There is little doubt that Paul Burrell’s book, The Way We Were, will be a phenomenal success, not because he is a brilliant writer, but because the book reveals many secrets about his former employer, Princess Diana, whose butler he was. As we all know, there is nothing more titillating than lifting the veil of secrecy behind which a person hides and having a quick peek to discover the inside story — and the more glamorous and celebrated the person and the more salacious the information, the more heady the knowledge! Heady, that is, if you can pass it on, or discuss it with friends, or dissect it to its bare bones with someone.
In other words, if you can gossip about it! And if you are about to say that you never gossip, I refuse to believe you!
The truth is that we all gossip, though it is also true that there is gossip and gossip, some stemming from idle curiosity, some from malicious intent. To discuss the news is gossip, to share with your friends the revelations about Princess Diana is gossip, to chat with a friend about the dalliances of a mutual acquaintance’s husband is gossip.
Possessing information that you know will bowl your friends over gives you a special kind of power. How you use this power is up to you but the minute you pass it on, you are gossiping.
If this is one truth, another is that the most accomplished gossips are men, the same men who single out wives and daughters as the worst culprits. “Always on the phone, always gossiping,” say husbands to their womenfolk, but ask them what goes on in their offices! There, gossip is rife, but masquerades as ‘networking,’ ‘keeping an ear to the ground,’ or ‘maximising opportunities’. Sounds familiar?
What is sad, however, is that virtues never feed the gossip mill. Not surprisingly, perhaps, since good news is unexciting, especially in comparison to disasters. While it is boring to hear that Savita won a prize for the best dessert at a pudding-making contest, the story of Mandira’s dinner party, when she dropped a dish of curry and splattered the chairman and his wife with greasy gravy, thereby possibly cooking her husband’s goose, is definitely a more juicy snippet.
If you don’t gossip, you should. As long as there is no malice intended, it’s good for you. Indeed, it can even be helpful, alerting you to the fact that someone is ill or needs help of some kind. The important thing is to stick to the rules. Talk to those near and dear to you but not about them. Make sure that the news is worth repeating. And never confuse malice with duty. “I felt it was my duty to tell you that your husband is having an affair with his secretary” is definitely not the sort of gossip to indulge in.
