My Gossipy Friend

My friend S – a fellow mallu – is a very gossipy guy. I don’t know, it’s so disconcerting being with him. Sometimes I meet him in our locality, and if I mention the name of a common friend – Oh, God! – whatever gossip will fall out of his mouth, I wouldn’t know.

“That man is always on water (meaning alcohol), he defrauded his friends, aioooooh, he never attends church, he is such a dog, have you seen what clothes he wears? No, style statement, he is such a thallipoli (Mallu for a failure).”

I wonder why there’s so much negativity in him. His business failed, and he is surviving on his wife’s income. Guess that would be reason enough to make anyone bitter and turn to gossip as a way to pass time. And this guy thinks checked shirts are formal wear, and is often seen wearing them to office. He is blind to his own faults but tries to magnify the faults of others, and it makes me very uncomfortable to be with him.

I guess people are like that. I am the sort that would keep quiet rather than say anything against someone. I know there must be a lot of gossip circulating about me, but I don’t care. I would rather be immune to it. One thing about gossip is that when you are immune to it, or even, er, um, walk away, it dies. Life is too short, people, thirty, or, forty years can go in a wink.

Oscar Wilde said, “I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.” Guess that’s the way one should be. Not conceited enough to want to know what others are saying about one.

Then I meet another friend and the talk took a detour to my gossipy friend S.

“Oh, he is such a boring gossip, I can’t stand him,” is what this friend had to say about S. Guess what goes around comes around.