I am not gifted enough to know what is the best gift

I am not gifted enough to know what is the best gift.

My lesson for the day – size does matter! Before you think otherwise, please read on.

One of my friends at work is getting married and we attended his wedding reception today. There were plans afoot of trying to pool in money and buy a gift. I didn’t want to join the group and planned to get him something on my own. However, there were a couple of other friends who too had similar idea. At which point, we all decided to simply join the bigger group itself.

The final budget was parked in the area of Rs.4,000.00 and by some default process, the onus of buying the gift fell on me. Since it gave me an excuse to leave work earlier than usual, to buy the gift, I accepted this privilege with pleasure.

With the budget in mind, I made it clear to my friends that I would get some silverware item and checked out the options at the Sukran shop in Mylapore - http://www.sukra.com/reachus.html.

Basically it is a small set of lamps with one main piece and two small side pieces. The total cost came to around Rs.4,500.00. Since these had to be gift wrapped, I took a picture of the lamps to show my friends. Since I was very happy with the purchase, I showed it to my parents and my friends with a lot of enthusiasm. The feedback I received was also very good.

But when I showed them the gift box, people were shocked at the size of it. And more than the shock, people also seemed to be genuinely upset that the gift was quite small. Was it my mistake that I took a good picture, but without a reference size? Or was it my mistake that instead of going for the value of an item – in this case not even a notional or emotional value, but an actual value of a costly metal – I should have gone for a bigger sized gift? Should I have bought a big Papier-mâché idol/doll – because for that amount, I am sure one can get something two feet tall on a two square feet base.

So, what is a good gift? Clearly not something I buy. I need to gain the gift of being able to buy the best gift.