Perfect gift you ask? wait!

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”

-Mary Oliver

The other day I was wondering what could be a perfect gift to give someone. It may seem like a mundane question but then it gets difficult as you think about the possible viable options. The joy of giving is beyond all the earthly joys and hence this question deserves some ponder. So let’s analyze it.

Flowers, you say? The grand gladioli, creative carnations and resplendent roses! Yeah, flowers look pretty; smell good too but then what? See them wilting day by day and you will feel a certain kind of sadness around. They become more of a burden on the soul with passing time.

Certain gadgets, you suggest? Well gadgets are definitely attractive I would say with shiny outlook and various functionalities but in less than a month they would become obsolete and outdated with updated versions coming in market almost daily and in less than six months they would be replaced. So all of you pop-culture-crap-creatures, I say no to gadgets as well.

And similarly I would reject options like chocolates, perfumes and ornaments as they fail on some grounds.

A gift I feel must be an endless source of light, a heavenly shower, a basket of hopes or a beam of sunshine. But these things are beyond the ambit of human beings. I wonder isn't there something which includes all of them and remains within our reach too. I want an answer and this desire is so fierce that I look everywhere to find it. I look outside and then I look inside myself too and I find,

“I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers I have read….” – (Jorge Luis Borges)

Yes, a major part of me is what I've read. I can find the greatest of writers and their quotes inside me. This is a thing that would go to the grave with me and so the thought of the person, who introduced me to these quotes/ writers/ books. This makes a book the most awesome and dangerously beautiful gift at the same time. Times will come and go but some ideas, quotes and beliefs would remain with you beyond life.

And I’m certainly that weirdo who would want you to remember her with a deep seated idea in your mind that transgress time and space. So I’m sorry for the spoiler alert but next time when you are getting a gift from me you can save the adrenaline rush while unwrapping it by being sure that it is a book.

 Now, kill me royally!