Gifting (in) the Present

Foreword: The huge populace that is a regular audience of my discourses has often accused me of escapism. I have been chastised, and quite rightly at that, for being frivolous in my writings. My formidable abilities which could have served the higher purposes of spreading consciousness in the youth of the nation and solve some really complicated problems like unemployment, female infanticide and baldness, are being frittered away in vulgar hedonism. Suitably admonished, I shall now endeavour to produce a piece of work to fulfill my social responsibilities.

In view of the festive season, with Diwali just having passed and my birthday and the new year coming up, here is a guide to help you buy gifts for me, er, your loved ones. (A couple of words about guides here- Any general guide that claims to help you deal with a problem and does not begin with a foreword ought to be avoided like a Leonardo Di Caprio movie. Also, a guide that attempts to provide a generic solution without severely qualifying its applicability is, unless authored by yours truly, pure and unadulterated bilge.)

Let me begin by first identifying the different kinds of people buying gifts for (Aha!!). Writers of insufficient intellect have often qualified gift recipients into two classes: those that gave you gifts and those that didn’t. Obviously, only one kind should make it to your recipient list! The correct classification, and this has been arrived at after reading millions of intellect building magazines like "The Penthouse: Annual Collectors' Edition" and "Hustler", is: Men and Women. Yes, the word is out and it has been established, to the degree of certainty allowed by quantum mechanics, that the sexes are in fact different and have different preferences.

Let us begin (as is customary if you intend to be politically correct and avoid being branded an MCP, a misogynist, an uncivilized brute and other terms that correctly describe the modern male, metrosexual men: you are not counted) with the women. What is it that the true woman of substance likes to receive as a gift? This is a question that has puzzled mankind for centuries, ever since Eve chose a flower over Adam’s Smooth Round Stone Attached to a Piece of String. What practical purpose does a flower serve as opposed to the said device of unprecedented genius? Nothing. And that is the answer! A gift to a woman must necessarily be useless: completely devoid of any intrinsic value, never lending itself to any chore that you might need help to perform. This is why a new microwave, while perfectly sensible, scores far below the Queer Shaped Fragile Glass Tumbler Containing Vaguely Coloured Liquids as an anniversary gift.

Now, if you are a male who has tried to gift a woman a scale model of a monster truck, or a battery powered double chain chainsaw, or a flamethrower, you are probably shaking your head so hard, you’ll get spondilitis. I once read an article somewhere that had found out after a global survey that the most loved gifts one festive season had been: a) Scented handmade bees wax candles with visible portions of bee poop still in them and b) Godzilla sized shears with serrated blades and bakelite handles. If you can correctly identify which set of people from the classification above loved which gift, you are beginning to get the hang of the thing.

If you thought figuring out what to gift women is simple, hang on. Its even simpler gifting things to men. Step one would be to choose anything that has the words, "Assembly Required" in the name. Other hot phrases include "Magnum", "Outdoor use only", "Personal Injury Hazard", "Telescopic Rifle" and "Playboy". Once you have these items lying in front of you (and are receiving appreciative glances from the men in the store, who, in turn, are wondering how lucky your boyfriend/husband is and if murdering him will make you theirs) you need to think like a man, which involves salivating at the sight of anything with blades, triggers, wheels and breasts, and pick ALL of the items in front of you.

If you are skeptical about it, let me allay your fears. I once got invited to a colleague's one year old son's birthday party. Since there was a woman in the group invited, we decided to get a gift for him. We drove to a toy store and while the lady in question looked for stuff that either threatened to be intellectually stimulating (alphabet pianos, lettered blocks and the like) or were plain dumb (suitable for nine months or older), I picked up the best gift possible. A radio controlled Red Ferrari with a cannon on top(5 years or older) and a toy rifle(9 years or older, Personal Injury Hazard). Of course, she was horrified but the kid loved it and I am the only one from office he still remembers. His mother (and my colleague) has often seen me and a couple of like minded friends gushing about the Harley Davidson S1600 and fails to understand the powerful emotions it inspires in us. But, like I said, the kid got the point.

If you are thinking the gift I chose for the kid was suitable for one year olds, you got it wrong lady! Those are things any male outside the womb and the grave will absolutely LOVE. And while we are at it, adding a Lara Croft figurine (carrying an Uzi submachine gun, a Kalashnikov and a missile launcher) to the sports car and rifle will make it even better received. Of course, if all of those, Lara Croft included, could be for real...