Gift paper and packaging
During Diwali and Christmas I received some of the best packets of sweets I’ve ever received before! Mind you, I’m not making any comment about the sweets inside; suffice it to be said, that packet outside far excels the contents inside!
The clever shopkeepers have worked out that the giver of gifts is happier in the way it is wrapped than the quality of sweets. I know some of these gifts have been purchased from pavements, by fly-by-night operators, who will not be found once the festival is over, and I do suspect, they are more into the gilded, shiny paper and fancy box business than in sweets and laddoos and all that goes inside.
At first as the boxes arrived, there were exclamations of oohs and aahs from all at home which slowly subsided as the inside revealed poor stuff I would normally hesitate to eat.
One big box came, again so beautifully wrapped, and looking at the size I thought I’d got myself a bonanza, profusely thanked the beaming sender of the gift, till inside I found ordinary local sev and other fillers that had given it its size!
How easily I was fooled by the huge package.
Read the full article by subscribing to the print magazine or the digital edition.
Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist with an estimated readership of 6 million. He also conducts a short-term writer’s course. Contact him at bobsbanter@gmail.com for more details.