Gifting.

 I am never very good at gifting. Be it for young toddlers, married couples, birthday boys, girls or for my lady love. I dont really have the passion or the thoughtfulness for selecting gifts. The first thing that comes to my mind when someone says 'gift' is -  a 'decorative' envelope with some money inside it. Plain simple money - crisp notes or old ones. After all, money is money. It cant buy you happiness but it can buy you a gift that brings you happiness. Money - you can keep it, deposit it in a bank, invest it, pass it to others or roll it up into a cigarette if you are as rich as Pablo Escobar. 

Recently, a good friend (lets call him 'R') invited me and my family to the birthday party of his 2 year old. Now what to get him?  A 'thoughtful' friend called me up and asked me what I had in mind. As usual I had nothing in mind except a 'decorative' envelope with some money in it. But - I kind of improvised and suggested we get him an amazon voucher. (Progress comes in small steps. From just money to a voucher is a significant improvement.) But my thoughtful friend (lets call him 'S') said, 'Kuch cheez dete hai yaar' and suggested that we buy him a push scooter. I tried my logic with him 'Look - What happens if someone else has already bought it?'. 

We finally decided to call up 'R' and ask him what gift should we give his child - frank discussion. 'R' is as thoughtless as I am and if possible even more !! He said what I had expected. 'Its not necessary to buy any gift. Anyway, he is already getting a push scooter from my sis'. I asked him whether we should give him a voucher so that he could buy something within that budget for his child? He was ok with that. So it was decided to buy a voucher for him. 

But 'S' wasnt happy. He called me two days later, saying that he wanted to buy something for 'R's kid. He sent me some photos of those kids tent which you just open up and kids can go in and out of it. Since S wanted to give it so badly, I told him to go ahead. So he ordered it and had it delivered to my place. We had both contributed for it and gave it R's son on his birthday and he was very happy with it. 

I realised that day that an actual gift given in surprise makes both the giver and taker happy. I remember on occasions when I used to get cash as a gift , it used to be passed on automatically to my parents and then it was done. There wasn't joy in that. There was no guarantee that out of that money, a gift would be bought for you. It would in fact be invested in some kind of fixed deposit with some additions !! 

It is ok if you gift cash to an adult. They will go out there and buy what they want. But its fun to see the child's expression when he opens the real gift, that you give him/her isnt it? Money is just paper for a child. What do you think?