Notes On Gifting

As I began writing this, it was not even Diwali yet, and I was already drowning in corporate largesse, like some discount Maharani. Several sources, but most notably, my workplace, some professional friendlies and my HDFC bank relationship manager (!) had colluded in a grand mithai offensive.

Needless to say, I am delighted.

Somewhere in the gap between my third and fourth laddoo, I had the fleeting realization that I haven't gotten anyone anything. My giving and receiving ratio is way out of whack.

This isn't about exact reciprocity as much as keeping the flow going. It feels like giving other people things of beauty is a primal way of showing care.

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If there is an art to gifting, my best friend K is the queen of it. Over the years, I've been the direct beneficiary of K's lovely gifts. But then I've also seen her conduct literal production-scale gifts for all the people in her life.

Last year on my birthday, K put together this book, a collection of all my substack essays, with smartass reviews from all my degenerate friends. This was to celebrate all the writing progress I'd made that year. When I saw it, I was positively dumbstruck.

When we were sixteen, she'd crafted a wall of pictures of all our friends to give to one of our friends on her birthday. She took a whole day to dream it up and then actually put it together. I wish we had pictures.

As I see it, K's gift-giving flows from a place of natural abundance. Where I might experience gift-giving as a somewhat stressful obligation, K approaches it as an artist approaches their canvas - with curiosity, playfulness, and a type of natural creative vitality.

K holds space in her heart for the detailed topography of other people's joy. She's really paying attention.

When she gives, she doesn't just offer objects; she offers evidence of her witnessing. She has mastered the most profound form of generosity: the ability to step outside one's own narrative and inhabit the emotional landscape of another. In a world of 10-minute deliveries (hi Blinkit, I am unfortunately a fan) it's a rare type of attunement.

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Meanwhile, my own gift-giving history reads like a comedy of errors.

In the early years of our romance, I got my practical and austere husband the following birthday gifts:

• 6 overly nice whiskey glasses.

• Some modernist wall clock that made time itself feel nervous. (The personal touch was a tired joke about time not being real. Sorry.)

• A very nice golf shirt that fit like a theoretical concept.

• Cufflinks that have since entered witness protection.

• Socks with puppies that are miraculously still in circulation.

The poor bastard stood there, overwhelmed, looking like he'd just been asked to explain quantum physics to a room full of kindergartners. When he reacted with less than glee, I was mortified. But over the years I've realized that my efforting was misguided. These were high-quality things that didn't really speak to his heart in any meaningful way. And they were probably more about me than him.

My husband will often buy me small little somethings from the many trips he takes. They're simple, and maybe they aren't always the things that I want, but they're often exactly the thing that I need. Last month, he brought me an object that has single-handedly improved the quality of my life - a six-foot-long, three-pin charger wire that allows me to charge my earbuds, phone and iPad all at once. If this isn't love, I don't know what is.

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It seems to me that gifts aren't about the gifts themselves. It's about the space of recognition they create. Good gifts say "I see you. I know you. I celebrate exactly who you are." And that's that.

Happy Diwali and all that!