While I like to give, I'm not a big fan of the Indian way of gift giving! Most often the giver has no idea about the needs and tastes of the receiver. So the giver ends up gifting dinner sets, decorative items and other unnecessary items that usually end up in the storage room and is re-gifted!! Some thoughtful people gift silver or gold items. But I would argue that even these rarely meet the tastes of the receiver and end up in bank lockers (to preserve the sentimental value) or remade into another piece of jewelry (which is a waste of resources).
Let’s evaluate a couple of alternatives here – gift cards and gift registry. As per the
NYTimes article, $41B in gift cards were not redeemed. $41,000,000,000 is an awful lot of money to go unused. It is estimated that almost 10% of gift cards go unused. And then there’s the problem of unnecessary fees charged by gift card companies. The challenges with gift registries are 1) forcing givers to spend more than they might be willing to 2) limited gift options 3) the receiver might not be able to correctly judge future while setting up the registry.
Even with these shortcomings, I still think a combination of gift cards and gift registry can to a great extent match the needs of both giver and receiver. But I believe a better way to address these concerns is to just give cash. As we all know, cash is king! This is actually a common practice in most Tamil weddings (can’t speak intelligently about weddings in other parts of India). It’s called “Moi eluthurathu”. But then I’m not a big fan of cash-gifting in its current form, where the receiver can track the amount gifted by a particular person. It feels (at least to me) like assigning money value to relationships. Is a Rs. 500 gifted by a not-so-financially-well-off well-wisher less valuable than a Rs. 5000 gifted by a super rich acquaintance. Most people would like to believe that they have the mental capability to value a relation based on intangibles (love, friendship etc) as opposed to tangibles (rupee-value of a gift, in this context). But it is very difficult for the subconscious mind to do so, especially in an increasingly materialistic world.
So my suggestion is to give and receive cash-gifts anonymously. That way the giver will not be socially obligated to gift beyond their means and the receiver will not go through tangible vs. intangible conflict. And the receiver has the option to pool all the money to buy product of their liking, or even invest in a savings fund.
As an extension of this argument, I believe a similar concept can be followed with campaign financing as well. One of the biggest problems with Indian political system is campaign financing. Since most candidates are forced to spend significant amount of their personal money in running political campaigns, their goals invariably become getting a good return on investment once elected. Anonymous contributions eliminate the need to not only “earn” money but also favor “large” contributors. As a caveat, all these apply only to ethical politicians (sounds like an oxymoron these days!!)
