This must be what it is like for Westerners during Christmas. But for us desis, the gift-buying happens during the once-in-a-blue-moon trip to India.
Over the years, I have developed a system of gift buying. It's not a very efficient one, to be honest. The ideas for gifts start coming a few months before the actual trip. Then, a few weeks later, when I can no longer keep these straight in my head, I write down a list.
As we edge closer to the date of the travel, I realize my hand-written lists are woefully inadequate and I move to Excel spreadsheets. I type down the following: people on my side and on Ram's side that we will meet, categorized by city; gifts that I would like to give; gifts that I have already bought; gifts that need to be bought and the quantities of all these.
When I populate the lists by matching up the gift to the person, that's when the problems start. There will always be about a dozen or so for whom I have not thought of anything at all. And then there will be those teens who used to be mad about a particular thing the last time you saw them, a few years ago, and you buy them something that you think they will treasure. Then, from an offhand comment that someone makes, you realize they are no longer into that thing, that they in fact feel that that particular activity was the stupidest thing they could have indulged in, and that they have moved on to greener pastures, leaving you with a giant-sized cricket bat or multiple pairs of hot-hands hand-painted with scenery by Rembrandt or some such thing (I'm kidding.... really. Even I know not to buy cricket bats in the US!).
Then there are generic gifts that you just buy because you have no clue what to give some people: chocolates, of course; ties, wallets etc.
The hardest gifts to buy are for those uncles whom you haven't met in many years, but for whom you have a soft spot. What might they like, you wonder. Well, what do they do? Watch cricket, drink tea, and umm... well.. that's about it. So all of them get... guess what? Almonds! I figure they can snack on something healthy while watching TV.
Anyway, you buy all this nonsense and go back and give them, hoping that they will find happy homes where they will be treasured. But inwardly you know that most will disappoint, and be thrown aside as junk.
What to do? There's only so many creative gifts one person can think of. And invariably one ends up buying way too many gifts for a particular set of people and not enough for anybody else.
If I have to keep my head and not go mad, I must let go of this attachment, as Buddha would say. I must just get a bunch of gifts that seem nice to me and then, without worrying about consequences, results, fruits of labor or their ultimate fate, release them gently and calmly into the turbulent seas.
Which then brings me to the next problem: how to carry all this within the baggage limit?
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Update:
You know what's worse? You lug your luggage (magically made to fit all the hordes of gifts that you bought) and after the inescapably frustrating and long trip, land up in the great desh, and finally get to go... either to your parents' home or to your in-laws' home and with a flourish you open up the gifts and pass them along. Then, because you can't help yourself and because everybody is asking why in the world you had to bring so many pieces of luggage which all weigh a ton, you make the fatal mistake of briefly mentioning the other people for whom you bought gifts.
Uh oh.
Rule #1: let nobody know whom you have bought gifts for.
Because if you, invariably, the response will be: you bought something for them? Why? Don't you know we have not spoken to them for more than a year, ever since they took the inexcusable decision to.... (something.... from not inviting somebody else to some wedding (a big faux pas in Indian weddings when EVERYbody and their neighbors are invited), to not phoning someone when they were in the same town to something minor like not returning some borrowed item).
So suddenly, you've landed yourself in a feud and by taking these gifts, you have claimed friendship with the wrong team.
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