Whoever said, “Don’t hide skeletons in your cupboard”, must have been wary of the pre-Diwali cleaning avatar of my wife. Was it Socrates? Or our very own Thiruvalluvar? It doesn’t matter, because I ignored the wisdom of the sages and stuffed many skeletons into the darkest corner of my wardrobe. I figured everyone has got a few secrets to hide, right? Wrong! My wife, armed with a duster and a mission, flung open the cupboard, and out tumbled my shameful stash that I thought I had cleverly hidden forever.
My wife was inundated by an avalanche of shirts, socks and stuff. Shirts that would fit an emaciated teenager. Socks that a circus clown might wear. Neckties in fifty shades of regret. And a pile of still-gift-wrapped gifts. The missus shrieked as if she had stepped on a lizard. I rushed to collect the stuff and shove the mess back in. But the damage was done.
“What the heck is this?” she demanded, holding up two neon-green T-shirts with‘I Love Pattaya’ emblazoned on them in comic sans.
To explain this disaster, let me backtrack. You see, I have always had to bear the burden of the love of my relatives and the generosity of my friends and neighbours. These three categories of homo sapiens express their affection through the ancient art of gift-giving. Be it birthdays or anniversaries, and even JLT, they unleash gifts upon me; stuff I wouldn’t use to clean my car. They bestow upon me shirts two sizes too small, T-shirts so loud they would force ambulances to swerve to let them pass, and gewgaws that are as ugly as they are useless. I have never mustered enough courage to toss these things into the garbage can for the fear that some gifter might get offended. So I hoard them in my cupboard like a shopaholic squirrel.
“What’s this?” my wife said, this time waving a shirt and pointing at the heap of other clothes at her feet.
I stammered, “Uh, darling, these are… treasures. Gifted by you and others. But I can’t wear them, and I didn’t want to offend you by tossing them out in the trash.”
“Trash?!” she roared. “This is the shirt I got you! And you call it trash?”
I braced for impact. “Look, darling, the shirts you get for me are the kind that would fit a schoolboy, but certainly not me. And this?” I held up an orange blazer, “This is so, so loud, for God’s sake! Why can’t you—and everyone else— buy something that fits? Or, you know, something I’d actually like?”
I’m not a fashion snob, but I have standards. I do! I won’t wear just any rag that is tossed my way, especially if it’s the wrong size, the wrong colour, or looks like it was designed by a retarded monkey with a crayon. Yet, as a considerate giftee, I can’t bear to throw away these tokens of love. Hence, the cupboard of disgrace.
Some gifts sidestep the sizing issue. Socks? I have a drawer full, but I can’t bend down enough to put them on. Handkerchiefs? I’ve got enough to mop up a tsunami. Ties? Ah, the ties! I’ve got a rainbow of them, from that side of violet to this side of red. I never liked any, except one flamboyant silk masterpiece with an abstract pattern of butterflies. I wore it proudly until Gopu, my friend of many summers, smirked, “Nice tie, man. But those aren’t butterflies. They’re pole dancers in their birthday suits.”
I should’ve known something was off when my neighbour Sethi handed it to me after his Germany trip, giggling about Hamburg’s Reeperbahn district.
It is not just the gifts from my loved ones that put me in a quandary. There are the random, unsolicited gifts too—from events, conferences and weddings. I thought I’d hit the peak of absurdity when I got a faux brass plaque inscribed ‘Best Judge’ for refereeing a kids’ fancy-dress contest in our condo. (The winner was a four-year-old dressed as a cauliflower. I still have nightmares about that.) But no, the universe outdid itself at a shoe manufacturer’s daughter’s wedding. They gifted me a gold-plated shoehorn with the bride and groom’s names etched inside a heart. A shoehorn! For a guy who can’t bend down to wear socks, let alone use a glorified spoon to jam his feet into loafers. My wife, naturally, got an opportunity to mock, “Why not frame it and display it on the mantelpiece, alongside your Best Judge award?”
The problem with these gifts is they’re immortal and immutable. I can’t hide them for ever—my wife’s cleaning sprees will uncover the crime. I can’t throw them away, because someone or the other will witness my attempts at destruction of evidence. And I can’t offload them on Bassa Ram, my driver, because he has better taste than most of my gifters. Why must people complicate things? Cash is simple, universal, and fits perfectly in my wallet. Instead of turning my cupboard into a museum of ill-fitting clothes and useless gifts, why can’t my loved ones give me cash?
At least on this Diwali, let us keep it simple—let’s stick to cash!
K.C. Verma is former chief of R&AW. kcverma345@gmail.com