The red gauzy, netted cloth was carefully cut out from a bundle. A layer of soft white cotton was placed on it; patted with loving care into just the kind of thickness and shape; a row of spice bottles filled with different kind of coloured sparkles was brought out on its stand and one by one, first the pink then the green and then silver was sprinkled with a careful hand over the cotton bed; the little musical box was placed with infinite care on it; the gauzy cloth was gathered from all sides and pleated into a lovely little bundle and then it was tied with a silver ribbon- again carefully and with infinite patience. By now my patience was running thin! It was still not over..... A small box filled with pearls was brought out and the pearls were fixed with glue on to the gauzy frill which had earlier been trimmed to resemble open petals. The finished product was a work of art! I nodded my head with appreciation put the little gift in its carry bag and walked out of the shop.
By the time you finish reading the paragraph above you must be as impatient as I had been but the finished object was worth the wait. It is so lovely to receive a gift wrapped with such care and patience. True, many of us do not appreciate this and are intent on opening the gift to find what treasures await us. I mean, when you think of all the loving care that has gone into preparing this offering I think it does deserve a second maybe a third look before you should venture to open this up!
The history of gift wrapping is a fascinating subject and you can get it on the internet so I will not hold forth on it! Of course the whole exercise may not be approved of by the environmentalists as a lot of non recyclable things are used (Thermocol balls, plastic beads, etc). Today of course the virtual world allows us to send gifts very prettily but it’s like eating a cake in the virtual world!
Well, I love wrapping presents as I feel the intrinsic value of the gift is enhanced when it is presented in the right way. Like food, if presented with the right garnish tastes better then when it is dumped on the plate! Humans are so visually dependent that it is necessary that something looks good before we think of approaching it. Many a times this trait has been used to trick us- Snow white was tricked into eating the poisoned apple as it looked so delicious; Hansel and Gretel were captured by the witch with her gaily decorated gingerbread house...
Getting back to gift wrapping – Like I said earlier I was a little impatient with the whole process as it took more time to wrap the gift then to choose it! But the finished product was so delightful that I had a mood swing and I actually understood the dictum “whatever is worth doing is worth doing well”! There were arguments about the fact that this dictum was not written for gift wrapping! After all what is the worth of the gift wrapping? It would be torn and thrown in the dustbin soon enough! Did this warrant such elaborate action or love and devotion? Well what about the lovely cakes that are iced and decorated (I take about an hour to decorate a cake!) only to be demolished in seconds! What about the lovely printed tissues that we use and throw without a thought? What about the flowers in a vase- which are ultimately thrown anyway? The question is what is the right time duration for a creation to exist that it can be called worth it? The beautiful butterfly has species which have a life span of a few days, so should we say it’s not worth it?
Time has always been relative, for us a day in our life is twenty four hours, maybe the day in an ant’s is about 0 .1 hrs but it is happy it has lived life to the fullest! When you think of it, every work of art- it could be a painting, a sculptor, or a simple piece of tapestry- has no physical value in the sense we do not use them in our daily lives to provide us with the basic necessities! But aren’t they valuable? I think I can safely say that beauty has its own worth and is so invaluable that is its worth cannot be weighed in terms of gold! “A thing of beauty is a joy forever “said Keats and even if the beauty does not exist in the physical sense its memories like Wordsworth’s daffodils give us pleasure eternally!
I do not want to sound pompous, but this is so true with life, we are in such a hurry to reach our goal that we fail to admire the little things that actually enhance the whole process. We are so busy being competitive and fulfilling duties that the small pleasures of life pass us by like the trees by the railway track.
Today just take time off to “stand and stare” and give your best to all the trivial things that give you pleasure!
Absolutely true - in trying to live life, we keep pursuing things which actually may not mean much to us and we oblivious to the small, beautiful things that are always around us. I guess, even if one can spend 10 % of our daily life to "stand and stare" it would make a huge change in our lives - not easy, but I will try !
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