Please avoid presents

 

There was a time when I loved receiving surprise gifts. Not anymore. Not because I don’t like being thought of fondly by someone, their thoughts deftly wrapped in gilt paper and satin ribbon, but what used to be pleasant surprises earlier, are off late turning out to be shocks evoking confusion and consternation. I have half a cupboard stacked up with things that I received in gifts - things that I have no clue what to do with. For all the love, sentiment and formality yoked in, I would hate to put a tag of ‘unwanted’ on them, but that is precisely what they are. Unwanted.

After lugging them around to the many houses we have lived in, I have now reached a point of serving an ultimatum on them.

If you thought disposing them off is easy as dumping your old shoes, think again. Most of them are spanking new, and throwing them away is heart wrenching. It is someone’s money after all, whether you got it first hand or second. Trust people to pass on things that sat unwanted on their shelves for a long time and when the clutter got too cumbersome, they wrapped it away. To me that is a mean thing to do. Moreover, to think that something that is absolutely useless to you can be useful to someone else is gross over estimation.

I am reminded of how one Diwali, a box of sweets that we had given to a relative trotted right back into our house after a few hours. Do I need to elaborate how?

So, re-presenting was not an option. I considered putting them up for sale on local e-commerce sites. In an age when everything from disco lights to dish washers can be sold on line a few ‘collectibles’ shouldn’t be a concern, right? Wrong. I soon realized that people really didn’t buy such small stuff second hand even as my adverts sat online for months. The tea sets weren’t bone china and the show pieces were no piece de resistance after all. Believe me, some things I wanted to dispose off were even hard to classify or describe.

I rued the absence of the garage sale culture in our place. We don’t have a private garage all right, but if only we could have an approximation of it! Someone suggested the flea market. But after the disastrous e-selling attempt, I couldn’t summon the courage to put my wares on display where they said only second hand items could be sold. Now, is my ‘unwanted’ stuff first or second hand? Should I deliberately scratch, chip or stain them to give them a second hand appearance?

Wonder why we are so obligated to be bounteous on people! Why do we get stressed about giving presents that we don’t even know will be cherished? Why can’t we be candid enough to ask what they would like and if we are asked for our preference, why can’t we spell it openly, instead of acting modest and saying, “Oh, please don’t bother,” knowing well that they would bother. Telling helps both sides. They will not be hassled about getting it right, nor will we be stuck with something genuinely redundant in our life. 

It is a pity that gift coupons are still a relatively unknown phenomenon out here. Wish we had more such avenues to gift and give. Letting your friends know your budget is far less offensive than foisting odd things on them, it is less embarrassing than having them see your nail impressions on the price labels. For some reason, we still balk at letting people know our limitations.  

Many years ago, my parents had insisted on footnoting our wedding invitation with a “Please avoid presents.” If I were wiser then, I would have added, “Flowers accepted.” It’s nicer to have a room bedecked with bouquets, than a cupboard choked up for years.