The Gift of the Magi

In an age of abundance, what do gifts mean?

Yes, General Malaise on duty today, too!

The tone of the discussion in this post won't be anything new if you have been here long enough.

When we were kids, I looked forward to grandmothers visiting with us in Neyveli.  Because it was fun times when they were around.  But--and this was perhaps the more important reason--also because of the awesome  therattipal.  The great-aunt, who died barely a fortnight ago, always fondly recalled how my brother and I loved the nendra pazham jam that she made.

All those sweets were like the gazillion awesome tasty stuff that were all home-made.  I remember them, and recall them so fondly, because they were all made by hand by my grandmothers and aunts.  If they had brought with them sweets and snacks that they had purchased from the store, I doubt that I would have such fond memories of food and people.  Which is also why I don't have any special memories of, say, Tirunelveli halva--as much as I liked them then, well, they were always from the halva store.  Family lore is that my grandmother used to make the best halva ever, but she was no longer energetic for that kind of hectic kitchen labor by the time I came along :(

Now, during my visits to India, I see that rarely do people seem to make sweets and snacks at home.  In the old country too, like here in the US, abundance is clearly visible.  Restaurants are in plenty and all of them seem to be forever filled with customers.  Therattipal is not a big deal anymore--it is available any day at the store that is round the corner from my parents' home.  Oddly enough, I don't enjoy those sweets--what my mother made was infinitely tastier, especially because she made them and didn't merely buy them from the store.

It is not as if we don't have the time.  We do.  We choose to spend our time other ways.  There are a gazillion ways in which we can entertain ourselves passively watching glowing screens of all sizes.  And, thus, we live in a world where we rarely ever spend a great deal of our time in order to make a gift.  We buy stuff made somewhere in China, warehoused somewhere we don't know, and pass it along as a gift.  We do not even bother to write personalized notes and, instead, outsource those sentiments to greeting card manufacturers.

So, back to the question of what gifts mean in an age of abundance.  And more than that, what do gifts mean for relationships?

 I am stumped!

All I know this: There is something seriously missing in this contemporary abundance.