There is never is a wrong time to the right thing. Exchanging gifts is a common practice across the world in every culture. Giving and receiving gifts is also an essential social bonding tool. Very often, gifts take the form of sweets and savouries as well. These can be homemade or readily bought from the countless shops that cater to this demand.
Very often, special types of sweets or mithais are made on certain special occasions. These mithais are deeply ingrained in cultures and are synonymous with a particular festival. Many places are also famous for their unique sweets and savouries, which are available throughout the year.
The Indian sub-continent
In the countries of the Indian Sub-Continent, there is a long and historical tradition of sweets or mithais exchanging hands. Festivals, weddings, and national holidays are some examples. Even people who are far away from their homeland are moved on these occasions. When in another country, they sometimes have the desire to send gifts back home to their near and dear ones during their important festivals.
So, a Pakistani national living in London might want to send mithai to Pakistan, it may not be possible so he or she sends a box of speciality gourmet cookies. With the advent of technology, it has now become possible to send gifts from anywhere in the world to your near and dear ones. So even if you are a few thousand kilometres from home, you can source the gifts and sweets from a few kilometres away from them.
Diversity of Gifts
Due to the increasing use of technology and advancement overall, the gifting options now are not limited. In today’s world, traditional gifts are presented in unique ways and unconventional fashions. Exchanging of gifts is important for the following reasons:
- Collective Celebration – It allows people to leave their humdrum lives and come together for a short while. It fosters close bonding with other people.
- Surprises – The joy of opening a gift-wrapped parcel never diminishes with time and age.
- Ice Breakers – Exchanging gifts with people of other communities, religions, or countries also helps to provide a base for establishing cordial relationship with them. It is common at the India-Pakistan border posts. The Pakistani Rangers give sweets to the Indian BSF guards and the BSF reciprocates by sending speciality Indian mithai to Pakistan.
Other Aspects of Exchanging Gifts
The tradition of exchanging gifts also provides great impetus to the economy. Seasonal windfall profits not only bring in more money for the companies, but due to the excessive workload during such times, they also offer employment to more people during those times. Other positive factors of the tradition of exchanging gifts are:
- Satisfaction of giving – Research in human psychology have revealed that giving is good for people and although they might not notice, the act of giving lifts their level of happiness. Also, the satisfaction that you may have brought a smile on someone else’s face is always very gratifying.
- Social Cooperation – Giving almost inadvertently is followed by receiving. This promotes social connections and helps in fostering new relationships.
The fact is that when we give and take gifts, we not only become closer to others, they also become closer to us.