The Diwali season has begun and India is in gift-giving mode. All over the country, countless batches of mud “diyas” or lamps are fired in kilns. They will be lit up on Diwali, which falls on November 3 this year, according to the lunar calendar.
It is a festival that celebrates the victory of good over evil and is typically celebrated with firecrackers, new clothes, lots of sweets, visiting family, and yes, gifts. All of which has got me thinking about the tradition of gifts and why we give them.
As an economic instrument, gifts signify prosperity. Only when you have enough for your own needs will you consider a gift. In that sense, gifts are noble because they put others over oneself. Instead of eating that extra box of chocolates, you give it as a gift to someone you care about; you carry it to a home where you’ve been invited to dinner and offer it to your hostess. In India, those gifts often arrive casually. I see it everyday in that extra banana my fruit seller throws in; or the extra length of jasmine the flower-lady gives. “Take it,” she will say, waving away my cash. “You are wearing a nice sari. You need that extra length of jasmine.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher, had high standards for gifts.
“The only gift is a portion of thyself,” he exhorted. So, a farmer would gift a portion of his paddy; a fisherman a piece of the day’s catch; a weaver his finest silk; and the poet a tribute.
By Emerson’s definition, the crude drawings of a child would be a lofty gift. You know those crayon drawings that your daughter brought to you when she was five? The ones that you exclaimed over with false delight and then tossed away? Those are gifts of soul and spirit; or maybe I am romanticising.
Maybe we should pay more attention to Emerson. During the festive season in America, all my friends would rue the “crass commercialisation” of Christmas with its gift registries and its stocking fillers.
Such registries take all the thought out of gift-giving flourish, but there is another school of thought involving handmade gifts.
I got one last year from a neighbour. It was a lovely bottle of apricot jam and on the lid were the words, “From the kitchen of Fran Higgins. With love.” We ate it for months and remembered Fran each time we spread her jam on our toast.
The best gifts do that. They imbue affection for the giver.
The fact that you are giving a friend a gift means that you are thinking about them. The choice of the gift shows them that you know enough about them to choose an object that you believe they will like. Some are objects that they wouldn’t have chosen for themselves but are delighted to have anyway.
My father is no follower of fashion, but he cherishes the Prada wallet that I once bought for him, not because he knows the brand or cares about it, but because it fits into his pocket, is of high quality, and reminds him of his daughter every time he pulls it out.
As for me, I plan to give a bonsai plant to all my neighbours this Diwali and get new silk clothes for my family. It will be a wonderful time.
Shoba Narayan is the author of Return to India: A Memoir
