JOY OF GIVING- ONLY BLESSINGS, PLEASE!

 

JOY OF GIVING!

 ONLY BLESSINGS, PLEASE!

These days it’s common fad. People invite you to celebrate some special occasion in their life, be it birthday, anniversary, wedding or whatever, and tell you not to bring gifts, not even a bouquet of flowers and they solicit your presence to grace the occasion  (This is exactly what I was told by my cousin Nirmala, who was celebrating her 70^th birthday). But it does give you an awkward feeling to go empty handed A friend of mine says he is quite okay with this idea of such sweet guys not wanting gifts but whenever he has own birthday bash, he would still want his quota of gifts and also from such noble souls. He wants the first person who started this ‘stupid’ trend to be quarantined, lest he or she spreads this dangerous and contagious disease and a day will come when he will receive no more gifts.

He continues further. To him receiving gifts is fun and he really doesn’t know why people don’t accept them with grace. He fully understands, as he puts it, their aversions towards flowers – to carry all those bouquets home and then pay to some BMC sweeper to get rid of them the next morning – or may be one could be simply allergic to flowers. But the same logic doesn’t   really apply to non – floral gifts, which will always have some use or the other, unless of course if they are recycled ones like pressure cooker, milk cooker, lemon set,  set of crystal bowls, ice pail, casserole, photo frame, wall – clock, cuff – links (who wears them these days any way?) or  say, tie – pins; and shamelessly admits how he had given to his friend a gift of the milk cooker, which he had received as his wedding gift and how, as the luck would have it, it had come back to him on his 25^th Wedding Anniversary and not from the same friend but it had exchanged many hands before it got landed on his lap( there were a lot of scratching and several fresh engravings on it. But tale – tell signs that it was the same one, could not escape his keen eye and it is needless to say how it will again be recycled, if he hasn’t already done it). To this day I do not know how he confidently proclaimed that it was the same gift. All this, you would say, would give you clue to the whole man.

Then there is this other guy. For him there is lots of fun choosing an appropriate and befitting gift for a friend – a gift that matches the occasion and the event. He does so meticulously every time he has to find such a gift for his friend or someone special. Although he must be putting in a lot of efforts, he says it is quite simple – all that is required is to know your friend, his likes and dislikes and choose the gift accordingly and finally the great satisfaction, for him, is to see that broad smile on his friend’s face on receiving the gift from him. So much for the ‘Joy of giving’!

As kids you too must have enjoyed your birthday parties and the whole process there after – holding the gift, removing carefully the wrapping paper without tearing it, peeping inside with some anticipation to find out what the gift is but perhaps never bothering to find who is it from – so much fun. Both giving and receiving gifts must have been fun then. But now as a grown up, is it? I am not simply good at it. Some people have natural  turn for it. But then this other guy, I told you about, gave me this nice tip – Chocolates and alcohols (here you have a very wide range too – whiskey, wine, rum, ---) are always welcome, even if the invitees are told, “No presents or flowers, please – blessings only!”

VINAY TRILOKEKAR