Grapevine communication

Heard of the watercooler phenomenon? Those spontaneous conversations at the cooler earlier known as office gossip? Now, in the age of management, they are called grapevine communications, and remain as efficient. The grapevine as communication is a good alternative to a formal information network, employing as its means a natural activity as simple as talking. Grapevine communication is widespread. The participants may belong to the company’s cricket teams, grievance cells or cleanliness squads, or be just plain employees. The grapevine starts early in the morning in car pools, bus stands or while you wait for the lift. It is at work all day, down corridors, around corners, in meetings and of course in canteens. It hits the peak during breaks when the management hardly has control over your discussions about your boss’s temper today or who got how much raise and for what. Or who has the biggest attitude problem, yaar! After work, the grapevine swings to the local pub or coffee shop. It can travel faster than TV. It can act as a subtler, slier form of HR. “A lot of grapevine buzz happens particularly before appraisals. When you want to negotiate a pay hike, you can discuss your resignation plans with colleagues. The rumour spreads and surprisingly the boss will suddenly call you and offer a raise,” smiles Rajesh Singhal, a 25-year-old ad professional. So next time you’re upset about your corner in the cubicle, hop onto the grapevine with the morning coffee. But be sure your boss wants you in the first place. Or he may feel that your resignation is the best thing you have done for your organisation.

Koel Purie in It’s Breaking News The gossip gals from Sex and the City

Breaking news

Whenever there’s a bomb blast, and they are happening almost every day in the country, the media gets in an overdrive. “Breaking News”, all channels scream, and come up with a wide variety in the number of blasts reported. One will say seven, the other five, the other four. So it is with the number of the dead and wounded. News channels will also go berserk reporting the advent of a “new” planet, star or a shooting extra-terrestrial body, when some unidentifiable speck appears in someone’s mobile phone camera. When Britney Spears has a spat with her mum or Paris Hilton drinks and drives, it’s Breaking News. The engagement between Konkona Sen Sharma and Ranvir Shorey was Breaking News on every channel and all through the next morning. The birthday bash that went awry as Mika allegedly forced a kiss on Rakhi Sawant was Breaking News too. No, call that crashing. The whole of the Aarushi Talwar case was Breaking News. Now the finger is not pointed at the parents any more.

Breaking News, with its instant thrill, is the viewers’ daily kick. So some channels are perpetually Breaking News. “The latest news about Akshay Kumar’s dalliance with his physical trainer (Breaking News!) was interesting. Probably because we get easily bored with one subject and long to move onto another,” explains Debasri Basu, a high school teacher.

There’s so much Breaking News that there’s hardly any broken news. Only broken noses. One thing common to most Breaking News: nothing’s official about it. That makes it gossip.

Talk shows

Remember Shekhar Suman trying to do a Jay Leno in Movers and Shakers? The actor made it a little late in life but sure made up for lost time while heckling celebs into laying bare their souls. Which could result in pure gossip. Koffee with Karan had KJo asking Rakhi Sawant: “Ek maine rumour bhi suna tha ki aap Rakhi Sawant nahi Rakesh Sawant ho (Heard that you are Rakesh Sawant and not Rakhi Sawant)!” Sajid Khan caught Arjun Rampal in a tell-tale mood on his new show Sajid’s Superstars and quizzed the Rock On!! star on rumours about him being bisexual. John-Bipasha’s alleged break-ups fed many talk show hosts over a few months. So Begum Nawazish Ali, the queen of Pakistani chat shows, has been roped in to host a chat show on 9X.

But things come full circle. Rakhi Sawant, the queen of shocks, has decided to dig up rumours about her co-stars with her own chat show! “I wanted to see how much dumber she could get on Rakhi Sawant Showz. She asked Aamir Khan about why he dumped his ex-wife. Aamir looked stumped,” says Vrinda Saha, a production designer.

The film and television industry

If talk shows live off gossip, the glamour industries are made of gossip. One of the attractions of Ram Gopal Varma’s Sarkar Raj was the talk (rubbished) about Aishwarya’s character being based on Rebecca Mark of Enron or the film being a Singur effect. What would happen to Madhur Bhandarkar’s Page 3 or the upcoming Fashion if he did not have the liberty to spin films from live scandals? The buzz about Shahid and Vidya’s brewing romance, allegedly a publicity stunt that blossomed and faded with Kismet Konnection, owed its short life to the grapevine.

