A Gift- Commentary (Rahila Gupta)

‘A Gift’ by Rahila Gupta, is a short story about a two homosexuals, which traces fragments of the feelings and emotions of a chaste and somewhat intellectual relationship between two women, one being the dominant partner and the other the submissive one. She uses a vast variety of figures of speech, such as alliterations, metaphors and similes to describe the platonic relationship between two women.

As we read through this short prose, we learn that the author is seeking attention and grabbing the attention of the reader by writing from present to past and then to the future, which is the present. This in turn builds up suspense and sucks the reader into this text, which, after the first few paragraphs seems like a normal romantic story between a man and a woman.

The relationship however comes to an end (this is mentioned in the beginning of the prose) as one person rejects the other for an older partner. We later learn that the ‘friendly’ affair is between two women when the narrator states, “I am a one woman-woman. Gupta manages to portray both women's feelings through the use of imagery, alliteration and repetition. The two women are both very different from each other. In the first two paragraphs of the story, the author shows the speaker as angry towards the other woman. She says, "I am gifting you an experience, were your parting words. You ultimate egoist." To this the author replies with, "My experience is of my own making, thank you, my own perceptions. The significant other is now quiet. And when she does speak she speaks quickly as to not interrupt the silence.

Paragraph seven describes the personality of the French woman, namely one of being quiet. The speaker explains how the other woman's silence was her preservation. It was what protected her. Scrabble was one of the few times when, "words that choked on your vocal chords come pouring out of your fingers." The speaker however is quite the opposite. The words from the Scrabble table rioted