A box full of darkness

A friend asked me a couple of days before Diwali, ‘Any suggestions for a gift?’

‘A box full of darkness,’ I said, with a smile of course.

His expression fleetingly betrayed panic and he said in a low voice, ‘It is for my wife. A box full of darkness? Sounds strange. But am I missing something here?’

‘Darkness locked up in a box,’ I replied, ‘means just that. Darkness not out in the open in someone’s world giving moments a ghastly time.’ I then asked him to wait for some time while I thought of and wrote a few lines of poetry. ‘You can add these lines in your own handwriting to that locked box full of imaginary darkness,’ I said and smiled, ‘Hope this makes sense now.’

A box full of darkness for you dear
To help your life remain in light
So that you look up, say no to fear
And have forever a sunlit insight!

This incident got me thinking. Must gifts really make someone think about it more than it is necessary? I mean, we get gifts and we open them and experience that fleeting feeling of elation and once the moment is over, we just get on with our lives. The gift transforms into a pleasant memory and stays on a shelf or wherever it is meant for, and does whatever it is supposed to do. This is important enough but surely not enough. Gifts need to be something more than just moments floating by.

Gifts must do more

Well, quite obviously one of the purposes of a gift is to make life easier for a person. Gifts need to add value to moments. Dig deeper and you would even agree with Anthony Robbins when he wrote that ‘every problem is a gift – without problems we would not grow.’ On a metaphysical plane even belief is a gift and so is a cursory touch or maybe a few words spoken when they are needed most. But most of us take these things for granted and would want a list of material objects that can be gifted.

So yes, one can go ahead and buy a smartphone with a larger than normal keyboard for the elderly who may find this more useful than one that makes them peer endlessly. Similarly, a beautiful piece of jewelry makes for a meaningful birthday gift for wife. The point that I am trying to make is that a gift transcends being a mere gift if it has thoughtful insights backing it. Not just this, but I remember when I was a kid I invariably drew a picture to be gifted to my relatives and friends. Off and on I tend to write little poems that I then gift to people I appreciate. Yes, buying something thoughtful is just as vital because, after all, a lot of us need a lot of things. My nephew once told me that ‘there are things that I desperately want but never have the courage to buy them for myself.’ So here we are, a little conversation can always help us in defining the sort of gift we may want to buy for someone.

The extra edge to gifts

Gifting is an art that needs to be handled by experts

We have the option these days to browse the net and learn more by navigating through umpteen websites or gifting sites to finally decide on a gift, such as Gift Ideas for Gun Lovers. Of course, the offline route is just as lucrative but it is getting so difficult driving through impossible traffic and quite literally wading across impenetrable smog only to find that one still needs to spend hours queuing up to choose as well as pay. In such conditions, the will to look for that extra edge in a gift somehow manages to fade away.

With this thought I browsed through a few gift portals and stumbled upon a really charming website where new ideas mingled seamlessly with a few mundane ones as well. I was able to comfortably browse through flowers and cakes, toys and games, jewelry and trinkets, home decor, and a lot more. What stood out was that the portal was inclined to personalise a lot of these gifts. And so I could not only choose a cake, for instance, but opt to have the name of my friend embossed or written on a quaint tray. Even if I wanted to gift a voucher, there was an option to go beyond a dull looking paper slip mentioning the amount but also a photograph of the person you are gifting it to with a text message. ‘Nice,’ I said to myself, ‘personalising a gift is an idea that transforms a mere gift into a memorable one.’ I also loved the fact that this site had categories like gifts meant for the homemaker or the fashionable or even the classy… it makes decision-making so much easier.

Let me also tell you that I have used this site to order a few charming gifts and the delivery was prompt, the packaging perfect, and everything from browsing to ordering to delivery was handled without any nervous hiccups.

There is always something more to talk about

Gifts are talking points but this happens only when one is able to reach the right ones at the right price points and the experience is complete only if all processes are seamlessly thought of.