THE EMPTY GIFT BOX...

Have you ever been in a situation when you have been given a gift-wrapped package, and opening it, found it empty? I remember this as a prank that was played on us when I was in Class XI, during our farewell party in school. We were all given a big box gift-wrapped, and all of us were requested to open the same. Admist teary-eyed smiles (after all it was parting moments!), we all tore open our boxes, only to find hydrogen balloons in them, that immediately escaped to the ceiling, leaving us with empty boxes in our hands, though the ceiling was blooming with colourful balloons! Of course, we got our real gifts later, as this had been a practical joke, but I still remember some of us looking disappointed when we found our boxes empty!
And strangely, I revisited that feeling, buried deep within my unconscious, when I read a life story of a friend of mine, of whose life I had been a very important part (or so I thought!) It distressed me to find that there was barely a mention of my presence, and the whole work focused on people who had actually been a major reason why we drifted apart. How insignificant I felt then, that I had not mattered as much as I thought I had mattered! Imagine, at one point in our relationship we would actually call ourselves each others’ soul-mates. Now, would a life story be complete I wonder, without the mention of your soul-mate? (even if the association as a soul-mate was for a specific period in time?) I did touch her life, and I touched it in a significant way. Not that it was a blow to my self-esteem, but just that I am finding it harder and harder to stop getting cynical about relationships. Her growth was visible; so were her changes. I was glad and though the changes brought about a rift between us, we still held on to the relationship, simply because we had invested too much in it in the past. But today I know,I had invested much more; for if she had, I would have been one of the sign posts in the writing: I was missing! We mattered a lot to each other then, and since the story was about the ‘then’ it was as if certain pages in a book were torn away. Of course, the continuity is beautifully established! But then what can’t editing do these days??? Editing of written work, thoughts, emotions….. Maybe a wrong route? Possiby! Would I allow this feeling of getting an empty gift-wrapped package cloud my future relationships I wonder?

Mohana narayanan
February 16, 2011