You celebrate a party – there are plenty of gifts.
You open the first gift box.
You find a pillayar.You are happy.You open the next.
Again you find another pillayar in another form.
This continues until you develop a hatredness towards pillayar.
Ayya, gift kodukkum seemangale! Yen enakkum pillayarukkum
Sanda muttaringa.
There are different kinds of pillayars you get as gift.
1- Simple pillayars – in circular or rectangular frames
2- Pillayars with digital clock.You have to replace batteries often.Other wise the clock stands still and an insult to pillayar.
3- Pillayars with flickering colour lights.You have to find a suitable place with plug points.
Invariably the pillayar comes with a wire of 2 feet and the distance between the best place and plug point will be always 5 feet.
During my wedding days pillayar culture was not there.It was milk cooker mania at that time.For my wedding in 1979 I got 7 milk cookers.Nowadays no body knows about milk cookers.But the irony is that for Magesh’s wedding in 2008 some body gave a milk cooker with out disclosing the identity.I think it is in circulation as gift for nearly 30 years and changing hands.The milk cooker should have scored a century.
For Magesh,s house grahapravesam I got 7 pillayars.In August 2008 I left my services from my company.In the farewell party I got one silver pillayar and in another farewell party next day I got one paper made walking pillyar with umbrella in hand.
This was followed by Magesh’s wedding where I got around 6 pillayars.Wedding was followed by reception at Chennai and I got 2 pillayars.
There were not any more functions and no pillayar gifts.
On 16-02-2009 Aravind celebrated birth day and he got some fancy gifts.But finally we could find 2 pillayars made out of navathaniyams.
About two years back I attended a wedding of Marwari businessman at Kolkatta.I gave a gift of fine piece of art work. You see I have not given pillayar.He is a big rich man and when I was about to check out the hotel he gave me a return gift.
It was a nice silver coated pillayar.
I have personally nothing against pillayar.But why all these people identify only pillayar as gift.I do agree that pillayar is the fore most God and it is in the best interest they give pillayar.But should not they think about the plight of the receiver.
If such pillayar gifts continue I will end up with a godown of pillayars.There is a place called as kodi lingam near kolar in Karnataka where one crore lingams are there.I will also build kodi pillayar temple soon.
My humble suggestion to every body.If yoy are really particular that you should give only pillayar to me, give any costly nice gift and paste a pillayar figure on it.
For heavens sake by mistake don’t present pillayar to Abdul Kader’s wedding.
4 comments:
Hi!it was a nice and different post!i enjoyed reading it!Actually i ve kept my showcase empty to accomodate lots of pillayars..:-)i suggest everyone to build a showcase with plug points to receive all pillayaars in their lifetime..see!going by ur positive theory ;-) in receiving pillayaars , u can declare it as a hobby and u have a proof too!;-)...keep blogging!
Hi Kumar..A very practical and funny blog about the gift giving culture in India. Suha and I still discuss about the number of Pillayaars we got as gift during our wedding reception..and guess what? in our case we got 5 or six identical ones! It is high time we popularize gift registry in India too. This way the gift receiver can determine what exactly they want. Gift cards/gift checks are better!
Cash the best..so the person collecting and managing the gifts can abes adichify the whole thing ;)
Keep blogging ..by the way did you mention somewhere you need a pillayaar gift for your 60th b'day?!! ;)
After reading ur blog we decided to start a business in Bangalore, "Ganesha shop". In Bangalore the most famous festival is "Ganesha" where they celebrate it for 3 months continuously.So here all the pillayars can be sold at premium price. so i and my father decided to buy all the pillayars from you at Flat 70% discount :-)
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