We all love receiving gifts...And maybe the best part of having a gift is unwrapping it...mmm afterall who doesn't feel the excitement of uncovering somethin to find out what lies beneath...And as the wrapping goes off...what's left behind is either an equally excited and enthusiastic face of the person who loved d gift, or a bored out sulkin face of someone who outrightly rejected what came out of the wrapping...Either ways, the 2 minutes spent in opening up the unknown are the minutes which are great, no matter what the final outcome is...
Its a common saying, "The best gifts of life are most often the ones which are overlooked"...Wonder why so..maybe bcoz the same philosopher feels like d best gift is life...the ultimate of all d gift bcoz no one can gift a person a life, not literally atleast...but then I again wonder how many of us feel blessed to have a life...even d happiest of our lots have some complain or the other with life...
Another unique gift, unique even when all of us gets, is a new morning...I come across so many mails, n truly sayin most of them chain mails...where its said that it feels great in morning...a whole day lying ahead...a gift of the almighty to experience new things, embrace new feelings...but surely most in my generation feel no such thing...maybe an odd bird of us wud wake up in mornin to thank for the lovely gift of mornin...d first thought which comes to me is...wonder what the time is...can I squeeze in some more sleep...how many of us, wid either a full day of job, classes or nothin , look ahead to what's to come in next 12-14 hrs...And how come, a mornin which comes to wake us is a gift, when a peaceful calm deep sleep is also considered a gift to b blessed wid :)... Pretty ironical....
All these philosophical gifts don't work...not even to a philosophical person like me...but then again, even I agree..dat v most often don't realise the true value of a gift, n not just the marked retail monetary value, until n unless v sort of loose it somewhere...n it holds true for all gifts...the materialistic, as well as the spiritualistic...I probably didn't realise what my brother meant to me till he moved to a different city, till d time he was wid me v both were busy fighting n arguing...same goes along wid di...n most of all, I didn't realise how much ma-pa meant to me..till they waved me bye at d hostel door..n I guess being a perfect human, I wud make d same mistake time n again...since from the time of bhaiya..I realised his value when he was away...I realised what a gift he was in my life, but never did I realise dat in d same way my di...my parents were a gift too...I had to loose them, if not in literal sense, to understand that I'm even more attached to them....
And its not dat I'm any better today...even today when v all meet...its great for d first day...first week...then its taken for all too granted, till ofcourse d day of sayin goodbye nears up...thats when it hurts...when I feel like, if only v had few more days...maybe human tendency...I cud hav so much in those days in between...but laid back...enjoyed d warm familiar surrounding..but d time I'm asked to let go of it, I s tart cravin for it again...Same probably holds for love...ofcourse it would hold...afterall d deepest reln binding oe to one's family is that of love...
Materialistically my fav gift till date...well the earliest one I can remember is a set of doll to match a doll I had from God knows when...not some sort of expensive barbies, but a soft cloth doll wid a plastic head female doll is what I used to hav, a simple normal if not cheap doll...till I was gifted a same kind of male doll to b his hubby...till that part it was all fine...but along wid it came two sweet kids of it...a boy n a gal, of same type...I still remember who gifted it to me...n wid all the innocence of the age in which I was gifted d whole set to accompany my single doll I just loved d gift...I guess I was about 7 dat time...it surely hadn't costed much...but even if I think of it today, I wonder how come someone put in so much of thought behind this gift...a whole family wid proper attributes...the guy doll a tad bigger than d doll I owned...d smaller guy doll to b the elder bro..n a tiny miny lil gal doll...she infact features in so many childhood pics of me...I don't know if I said 'Thank You' to d one who gifted it all to me then...but yup, everytime I played wid them..everytime I called out the names of the doll...I guess I was thankful to that person...
How much is dat gift different from a gift I treasure today...today this 22 yr old gal, she can no longer find the joy in small lil thoughtful thing...d gift dats closest to me today, isn't even somethin I got gift wrapped...simply bcoz I went n choosed it for myself..it was paid for by someone else...all in good nature, wid d intent of gifting me sumthin...but still there was no surprise element in a cell phone I choose myself...but thats what I wanted...
Not that I don't get those surprises today...I still get all those wrapped in b'ful colors gift...but if I think of it, as I grow up, d happiness that continued even fter unwrapping d gift, even after realising what it is, is slowly diminishing....a watch here, a earring there, a sandal or a new dress...it all seems so usual...I do say thank you's for them...hav d ritualistic smile in place but am I ever really grateful...surely not as grateful as I was wid d pair of simplest dolls...
I hope the enthusiasm, the gratefulness stops deterioting further...bcoz wid this pace, I wonder how long wud it b bfor I get so materialistic that the feelings behind d gifts are completely lost on me...I don't want to b the philosophical spiritual person...I don't aim to thank god each morning for a great day ahead, or call life my greatest gift, but yes...I want to feel thankful for the sweet nothings in my life...d smallest gift wid d deepest thought behind it...I don't care if I get yet another dress in my wardrobe which I probably wud never wear, but I want to feel my heart caring for d person who gifted me dat..for dat person thought of me while buying it...somewhere at the back of his/her mind I was residing...I just want to feel d love that made that lil gift, which might b worth nothin but still everythin, come n lie in my hands...rest in my lap...