Commentary on 'A Gift' by Rahila Gupta.

The short story entitled "A Gift" by Rahila Gupta, traces the feelings and emotions of a platonic relationship between two women. One being the dominant and the other the submissive one. The relationship however comes to an end as one woman rejects the other for an older partner. 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 time your silence felt cold, a refusal to communicate." We learn that the speaker had just declared her love to the other woman. And instead of answering or saying anything in return, she sits silently. Paragraph nine is a continuation from eight. The speaker compares her confusion with coal and says that it has been reduced to cinders. The woman then basically breaks up with the speaker, saying she met someone else last summer.