The greatest gift that God left on this earth for us men is not the beauty of this earth or fire of the sun, but it is that we are men and we are alive!
Of all the things your friends and family can do for you, the thing that gives you the greatest amount of instant pleasure is giving you a gift. Everyone likes to receive a present from a friend or a relative. I am yet to encounter a person who'd refuse the gift because he doesn't want it and not because it looks chic in this modern world to refuse gifts.
What is it that makes a gift a special possession, special compared to others? Why do we always like the things our friends have given us more than the things that we've purchased ourselves? Is it that you got that thing without having to pay for it? I shall be generous enough to assume that my reader isn't such a miser. Then what is it that we love so much?
It is the sentiment that the gift comes with. You cherish that feeling, that bond with the person who gives you that present, which makes that present more than just an object, but something of an emblem of a relationship that you enjoy so much. I never realized this till my friend at school, her name I shall not reveal here, presented me a pen, a Mont Blanc actually, on my birthday last year. Normally, I would have used that pen for my school work or for writing in tests.
But this pen finds a place on my desk neatly kept in a cushion-packed pen case, unused and dust-free.
Why? Because that pen isn't a pen. It's the emblem of my bond with her.(Now my cheeks are getting red so I'll stop elaborating.)
Now for the review
You can’t just pick up something from the store wrap it up and give it to your friend as a gift, can you? There is a lot of choosing to be done, very carefully. You have many criteria in mind; the occasion, what that friend means to you, (how much money you have in your pocket) and what is the current phase through which your relation with him or her is going through. You synthesize these and then select you gift, most of the times.
And you also know what your friend would like to have as well. Well, at least I do. So, in the unlikely event that any one of my readers would like to gift me something, let me help you with the last criterion. Let me tell you the things I'd like to have for a gift. On any occasion whatsoever.
That may I overpower the musketeer
I have something of a crush on writing instruments. May be it has something to do with being a passionate writer on MouthShut and in general, or may be something else. The first thing that I think of when I have money in my pocket that I'd like to spend is buying a pen for myself. I don't say I'm a pen collector of sorts, no, because I use every pen and maintain them the way you'd maintain the most useful thing in your garage. Objects of collections are always frozen dummies never put to use.
I don't have any particular choosing of what kind of pen or writing instrument. But one thing is for certain: I don't like the yippy jazzy stuff at all. I like the more classy and elegant writing instruments, those made by Parker and Mont Blanc. I'd rather avoid company with Add or Cello, though them being the cheaper ones, I can not.
That I may peep into another heart
Books are windows to the writer's heart. They open into the realm of his thought and his way of life. They tell us about how he lives and how he likes others to live. They acquaint us not so much with the characters that he describes as they do with himself.
I love to read books, more of the fiction kind. It's not that I detest subject-oriented matter of any kind. In fact, I like to read purpose-driven books, books that are analyses or hypotheses. But I love to read stories; stories that contain a lot of emotion, a lot of love, a lot of romanticism and little romance. To give you an idea of what that means: the best book I've ever read is from Maxim Gorky named Mother.
If someone gives me a book of any kind, I shall always read it completely. And now thanks to one Faisal from Virginia, I also make it a point to write what I felt about it.
A token, a scarf, that once you adorned that I may hold to my heart
This is the only kind of gift that I've actually asked for. It was a very sweet occasion, and very private so I can not speak of it, and I bent on my knees and asked her for something that she owned, something she would give to me, something she'd never like to part with, that would hold me to her dearly.
Well I'm not asking you to do such a thing because I don't even know if the reader is a lady just now. What I'm trying to say is that I love those gifts which people give me spontaneously. My grandfather asked me to keep his pen, for example, on reading my poems that I've not allowed you to read so far, for he could not find a better way to appreciate my work. That pen finds itself in the breastpocket of every shirt I wear whenever I leave for an assignment where writing well will win me success. I don't use it as a pen. I use it to bring me fortune.
And what she gave me that evening, finds itself in my heart all the time, in my heart that trembles bleeding for her and shall remain thus forever….
That I may remember how we made jolly and found ourselves into trouble we enjoyed more than we wanted
This is something only close friends of mine can give me, and since nobody I know likes to segreggate close and not-close friends, it turns out that every friend of mine can give me this!
My pal from school, for example, gave me half the piece of paper that we'd struggled to frisk off from the principal's office. It actually contained a lot of important stuff about a third friend who would have been in deep trouble had the headmaster read it. For this burglary of ours, we could have been easily expelled from school. The actual thief, of course, was that friend, me just the conspirator and confidante of him. That piece of paper belonged to him, but half of it found itself in my pocket, for he was generous enough to let me have half of the prize for which he'd risked everything he had.
That it may never happen that give and take bring us closer than a glance and a smile
Material gifts are, in their own manner, commonplace. Those gifts shall remain with you as long as the forces of nature and machinations of luck are in your favour, and then as every material object in this world, they shall break, shall ruin and shall be lost forever. I shall cherish each one of them and keep a close eye on them that nothing snatches them away from me for those gifts mean more than possessions do to me. But things will always go beyond my control.
The most long lasting and the most beautiful gift anybody on this planet can give me as a gift isn't an object. It is his friendship. Your friendship is something that I shall hold dearly to my heart, take care of with all I can and both of us will enjoy it more than we could enjoy anything in this world.
Oh please, please my dear reader, gift me this, that it may never happen that give and take bring us closer than a glance and a smile at each other! Come! Let us be friends as long as friends can last!
