forced us to stay back for a night there, with a plan of playing cards. As my friend’s uncle and his family had left, my friend opened the gift. We were quite enthusiastic and keen as the gift looked quite appealing in an alluring packet. As the wrapping was hastily uncovered, my daughter whispered in my ear, “It seems the same tray that we passed on.” I carefully observed the box and as I rolled it, there I found the stuck piece of old packaging that we had tried a lot to scratch off but couldn’t.
It left me wide-eyed with surprise. I had a smile on my face when it was confirmed that it was the same piece. A plethora of thoughts crowded in me. My friend manifestly noticed this change on my face and asked me inquisitively what was it that was making me smile and grin like a Cheshire cat in a light mood. I replied, “Nothing”, took a pause and then burst out in laughter and related to her the entire story. We giggled and laughed loudly about the gift that travelled through many hands to go on further.
