Gifter-Giftee Perplex

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Polonius:

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 75–77
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Times have changed much from Shakespeare's. Children are born nowadays with a Credit Card or two in their Gift-Hampers.

For long, this business of 'gifting' has consumed a lot of my precious time, imagination, emotion, not to speak of mere money.

While it is true that 'cash' or one of its modern equivalents is the most convenient and thoughtless ways of 'gifting without tears', there is pleasure in the pain of thinking up a suitable article as a gift; for one wants to be appreciated and remembered for the gift one has made with some thought and feeling.

My eldest brother-in-law, Sri G. Ranga Rao, IAS, missed my Wedding since he was in Australia then (he graciously permitted me to go ahead without waiting for his return knowing the utmost hurry I was in to close the Deal and Consummate it before second thoughts prevailed on my bride's party).

But he made it up by bringing in the latest gadgets from Australia and showered them on me when I met him with my newly-wed wife to seek his blessings; and goodies that go with it.

Next summer, when my wife was away at Jalgaon with my new-born son, I was getting bored at KGP and decided to join the JEE Spot Valuation. I was lucky to meet Prof SKS from IIT Kanpur and we got along like two sailors on shore leave. I met him later too at IIT Delhi. He was one of the most sincere and capable physicists I met (sadly he passed away very young).

When he saw that I was using a brand-new gadget for calculations, he came down to my table and asked me where I bought that Calculator. I said that GRR brought it from Australia as my wedding gift. Next day, he saw my first-ever digital watch in India and asked me the same question and got the same reply. Next day, when I took out my leather wallet, he asked the same question and got the same reply. Next day happened to be my Wedding Anniversary, so my wife asked me to turn out in my new shirt. SKS came down and joked: "Don't tell me that your new shirt is also a gift from GRR". I had to say: "Yes, indeed it is!". He shook his head this way and that and went away thoughtfully.

But this is rare.

On one of my my son's Birthday Parties, he got 6 identical 'ships' from six of his friends because that good-looking ply-wood 'sail boat' was the latest arrival in Gole Bazaar, and everyone thought that he was the only one to spot it.

Since I was in the World of Academics, my students didn't have to think much what to gift me when they got good grades or good recos: they just gave me books. This was nice and easy too. I cherish them and remember them with pleasure whenever I reread their books.

There were also occasions when I myself chose the books my friends wished to gift me. Webster, Sneddon and Panofsky & Phiilips were my choice-gifts from my fiends. My literary uncle BRK loved pens and I always gifted him the latest and he still preserves them fondly.

The first question I asked my wife soon after our marriage was what gift should I give her to please and propitiate her as and when needed. She promptly replied; "I love saris, and could do with any number". So that problem was solved once for all.

To my parents, I decided that I gift them what they could happily use daily but would never spend on them themselves: like an Attached-Bathroom, Geyser, Inverter, Telephone, Water-Purifier to name the lot.

There was one gift that I had to refuse:

Prof BCB and I joined IIT KGP the same day May 1, 1965, he as a Professor in the Aero-Engg and I as an Associate Lecturer in Physics. He was 15 years older to me. But since he was (and is) a bachelor, he was staying in our Faculty Hostel with us for a while, driving a Fiat Millicento, the only car in the Campus then. He comes from an aristocratic family of Calcutta, and is rumored to be a close nephew of Comrade JB. He had his schooling in the best of Calcutta Schools and then spent 14 years in England before taking up his position at KGP. Somehow or the other despite our age and background chasm, we became fast family friends for the next 45 years (myself and my wife met him at KGP this January: at 80+, he still has an Office in the Wind-Tunnel Lab he set up there).

Whenever I used to visit his A-type Bungalow, I used to praise his Center-Piece: an antique, carved, rose-wood beauty with a Belgian Glass top etched with floral designs.

Soon after his retirement, he was leaving KGP to take up a prestigious assignment in Canada. He shifted all his heir-loom furniture to his sister's palatial home at Calcutta, but for that Center-Piece. He graciously offered it as a gift to me as well as a fond memento.

I at once declined, saying it is too precious for me, doesn't go with my deal-wood creaking sofa-cum-bed set, my naughty kid-son would break or scratch its glass-top, so on and so forth. But the real reason was that I believe family-heir-loom sets should not be broken up (I might have accepted the whole set ;-)

Again, I had a hunch that he would soon return from Canada and rejoin IIT KGP on some assignment or the other. And would get back his sofa-set from his sister's place and would be forlorn without that Center-Piece because nothing else in the market would match.

My hunch proved correct and I always felt happy whenever we visited him and saw that set beautifully intact, unmutilated.

He too must be happy!



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