Wirelessly posted (Samsung Galaxy S: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.6; en-us; SGH-T959V Build/GINGERBREAD) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

You know both viable options. In many airports, they ask you if amything you are carrying has been given to you by another person. A personal laptop can ne imported duty free. I doubt anyone would be willing to lie to security aithorities of an airport on their way to India or to Indian customs.

Lastly, the purpose of this forum is not what your post intends to solicit.

Welcome to a FlyerTalk.
A trip to the U.S. can be done for $1500 or less.
Your relative can courier it or ship it and you can pick it up after payment of duty levied. There is no other solution.