Gifts That Keep On Giving

This festive season, buy gifts that will change someone's life

It’s that time of the year again when we find ourselves in the thick of the festive season, surrounded by all manner of beautiful things, with colour and celebration everywhere. A time for treating our closest ones to gifts that they will cherish and hold on to forever.

It’s also a good time to take a pause and think: What if, this year, you chose to give gifts that have the potential of being much more than just tokens of affection? Don’t we all love a win-win-win situation and the bonus dopamine hit that comes from a healthy dose of do-gooding? Sustainability or charity, whatever the cause that you feel most strongly for, our edit of gift ideas that go the extra mile, should be able to sort you out while you focus on spreading that good cheer.

Varnam.co.in

Between cute home décor accents, unique jewellery pieces and ingenious toys, Varnam has a wide variety of gift options for you to choose from. Varnam is a social enterprise that works with women artisans in Channapatna, Karnataka to revive the region’s 200-year-old toy craft. Through its website and stores (only in Bangalore) Varnam offers a tightly curated, beautifully finished range of handmade giftables that fuses contemporary design with traditional craft.

We love: The decorative Vilakkus orlamps in bright Channapatna colours.

Chamarstudio.com
Sudheer Rajbar started Chamar as an initiative to safeguard the livelihood of the marginalised chamar or leather craft community in India. Classified as dalits, the chamars traditionally worked with cow leather. However, following the beef ban, they found it difficult to access their raw material. Rajbar is helping them reutilize their skills to produce handmade bags in alternative materials ranging from cotton, latex and canvas to recycled tyres. Apart from their own website the products are also available on Shoplune.com and at Le Mill in Mumbai.
We love: Thestark Lady Batwa from the Bombay Black collection.

Pahadilocal.com
A chance encounter with gutti ka tel or apricot kernel oil in the hilly town of Shimla led Jessica Jayne to found her own beauty and wellness brand, Pahadi Local. The product range uses pure ingredients sourced from the hills that are good for the body and the environment. The products are so good you’ll be tempted to order a few for yourself. The company ploughs 5% of its profits back to the source regions and the money is deployed towards education, sanitation and employment projects. In addition to their website Pahadi Local’s products are also stocked at Good Earth stores.

We love: The Apricot Care gift hamper that includes a bottle of the cult favourite gutti ka tel and an equally compelling apricot meal scrub.

Theindiacrafthouse.com
Gurugram-based social entrepreneurs Sona Puri, Prakash Bhalekar and Shailesh Bishnoi launched The India Craft House with the objective of leveraging India’s e-commerce momentum for the benefit of the artisan community. The enterprise sources directly from craftsmen across the country offering them a fair trade platform. The website is chock full of splendid products organised by craft, item and region and it ships globally.

We love: The intricately painted leather puppets from the Andhra Pradesh/ Telangana region.

Nationalgeographic.com: If you want your gift to be truly unexpected why not treat your family and friends to a subscription of the National Geographic magazine. That way you will also be contributing to the National Geographic Society, which conducts a large number of research, exploration, and conservation projects across the globe every year. Whether it’s safeguarding the big cats or tackling plastic pollution, you’re sure to find resonance with one or more of their initiatives. We love: Their latest cover story on the Amazonian tribes facing the threat of extinction.