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VOL. XXIII NO. 23, March 16-31, 2014
Short 'N' Snappy

The evolution of wedding gifts

The Man from Madras Musings is breathing easy, now that the wedding season is over. His good lady, also known as She Who Must Be Obeyed, has now gone on to other things to expend her surplus energy leaving MMM alone and free from the care of attending weddings. But the spate of marriages had MMM musing on the way wedding gifts have changed over the years.

MMM is aware of a dim past when diamond necklaces, silverware and other such gifts were de rigueur but he was born in a more prosaic age. Among MMM’s earliest memories is of a doctor aunt getting married. A patient of hers gifted her with a ghastly steel cup (or was it a set MMM forgets). The aunt having put it away, rather absentmindedly gifted it back to the same patient when the patient got married. A couple of years later, the cup (or was it a set) came right back, when a second aunt got married. That aunt migrated to another city where no doubt the cup (or the set) was launched once again onto the gift circuit where it probably still orbits.

Mind you, a steel cup (or set), though hideous, was still better than the plastic ones that began doing the rounds a decade later. The era of the plastics was generally the worst for gifts and has mercifully got over. There are days when the mood is despondent and MMM can recall those cream coloured melamine cups with printed floral designs that were the most favoured gifts, at least from the giver’s point of view. If you got plenty of those, there were other excrescences as well. Who could forget the milk cookers – those aluminium creations in which water circulated and boiled in a chamber that surrounded the one in which the milk was poured. The water boiled first and the cooker whistled to warn you that the milk was next in line. It all worked well for the first month or so after which the whistle got choked with whatever whistles get choked with. The consequence was that the milk boiled over, the water having evaporated by then. But you did not have to worry, for you had at least half-a-dozen milk cookers on standby – all from your wedding – if you had not gifted them to others by then that is. If you were married in the 1970s or 1980s, milk cookers were the standard gifts, closely followed by electric irons. A close third was the ice bucket, perhaps because our city’s hot weather throughout the year.

Far worse than the milk cookers were the glowing lamps. MMM is fairly certain that the younger generation among his faithful readers will not know about these. They were hideous, comprising two metal florets, which held a coloured, transparent plastic cylinder between them. This cylinder contained water within. All simple and innocent you may imagine. The lamp was however a nasty bag of tricks that revealed itself only when connected to electric power. The water inside began to glow and, what was worse, revealed several tapeworm-like floaters that shone and darted about hither and thither. This was bad enough but some others had music in them as well. The only good thing was that the whole ensemble lasted a week or ten days at most at the end of which the water drained out. A rather cynical uncle told MMM that the lamp was popular as a wedding gift as it symbolised marital bliss and only lasted that long. But that, as MMM hastens to add, was his, the uncle’s, view and not MMM’s.

One excrescence that is still going strong is the statuette of white metal. Nothing can be uglier than this, no matter what shape it takes – a Venus, the elephant-headed God or a horse. There were some thrifty souls who got away with the simple expedient of sending a greetings telegram. These used to be ceremoniously read out as well.

In cash we trust

Continuing in the same vein, The Man from Madras Musings remembers cash gifts – most of them of a value that probably just about covered the cost of meals for two. That mention of cash gifts reminds The Man from Madras Musings of, no, not politics, but of the practice of a notebook being opened at each wedding for meticulously listing what each person gave by way of cash. This would in some communities be read out to the general public over a broadcasting system. Those who gave niggardly amounts would writhe in agony, as the value of their cash gift was made known to all. MMM in all his innocence assumed that the notebook was maintained to tally receipts. But that it had a second and more sinister purpose was revealed much later to him. It served as an aide memoire for the bride and groom’s families as to who gave what. That in turn helped in deciding what amounts needed to be given in reciprocation as and when an invite came from the other side. Some families had long memories and the same amounts used to be given, chiefly in retaliation, generation after generation, with not a care about inflation. MMM has known of guests who gave crossed cheques for rupees fifteen! By the time it travelled between bank accounts, it would have cost everyone involved a pretty penny, barring the giver.

The notebook was usually entrusted to a sharp-eyed cousin who was also good at mathematics. As MMM failed on both accounts, he was never ordered to report for duty. At one wedding none of the sharp-eyed cousins was available and having lightly passed MMM over, the family zeroed in on a newly married American aunt. It was the considered view of some of the senior ladies that it would give HER something to do and help HER understand our customs. The aunt took the notebook with enthusiasm, mounted the stage and seated herself behind the newly weds. She collected the cash but noting down our many syllabled, tongue-twisting names was an impossible task. By the time she had noted one name several others had gone by. So practical American that she was, she kept collecting the cash and skipping the names.

After the flood had abated to an extent, she set about tallying each guest with the cash they had given. This was done by going around the crowd, seeking out familiar faces and then having fixed them with a steady smile, asking them in a stentorian voice as to how much they had given. Several guests who had given nothing began to beat a hasty retreat at the approach of the aunt. It was a laugh riot for the younger and irreverent ones such as MMM but the senior members of the family were not amused. The notebook was quickly taken away from the aunt and handed over to a sharp-eyed cousin who tallied books of accounts for a living.

Tailpiece

Today most of all this is gone. Wedding gifts are usually flowers, and here too there are some ugly bouquets. Many invites sternly forbid gifts. But when The Man from Madras Musings received one that said Mr & Mrs XYZ request your presents on the occasion of the marriage of … etc, it made him wonder if it was a typographical error or a Freudian slip.

-MMM

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People's Marina
Madras Landmarks
Work on Elevated Expressway again
Now shop at Prison Bazaar
Learning from Trains
Anglo Indians bond in Southern India
Our Own MIT
History Written in gold
No Chitale stamp-Each different

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Short 'N' Snappy
Readers Write
Quizzin' With Ram'nan
Madras Eye

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