60th Birthday Gifts

Two quite different occasions arrive at the same search. In most of the country a sixtieth birthday is a birthday, a large one, with a hall booked and a cake, and the gift is chosen the way any gift for a parent is chosen. In many South Indian families it is not a birthday at all. It is Shashtiabdapoorthi, a ceremony with a priest, homams and a wedding performed a second time in front of everyone present, and the gift follows a different set of rules entirely. Both are covered here, and it is worth knowing which one you are buying for before you choose anything, because the two answers genuinely differ.

The ceremony carries a great many names and all of them are the same rite. Shashtiabdapoorthi or Sashtiabdapoorthi, from sashti for sixty, abda for year and poorthi for completion. Sashtiapthapoorthi is the spelling Tamil families use most often. Shashtipoorthi or shastipoorthi in Telugu and Kannada households, and shashtipurti sohala in Marathi.

What the ceremony is, and why it changes the gift

Sixty is the length of one full cycle of the named years in the traditional calendar, so a person completing sixty has come back round to the year they were born in, and the ceremony marks that return. It is held at the close of the sixtieth year and the opening of the sixty-first. Where that date is awkward for the family, a pandit fixes an auspicious day from the birth chart instead, which is why you will meet people holding it a little before or after the birthday itself.

What happens on the day is the part that decides the gift. There is a Ganapati pooja and a sankalpam, then the homams, the Ayushya Homam for long life being the one nearly every family performs, often with the Navagraha, Dhanvantari and Maha Mrityunjaya homams alongside it. Then the couple is married again. Garlands are exchanged, the mangalyam is tied a second time, and the two of them sit through the vows in front of their children, their grandchildren and a hall of relatives.

Three things follow from that, and between them they are the whole of the difference. The gift is for two people rather than one, so a piece that belongs to a household beats anything personal to him. It is opened in front of a gathering, so presence reads better than fine detail that nobody past the second row can see. And it is a religious occasion, so a murti is straightforwardly the right object here, where at an ordinary sixtieth birthday it can land as an assumption about how the family lives.

The same tradition marks two later milestones, and searches for the three run together. Bhimaratha Shanti falls at seventy. Sathabhishekam, also written Sadabhishekam, comes at around eighty, when a person has seen a thousand full moons, which works out a little past eighty years and is usually held shortly before the eighty-first birthday. Everything on this page holds for all three.

What to give at the ceremony

The family's own deity beats every other choice, and at a Shashtiabdapoorthi you can usually find out what it is, because somebody is already arranging the pooja and will happily tell you.

In South Indian households Tirupati Balaji is the likeliest answer of all, and the Balaji face with the namam is the form most families recognise instantly. In Tamil homes Murugan with his vel sits alongside it. Where the household keeps neither, Ganesha is welcome anywhere, and Lakshmi suits a gift meant to bless the years ahead.

Because a couple is being remarried, a pair reads better here than at any other occasion. Lakshmi Narayan, Vishnu standing with Lakshmi beside him, is the form that matches the day most exactly, and those sit in Lakshmi Narayan rather than in this selection. Shiva with Parvati does the same for a household that keeps Shiva, in the white and gold range. A Lakshmi Ganesh pair in solid brass is the version most homes already keep, and it is the safest pair to give.

Where you are a guest and do not know the household's practice, choose something that belongs in any house and asks nothing of anybody. The Kamdhenu cow with her calf is the safest object on the site, and a pair of trunk up elephants or an Ashtalakshmi tortoise does the same work; they sit with the animal decor. A pocket temple is the piece almost nobody thinks to give, and it suits sixty better than it sounds, since this is the age at which the pilgrimages that waited thirty years finally get taken.

Where it is a birthday rather than a ceremony

Most people who come looking are buying for a father, a mother, a husband or a wife turning sixty in an ordinary way, with no pandit involved. The occasion is a party, the gift is from one person or from the children together, and the rules above relax.

What does not change is where uniqueness comes from. More people search for a unique sixtieth birthday gift than for any other kind, and the answer is never a stranger object. It is a better fit, and fit comes from information: the deity already on their shelf, the room the piece will stand in, whether anyone in the house performs abhishek. Where you hold that information nobody else can match your gift. Where you do not, decor is safer than a deity, because a murti arrives with an expectation of daily care attached.

Sixty and retirement often land in the same year, and the two functions are sometimes the same afternoon, so if what you are buying for is a farewell rather than a birthday, retirement gifts covers it. The split by gender is worth using too, since it is real rather than cosmetic. A gift for a man turning sixty tends toward the horses, elephants and larger cast pieces that hold a room, which is what gifts for men gathers. A gift for a woman leans to the goddesses and the meenakari decor, in gifts for women. Everything else, the budget, the finish and who is giving, works the same either way.

