Gift exchange

When I undertook the Oral History project on behalf of the University, I got a chance to converse with a few elderly folks. A particular talk revolved around guests and how they were treated in the past. The old lady informed me that people had to carry their own cutlery whenever they paid a visit to someone's place. Nowadays the scene has undergone a drastic change. People may eat in the most scrappy plate themselves, but guests are always treated like royalty. We might want to contest this point but the truth is we do this all the time. It becomes a sort of status show. You want to make sure no one goes back to their respective dens with a bad review. 

Gift exchange is another status symbol. In our society, people prefer gifting money during weddings, and now I find it permeating into birthdays as well. When my niece celebrated her 6th birthday in April, her aunt was busy writing down details of the gifts received in a register the following day. It is a sort of guarantee for the future. You get back what you've given, all in good time. In my niece's case, you have to remember what is to be returned at a later date. Also, we've now come to a point where it is getting absolutely absurd. Very often we end up attending both the girl and boy's side of the marriage. This feels ridiculous because, either ways, blessings are offered to the couple. No one wants to come to a consensus and decide this is it! That we should just have a single wedding and invite everyone at one go. Ofcourse we cannot do that. It will disrupt the entire gift exchange system that has been in place for decades. Add to this, the desire of parents to throw a party-of-a-lifetime for their children plus the status show that I already wrote about. The society has evolved in such a way that no one wants to do things a little differently anymore. 

Perhaps, someone needs to undertake a comprehensive research on the underlying meanings behind these exchanges. The social and cultural significance is worth an analysis at a deeper level.