Abhi-Ash is one couple that manages to keep the gossip graph on a constant high. Katrina signing films with Akki has spurred the rumour mills, while Sallu Bhai is reportedly buying a furnished flat for Tamil hottie Asin! The grapevine is also abuzz with Deepika’s supposed orders to beau Ranbir to stay away from Sonam Kapoor. Akshay Kumar is charging Rs 71 crore for a film. True or false? Stars themselves are known to rev up their market value with gossip. “It’s interesting to watch films like Page 3 or Corporate because you can relate to instances that you’ve encountered or heard someone talk about. We all love gossip,” says 28-year-old Paridhi Roy.

Kitty parties, pyjama parties

Women are empowered and so are kitty parties. This is where women talk and listen to each other. And who doesn’t like to discuss the lady who just quit the kitty group over tea, samosas and housie? What is worse — a daughter returning home at 2 every night, or a daughter colouring her hair pink? “And Mrs Chatterjee’s eating disorder… I think it’s anorexia at last at 48. It means she’ll still be trying to fit into those Size 26 jeans.” Same for pyjama parties or sleepovers. “From bitchy colleagues to old college friends there’s a lot of inside gossip and inane jokes that act like a bonding glue. Things like ‘Oh, I’m gonna die a virgin’ or ‘I found my second boyfriend a month after I dumped the last one’ are stuff that you can only discuss late at night, slightly drunk and your tongues loosened by the general feeling of sisterhood,” reveals Shalini Sen, 23.

The gossip gals from Sex and the City

Stories

Some books are literally based on gossip, such as The Gossip Girl novels. Bridget Jones’s Diary and The Devil Wears Prada also make the connection pretty clear. The Gossip Girl paved the way for television shows like Sex and the City, with its four sprightly female New Yorkers getting together to gossip about their sex lives or the lack of it. Sex and the City is a contemporary legend. Carrie Bradshaw’s on-and-off relationship, Samantha’s try-sexual fantasies and Miranda juggling career and motherhood makes for candy-coloured story lines and trend-setting ways. With plenty of twists and turns along the way, reading them can be as good as chatting with your best friend.

But isn’t the best of literature also gossip? Laying bare the inmost souls of others, guessing at their dirtiest truths (and deepest joys)? What else did Tolstoy, Dickens or Balzac do for a living?

The British Royal Family...

Is founded on gossip. The recent book How Fat Was Henry VIII? And 101 Other Questions on Royal History addresses all of it — royal rumours, romances, scandals, assassinations, and plots within the palace. The sex life of Queen Elizabeth I is still a hot topic. It is believed that the great queen, the daughter of Henry VIII, had devoured many men, and killed some of them too, but speculation is going on till date about who she liked best. Despite that she is known as the Virgin Queen, Gloriana or the Good Queen Bess.

But who inspires more gossip, Elizabeth I or II? The current queen never had a moment’s respite from the grapevine since her former daughter-in-law, the deceased Lady Diana, stepped into her house. Charles and Camilla continue to be an item after all these years when his sons (William and Harry), their girlfriends (Kate Middleton and Chelsy Davy) and their girlfriends’ families keep doing their bit.

But Lady Diana presented the monarchy with the biggest challenge and the queen is yet to recover. With her fairy-tale looks, failed marriage, secret lovers and purported pregnancies, Diana spawned an entire gossip industry. Her love life and her violent death still inspires the biggest kiss-and-tell accounts. Queen Elizabeth II has even been accused of organising her death. The Queen maintains a dignified silence.

P.S. The Gandhis

India has its own royalty, though they may also be the ones entrusted with sustaining our democracy. The Nehru-Gandhi family. If Jawaharlal Nehru’s encounters with Edwina Mountbatten and his charming letters to her was — is — a subject of much gossip, Indira: The Life of Indira Gandhi, a biography written by Katherine Frank was nearly banned for mentioning the men Indira had close relationships with.

How much time do you spend gossiping? Tell t2@abpmail.com