THE GIFT OF THE MAGI REVISITED …
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI REVISITED …
As valentine is near a thought crossed my mind- what gift would a modern woman in love would expect? Well talking of gifts, the three wise men who travelled to pay homage to baby Jesus brought him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh and their names were Casper, Melchair and Balthasar. The gifts held their own meaning. The gold signified that Jesus was King of people whereas frankincense represented baby Jesus’s divinity as the son of God and Myrrh depicted Jesus’s morality.
Thus, gifts hold a lot of value. It represents the true relation of the giver and the receiver and most importantly the value of the receiver as a person. One has to be very careful while giving gifts as they hold a lot of meaning. Talking of the meaning and value of gifts I am reminded of O Henry’s short story ‘The Gift of the Magi’ which talks of a young couple deeply in love who sacrificed their most precious for the other’s most precious. The story talks about the young wife having beautiful long hair and the husband having an expensive ancestral watch which he kept in his pocket. In order to buy gifts for one another during their anniversary the wife sold her hair to buy a silver strap for the pocket watch of her husband and the husband sold the watch for buying pearl clip for the wife’s hair. Their gifts were compared to the gift of the magi in 1905 and was said to be the greatest gift for one’s love. The gifts were great because of their sentiments.
Talking of sentiments we have another beautiful play by Bernard Shaw ‘Candida’ which was written way back in 1894 and talked of how the wife chose her sick husband with whom she had a bleak future as compared to her young lover who had a bright future as a poet since she considered her husband to be weaker amongst the two and felt that her husband needed her. Well now confused what a woman wants and for that matter a woman of the modern era?
Well, this reminds me of an incident in a modern couple’s life where the wife went to her mom’s place because the husband was too busy building his career and did not have time for her even on weekends. When the husband missed his wife, he went to meet her and insisted on going to a movie to which the wife reluctantly agreed. Then when the song “Tere bin jiya jaye na” was played in the movie he gave a loving peck on her cheek. It resolved months of anguish in a minute and the wife happily returned to her marital home.
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The modern women of today are well educated and capable of earning diamonds for herself and crossing seven seas on her own. All she needs is a warm hug and a loving kiss which would mean I am there to support you, go and win the battles you want to … that I think would be true gift of the magi in 2025!
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Shreshtha Bhattacharya
Author of Prathama
Associate Manager - Electrical at Adani Group
2 个月Beautiful
Associate Professor, Cardiorespiratory Physiotherapist, Phd Scholar
2 个月Beautifully penned..Loved it