The Daily Rupee, from The IndiaPay Times satire desk. This is satire.
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₹95.28FREMONT, CA. Three siblings living in three countries entered the third week of a WhatsApp discussion on Tuesday about buying their parents one gold coin for Diwali, a plan all three approved within the first ten minutes, family sources confirmed.
“I said I would send my share on day one,” said the eldest, who lives in Fremont. “Then Dubai asked which jeweler, Plano asked which size, and now there is a poll. What to do.”
The poll, reviewed by this newspaper, offers four options: 5 grams, 8 grams, 10 grams, and “whatever Mummy will not complain about.” The final option leads 5 votes to 3, owing to participation by an aunt who was added to the group by mistake in 2019.
The sibling in Dubai, who has not missed a transfer in 15 years, sent his share on the first night and has posted the screenshot every morning since. The sibling in Plano proposed splitting the cost by income, then by age, then by “who called home more this year,” a metric the Fremont sibling disputed using call logs. The shared spreadsheet now has three tabs, one for each currency, and a fourth tab labeled “Emotional Contribution.”
At 4 AM India time, the mother forwarded an article on the dangers of buying gold online, followed by a sunrise image captioned “Blessed Tuesday,” followed by a question about marriage plans. No one answered the question.
The parents have repeatedly said they do not want a coin. “Just come home,” the father wrote. He then asked whether the coin would come with a certificate.
Sharma Ji’s son reportedly sent his own parents a coin in a velvet case with a tiny lock. He has not been seen in person, but the mother has described the case to the group twice, in detail.
A senior researcher at an institute nobody could name said family gifting follows a well-documented pattern. “The time spent deciding is inversely proportional to the size of the gift,” he said. “A coin the size of a lentil can take a month. A kitchen appliance can take a quarter.”
The coin was ordered late Tuesday night. It will arrive before Diwali, go into a locker, and not be looked at again, though both parents are expected to mention it to every guest through January, always beginning with “The children sent it, all three, together.”
A new thread opened within minutes to debate who will pay for the courier. At press time, the group had 212 unread messages, and nobody had muted it.
Not satire: if your family really is pooling money across countries for Diwali, here is how the transfer fees compare before anyone posts another screenshot. Our guide, Wise vs Remitly vs Xoom: The 2026 Fee Shootout for India Transfers, has the real numbers.
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