One idea worth answering because it comes up constantly: lighting sixty lamps for a sixtieth. It is a decoration for the evening rather than a gift, and it is a good one. Small brass diyas in quantity are the right thing for it, and the quantity is the difficulty rather than the choice, so send the number and the date through the bulk order enquiry page and we will confirm what can be matched in one design before you commit.

The traditional 60th birthday gift, and the one we do not make

Ask what the traditional sixtieth gift is and most of the internet answers diamond, which belongs to the western anniversary list and has nothing to do with this occasion. The Indian conventions are different and older: new clothes, a silk saree for her and a dhoti with angavastram for him, gold or silver given by weight, and a silver lamp.

On the lamp, plainly: we do not make a kuthuvilakku, the tall standing lamp a family lights at a ceremony like this one, in silver or in any other metal. If that is what you are after, a lamp shop or a jeweller is the right place and we are not. What we do make in that direction is the smaller pooja pieces, brass diyas and thalis, which are genuinely useful to a household about to be doing more pooja rather than less.

The silver question is worth separating too. If you want hallmarked sterling silver, or a silver article bought by weight, that is a jeweller's purchase. What we make is silver plated, a finish rather than a metal content, and it buys a considerably larger and better looking object for the same money. Both are honest gifts for this occasion. They are simply not the same purchase.

What to spend

Think per giver rather than per gift, since the same amount buys a different kind of object depending on how many people are behind it.

Under 500 buys one small, finely finished plated piece, and it is a real gift rather than a token: a charan paduka, a tortoise, a small deity. Under 1000 is where a pocket temple or a meenakari animal sits, and it is the band a single guest usually buys in. Under 3000 and under 5000 are the family bands, and what they buy is presence, something that reads from the back of a function hall rather than a piece whose detail only works in the hand. Up to 10000 buys a landmark piece, and the sensible use of that is one substantial deity in solid brass or one large antique finish figure.

Where the children are giving together, one piece bought with the whole amount, every time. A collected fund spread across several small things produces a table of objects instead of a gift, and at this function in particular the present is handed over formally in front of the room, which a table of objects does badly.

Brass, plated, and how it arrives

Solid brass is poured slowly into a mould made for that one idol, and the mould is broken open once the metal has cooled. Every casting gets its own mould, which is why the detail holds where a reusable sand mould softens it, and why the alloy has to be high grade, since a lesser brass will not fill the shape cleanly. Sand cast brass is a different and cheaper process, and it is what you are looking at when a brass idol goes soft around the face and the hands. Brass is also the one material here that can be washed and bathed, which counts at this occasion more than at most, because a household that has just sat through a set of homams is often one that performs abhishek.

A plated piece is a resin core with a layer of copper over it and gold or silver electroplated on top, and on some pieces both. The copper is the layer that matters, because resin cannot be plated directly and the copper is what the precious metal keys onto. It is also why these pieces are light, why the detail stays crisp at a small size, and why water is the one thing they do not survive. A plated murti therefore presents at its best on the day and asks nothing of anybody afterwards, but it is the wrong choice for someone who bathes the idol daily. That single question, whether anyone in the house performs abhishek, settles the finish faster than anything else.

The white and gold Premium Edits are a resin core coated in marble dust, which is what gives them the surface and the weight of marble. The jewellery is made separately in brass, electroplated, and applied to the figure by hand one piece at a time, which is why the finish varies a little between pieces. Keep them dry and lift them by the base rather than by the jewellery. An antique finish reads as considered rather than bright, and suits a gift to someone at sixty better than a high shine does.

Every piece is checked at our own warehouse before it goes out, and everything ships in our own packaging, which is made to be opened rather than merely to survive the journey. That counts for a good deal here, because this gift is handed over in front of a room and unwrapped on the spot.

Return gifts, and ordering in time

These functions are often large and most families send guests home with something. Small plated pieces are the convention and they suit the occasion: a single diya, a small Ganesha, a tortoise, or a pocket temple where the budget allows. Buy one design in quantity rather than assembling a mixture, since guests compare and a mixture reads as leftovers. Below about a hundred rupees a head the honest answer is a sweet box rather than anything we make. See what works in numbers, or send the count and the date on the bulk order enquiry page.

The ceremony date is set by a pandit, and families settled elsewhere often fly in for it, so these are arranged at shorter notice than a sixtieth birthday party. Order as soon as you hear the date rather than in the week of it, since a specific finish is the first thing to become unavailable. For the wider range, start from the deity a household keeps, or see wedding gifts, since the couple at the centre of this one is being married a second time.