Giving, getting and every thing in between.

As a child, It felt like winning a bumper lottery when I received gifts from my family and friends. That's probably why I vividly remember the neon yellow snap clips my neighbor decorated in my oil doused braids when I went to give her candy for my Birthday. It was a tradition I looked forward to, distributing candy in school and in the neighborhood on my birthday and whenever someone gave me something, even it was as trivial as a pair of trinkets, It made my day. Getting gifts was a joy to the highest degree. My older cousin, who came and stayed with us for over a year to complete her teacher's training, used to get me little rhinestone studs, flip flops and nail polishes when she came back from her home town. Receiving them made me so happy that, a couple of decades after getting them, I still remember the joy my cousin brought me with those little stuff.

As a little girl, the gifts fascinated me - but as I grew up, the thought and the effort surrounding the event of buying and receiving gifts shifted to the front seat. This day, my daughter got some of the most expensive gifts whose value would be a thousand times more than all the gifts I'd gotten through my childhood and early adulthood. The sorry part is that she might not remember any of them this very day, let alone remembering how she felt receiving them.

Gifting is not about the expense involved - it is a very emotional experience sine it takes a lot of thought and effort to think of something for someone in a world paced at light speed. Unfortunately, many of us fail to understand this. That is perhaps why we see even grown ups throwing tantrums and complain about how something they'd received was cheap, easily available or downright crass. Since giving does not have anything to do with the value, it does not in the least mean that you could gift a pack of glue-on Hollywood pink plastic nails to a couple of grown up, autistic guys - no I did not imagine this, it was an actual happening in my aunt's friend circle a few years ago. A thoughtful relative of the guys went back to India from a visit to the US and lovingly brought them a pack of glue on nails, in Hollywood pink. I would not have believed this if I'd not seen them being handed over to my aunt's daughter by the guys' mother, along with the story of how she got her hands on them.

Thinking of gifting is like thinking of loving. I once sent some strands of fresh water pearls to a lady I know. When I sent them, I thought about the recipient with lots of love and wanted to send her something as a token of my thought. I later on learned that the person's daughter made fun of those pearls as the cheapest thing I could have sent them since pearls are available in abundance in their city. I was not angered listening to that - I was hurt. I did not have an occasion or a need to send it, I just had a reason - my love.

On an other occasion, I opened a gift for one of my nieces - a Hodge podge of things - used pencil cases, crayons, yes - used snack boxes - thrown into a careless pile, much like we throw things into a waste basket. This is not a person that cannot afford a few rupees to buy a box of crayons. She lived in a upscale neighborhood and was well off. And not being able to afford doesn't entitle us to gift used items when we are not at a charity drive. A simple card with an honest wish costs and means a lot more than the most expensive of gifts we can ever receive.

To be continued.