nepaliketi

I remember growing up and being so excited on my birthdays. The house would be full of strangers – all of them my parents’ friends rather than my own (because that’s what Nepali children’s birthday parties are like) and we’d get crap presents. Who wants anything “practical” when turning six? Not me – birthdays and Christmases are opportunities to give (and get) what you want, not what you need. New schools shoes/backpacks/lunch cases aren’t on my list now and they definitely weren’t 20 years ago either.

But birthdays were less about the presents back then and more about crowding the kitchen with aunts and uncles and the hallways with cousins playing tag and there being way too much food. The cake, though, was the highlight – and this was when the best ones in my neighborhood came from the Bakery Café or Makoo Bakery. There was no Higher Ground’s Double Chocolate Cake or Hessed’s Cupcake Tower.

Anyway, the point of the birthday was for friends and family (and a lot of strangers) to gather and enjoy each other’s presence. These days it’s turned to outrageously huge parties with fancy gifts, professional DJs and designer dresses – entirely materialistic, huh? Last year my family gave me a (not as outlandish) surprise party and I was laden with presents. Actually, I started getting them at the stroke of midnight and I was still receiving more after the next stroke of midnight. I got so much stuff I didn’t even have time to take it all in, but I thanked everyone before tucking in for the night.

I woke up the next morning to a large pile of “stuff” in my room. I’m type A so I obviously believe everything has a place –  bobby pins, post-its and handbags included, so you can’t imagine how stressed I was to see all this other stuff when my room was stuffed as it was. My book shelf couldn’t shelve much more, my closet was quite tight, my desk was well covered and the drawers under my bed didn’t feel right – it seemed like I was already storing away presents I’d just received. Oh the dilemma. I spent a better half of the afternoon carefully strategizing which new item went where.

As I picked up each item and examined them upon daylight I realized the jeans were one size too big, the laptop case was the wrong color, the lampshade lokta paper wasn’t my favorite, the jewellery was set differently than my exact liking and before I knew it I was inspecting each item as though I was purchasing it at a store and not like it was a gift – a present from someone else who thought of me and spent their hard earned money on me!

You know how they say the present is called the present because it’s a gift. Well, last year I realized that the gift of the present is a thing of the past because these days we are flooded with presents – on birthdays, Christmases, graduations, promotions and even as my cousin did, on Children’s Day. We are surrounded by material goods that have been ingrained into our minds to consider a substitute (more than a symbol) of the love, care, commitment and dedication we want to express.

It wouldn’t be so bad if we were that needy – in terms of material comforts anyway. But, when we have so much stuff in our rooms and in our houses and in our lives, all the stuff just become stuff. We have everything we need and almost everything we want already but our insatiable desires mean we have an infinite abyss of wants to fill.

You’d think presents would make sense.

But we are picker than ever in all of human history! There are one million winter boots on the display windows of shops all over Kathmandu and we’ve already scouted the only one we actually want. So when we get a new pair we’re disappointed – it’s not the brand, color, style, etc that we specifically wanted. Instead of being grateful that someone zeroed in on your tattered boots from years past and thought to give you the gift of a new pair, you start complaining.

It won’t be long before we turn into Americans the way the brides and grooms “register” at different stores, identify the items they want and then email us their registration code so we simply go and pick out the exact vase and exact vacuum cleaner on their list.

There was a time not too long ago when I was absolutely shocked to learn this is how wedding couples received gifts. I pitied the no-element-of-surprise. It wasn’t just that they knew how much your gift to them cost (they picked it out for crying out loud) but also that they did all the work for you. Instead of me running about town trying to consider their personalities and what they wanted in their lives together, all the work had already been done. It was like cheating the whole idea.

Gift cards – I suppose that would make sense if your friends from overseas mailed in with birthday cards (another thing I strongly dislike) but if your best friend gave you one it’d be kind of sad. Also, this thing of putting in the receipt with the present seems odd to – I get us possibly wanting to exchange item but unless the person is super close to you (in which case just tell them) why put it in there??

Anyway, these days the way we are flooded with boxes of bows and ribbons, and tear through pretty wrapping paper, I wonder if we should all just put up a wish list on our facebook and never have people give us the “wrong” thing or if we should go back to the days when something small and simple was enough to make the recipient truly thankful.